Completed The Snake and the Skull

[Salak]

It was getting dark when Salak had finally returned to the Academy grounds.
He dined on meat and cheese before making his way up to where Fennec waited. Her cell was somewhat notorious for being an area few dared to linger about.
Under his arm he carried a small basket. The top covered with a simple black cloth that was clean. Out of it a bottle head of green glass came capped with cork.
He didn't expect such a simple offering to matter much to Fennec but he was going to be damned if he didn't put every effort into this.
She was his student and as such he was responsible for her.
From the hall windows the setting sun cast his blue vestments into rich purples and gold. The sun was going to be gone soon and he hoped Fennec Vel Olera would still be with him. Perhaps he should have consulted another Proctor, Evangeline perhaps but it was too late now. He would not regret his decision. He owed the mute girl who's life was in her own hands that much. Still he had no idea what he was going to say but sure as shit she wasn't going to speak so it would be on him.
*tack, tack, tack* The noise stopped outside her door.

"Initiate!" He called with all of his authority.
"Open this door!"


Fennec

 

[Fennec]

She'd thought to head straight for Proctor Harkenov's office to sit and wait for her fated reprimand. Among the Proctors of the Academy, Harkenov was her handler and direct report. Every Initiate had one, but she was to the Proctor much more than just a charge. Some had called her Harkenov's pet or even daughter--a humorous and yet terrifying notion given that Harkenov had been the ruin and end of many an Initiate and yet had chosen the most curious of orphans to so tenderly take under her wing.

But Harkenov's tender love was not a break from the norm. It was, perhaps, worse than. Being raised under the unforgiving woman's keen and merciless gaze and heel formed a mind and spine of unyielding nature. In spite of this, even Fennec Vel Olera knew not to interrupt the Proctor mid-class. So she'd returned to her dorm where she'd waited ... for what, exactly, not even she could really say, but she was ready for whatever may come and expecting company. At the exact moment Salak gaped his howler at her door it opened before his words could even be unleashed.

Fennec stood in the doorway of her dorm, barely filling the frame as slight as she was and yet filling the room with her morbid presence all the same, gazing into the darkness of Salak's hood with an expression of granite on her skull-painted face.

 

[Salak]

"Going somewhere Initiate?"
Salak smiled a lie and handed Fennec the small basket of food. It contained bread, and cheese with a bottle of water. There was also a small chalkboard and chalk wrapped in an old grey rag.
"Thought I'd bring you a final meal and something to help us communicate without all the..."
He signed in the air with his now free hand.
"... slashing."
He never had a sense of humour and it physically hurt him to try.
"Why am I here? Why bring you these things?" He answered questions Fennec had not asked.
"Because I'd rather not see you dead and if there's going to be any understanding between us then we need to communicate, or I could bark orders at you and see if you obey since you're such a fan of The Old Ways but I'd rather something that involves less altering your mind with pufferfish venom when you decide to assert yourself."
His green eyes met her black ones. Will saw will and knew itself.
"May I come in?"

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

Those dark eyes followed the proffered basket.

She then slowly allowed her gaze to drift back up to him, finding this act most reprehensible indeed. Did he think she and all the other Initiates were not wise to false platitudes and faces? Did he believe they had grown up under a regime any lesser than his own? It was only a short while ago that the lives of the Initiates here had changed and the old ways discarded.

He'd not earned her respect and nor, did she believe, would he ever. Especially not now with him touting friendship and camaraderie.

Without a reply, she took the basket and stepped back into her room. It was quite dark indeed and exceptionally tidy. Bed made. Desk clean. What few items she maintained as belongings were stored properly on shelves or in cupboards. Militant, if it were not for the many drawings pinned up on the far wall over the desk. Drawings of fine detail and skill depicting locations, people, and still life studies.

Fennec calmly placed the basket on her desk but touched none of its contents. Instead she turned to face the Proctor, expectant of more blather.

 

[Salak]

"Thank you."
Salak said entering. The rooms contents told him much.
Talented, observant, disciplined but he knew that last one already.
Fennec was a star pupil in many ways he could see why she had such a high opinion of herself, it was partially earned.
He closed the door behind him and silently stood at it taking in the smells and tones of the cell.
Some part of him wondered if she snuck out to get her face paint(possible), had it delivered (unlikely) or made it herself (most likely).
After a few long moments of silence Salak spoke.
"You have an accomplished artistic skill, Fennec. You should be praised for it. Let me ask about this one."
He pointed to an image of a tree, dying or dead already by the look of it.
"Do you want to die tonight?"
It had not escaped him that she did not touch the peace offering he brought. She was suspicious and by and large that was good too. For all his belief in trust Salak knew a healthy suspicion could save a life as well as any ally but not always, sooner or later one needed allies and she had to learn that.
It also implied she yet valued her own life and that was useful to know going forward.

 

[Fennec]

Fennec lifted her hands and signed a simple reply.

[Do you?]

 

[Salak]

"By the Powers does asking me my own questions count as wit among you all? Because Houri already signed herself a public sparing match with her own brother with that very kind of childish excuse for intelligence and mark me they will not be permitted to stop until I am satisfied it will take one of them a month to recover."
He spared her a glance that let her know he might be wasting his time.
"Honestly, it's not exactly an unfair question to ask what with the isolating attitude, how easily you mutilated your own hand and oh yes the great big skull you paint all over your face every day!"
Thick as a sack of rocks these students. Unable to tell the difference between a question and an invitation to a bickering match. Perhaps he was wrong about Fennec Vel Olera. Maybe she would not have lasted six months in his class.
"But since you all put so much stock in what I might say if I was asking myself these things, no. I do not want to die tonight. Of course I don't. I have too much to do. Like look after Initiates who cut their fingers off at the slightest provocation."
He let out a huff and tried to calm himself.
"How is your hand by the way. Have you bandaged it properly?"
The question was as good a distraction as any but he swore to himself if she answered with asking about his own hand he would breath so much mandrake essence into the room Fennec would be found drowned in her own stomach acids.

 

[Fennec]

The initiate's composure and expression remained imutable. Ah, yes, the blather. There it was.

But to the point of the skull on her face and her mutilated hand? Well, the former had not always been so and the latter hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. Given the extensive scars left behind by the Shadow Archon's powers to her face and left hand, losing the finger was only a matter of time she suspected. Much of the nerve endings had been damaged beyond repair already.

Fennec lifted the hand in question, revealing the blackened scars of her forearm and hand as the sleeve of her robes dropped to her elbow. The finger was gone, but the bleeding had stopped quite shortly after its severance. There the scar tissue had taken over as corruption was want to do. With her other hand she pinched the end of her sleeve and wiped the material over her face to rub away the paint along one side.

More scaring. Hideous in nature, it had deformed the flesh of her face quite significantly to the point that she was, perhaps, even more ghastly to look upon without the paint. The blackened corruption had spread across most of her skin and was slowly making its way down her neck.

Despite all this, Fennec did not seem shy nor uncomfortable about it.

[My death is assured,] she signed back to him, [I do not need looking after.]

 

[Salak]

At least it was a straight forward answer and not an attempt to sound clever.
"All death is assured. You're not special because you know your going to die soon. If I had my way everyone would expect death constantly. Then people round here might actually get some proper work done."
Salak crossed his arms and leaned against the door, his cane hooked on his elbow. Was he bitter about the terrible state of student filing systems? Sure. Was he livid that Some Proctor (Harkenov, it was that psycho Harkenov) writes their lower case "L" in such a way that it looks more like an "n" and he only noticed this an hour ago? Absolutely.
"And what, your face got messed up so you hide it? Welcome to the club." He turned his own pock marked face towards her that she could see what his own Proctors had done to him.
"When they found out I could absorb poisons the Proctors had every manner of snake, scorpion, spider you name it bite into my face. Day after day, for years, sometimes it felt like I was about to burst and oh how they jumped when something new and venomous was discovered."
When he was done he bent and tapped his right thigh with his hand.
"You think I limp because of a training accident? No. I did it to myself, to survive. Not to prove how tough I was."
He still couldn't believe that other Initiates were actually impressed by the meaningless display from earlier.
"It's honestly a little bit funny to me how much we have in common."
He clucked his tongue and stared into a frankly beautiful charcoal picture of the Academy Courtyard full of people. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear them again. His old class making their way around, talking. What passed for happiness then was a moment of peace and quiet. Today they have whole parties. The world had turned upside down on him and here was Fennec, a nameless foundling who by all rights should hate the Academy perhaps more than most but was fighting to protect a version of it already dead and buried. People were frustratingly complicated when you had to talk to them.

 

[Fennec]

All death is assured. Youre not special because you know your going to die soon. If I had my way everyone would expect death constantly. Then people round here might actually get some proper work done.

It was curious and not the least bit amusing how with every further sentence spoken, Fennec uncovered more hypocrisy in the man before her. He pledged to shift from the old ways and yet remarked on how effective such methods of mentoring were. Even insisted on employing them.

She would not remark on these things. Nor would she respond to the idea that they had much in common. Perhaps they did, but she did not see how it mattered. The man was confused, lost, and utterly ineffectual at making any points. If anything, the only skill she'd seen of his so far to commend was his ability to talk in circles.

The silent Initiate clasped her hands at her front, a sign that she had no intention of responding, and watched keenly as the man let his attention slip once again to her artwork.

That was when she struck. Myste tendrils surged out from her figure and like a viper made to strike at the Proctor in rapid succession one after the other after the other. They moved in cohesion, attempting to grab hold of his limbs and his face and should any of them make full and gripping contact, the effects of her siphoning were near instantaneous. His memories of the day ... of the last two days, of the last week should they succeed in holding him, would be hers to claim.

 

[Salak]

No matter how relaxed he seemed.
An Anirian Stalker was seldom defenceless.
He reacted quicker than might be thought of him and while he was able to evade the most threatening of these magical tendrils one clasped hard about his bad leg illicitly causing him a great deal of pain.
"YOU DARE!"
He already felt his mind slipping with what was left in the microseconds before he knew he would be helpless his form erupted in thick yellow vapour that filled the room almost instantly.
Mandrake Essence was potent stuff. It caused fevered raptures and nightmarish delusions in even small doses and all the while it irritated the bodies muscles, causing reflexive twitches that left the victim helpless.
Enough taken and it killed in both mind and body.
If it came to it he would accept responsibility for this death but he hoped it would cause her attack on him to stop and then he could safely remove it from her system.
He just had to stay conscious, conscious a little bit longer.
Resisting mind control like this was always difficult but not impossible, ironically the pain in his leg helped, gave him an anchor. Something to focus on while his vision grew dim.
Not yet... Not yet.

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

Once she had her firm grasp that was all she needed. The myste gave a great heave on the Dreadlord's bad leg and hoisted him off the floor. It was in those very moments, as with him now hanging in her magical grips, that the other serpent-like tendrils moved in a second time to take hold, spearing through the sudden plumes of acrid smog. Her eyes flared in alarm as the vapor began to fill the room but her reactions were assertive and immediate.

Assuming she had better control of him, one myste went straight for the man's face within his hood while another sprouted from her back and made way for her dorm window. It smashed through glass and metal, sending shards spraying nearly three stories down, and to the window Fennec retreated her physical self, her cloak wrapping pulled up and over the lower portion of her face as she began to feel the burning sensation in her eyes.

Like spider limbs the free mystes preceded her small form, pulling her out onto the broad side of the academy structure where she clung to the stone wall and dragged Salak's form by every myste she had gripping him, out the window after her. She held him out, mid air, waiting for his struggle to end and for his poisonous plumes to disperse into the open air.

 

[Salak]

It all happened so quickly and he was loosing, badly.
Part of his mind tried to remember the last time he was dangled out a window and laughed at him.
As memory began to fade he looked at Fennec and saw not her but an old face, the face he saw before when they faced off in the clearing, the face he saw wash over Everleigh's own as they argued, Salak saw his enemy.
He was there then, in that place where dreams walked the waking earth.
The last of him spoke, whether it was real or not he did not know. Why was he seeing him again? Why did things happen as they do in dreams.
"Trelain!"
He held onto his hand, killing him as he did so but still he held it. He was afraid, more afraid than any other time in his life. Behind him the door pounded like an obscenely big heart.
*THUMP THUMP THUMP*
His leg hurt more than anything ever hurt. A memory of pain so complete it threatened to become his world.
"HOLD ON!"
His voice cried out over the courtyard as he looked at but saw not Fennec.
Small fingers slipped, was it raining or was it only the memory of rain unbidden in this fluid space.
Dark eyes pleaded with him but his arm lurched on its own and his shoulder flayed with pain. A miracle kept him from letting go but he had not the strength to pull him up.
Why was he helping him?
The boy had cursed and beat him everyday. When it came to choose between the lads sick games of endurance he had hated him.
Why did he not simply let him die?
Behind him the door beat again and he felt it beat against the back of his skull.
Had he not come there to kill him? Was this not what he wanted?
Other arms reached for him, they pulled him back and the relief of the ordeals end washed over him until he saw the twisted form they pulled up. So oozing with vileness that it barely looked like a person anymore.
Salak's mind screamed to be rid of himself. To die, to be away from it all.

He did not know why the boy had jumped from his own dorm window and he never would.

At last Fennec's power took him and with it a piece of him died again.
Salak lost consciousness.

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

Memory was a strange thing. Replete with tears and lies, not even one's own mind was safe from the disease of fantasy malphormed into reality. Most Initiates buried their worst memories away behind seals of mental steel and stone, or warped them until they no longer represented the truth of the nightmare they called reality. But some lived them again and again, either on purpose or by force of a nature beyond their control.

Fennec had spent the better part of her life learning how to tend to her mind. How to reinforce it with the rigid structure of a fortress and guard it as if she held her own regime of Dreadlords within. In there she had created cells, as instructed and guided by Proctor Harkenov, for the memories of others. As Salak's mind openly shared those of the last few days, in slipped the active recollection of an event so foul it had haunted the man for the rest of his waking life since its occurrence.

When the Proctor's figure went limp she briefly considered simply allowing him to drop the thirty-odd feet to the stone walkway below. His fate left to Gods, perhaps, or simple physics. Yet she did not - stopped only by the mere fact that the man had given a most earnest response to her query before.

Did he want to die?

No, he did not.

It wasn't pity or remorse or mercy, and certainly not respect for a title she did not believe him fit to hold. It was closer to home than that. Harkenov would be furious if she moved against an Academy official in such capacity without having given her prior authorization. Harkenov had made her dislike for Salak known, but she'd not issued any such termination. As much as Salak believed Fennec to be against his regime, he was only mistaken in the thought that he had any such authority over her.

In the darkness of the coming night, Fennec took a long and slow breath, her eyes blinking against a now constant burning sensation that was slowly becoming more potent. She'd escaped the brunt of his toxic vapor, but would not leave this altercation without consequence. So before she lost vision to its effects, she climbed the Academy wall and transported his witless self across the academy structure to deposit him in an empty alcove near the base of the observatory. Her keen senses detected no other in the area to see, nor felt the presence of any other magic nearby beyond her own.

Salak would awaken many hours later with no memory of this event, nor even of the encounter that brought it about or even his breakfast or anything of his calendar of the day before.

He would also be missing his cane which had been dropped in her room.

Fennec verily had tossed it out into the forest beyond the school grounds upon her return.