Chapter 84: 84
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Kal's eyes grow wide as I collapse before him, and without a second thought he is soon jumping forward to catch me as my knees collapse beneath me, weak and wobbly from the effort of simply keeping myself upright. He clicks his tongue in ambiguous disapproval, taking a hold of my arms to let me lean my weight against him, an action seemingly so natural to him that I could almost presume he has performed it several times over. My body weighs heavily against him, but his form remains sturdy. For someone so slender, he has a surprising amount of muscle on him.
"It is shame Fangorn has put up these magic barriers, it seems to be draining you of your energy," he sighs, then stopping for a second, halts his train of thought and glances down at Ithuriel. From my limited view as I endeavour to keep my eyes open enough to not pass out, I catch a glimpse of the little white fox, hair prickly with the notion of seeing some unknown lay their hands on me and teeth bared like knives against the gloom in a spiteful disregard. Kal, however, is having none of it.
"Come now, no need to be jealous, I am simply holding her up, because you don't have the hands to do it- and no, don't try and take that collar off yourself, because no matter how handsome you may be in your humanoid form, I am not going to see any naked bodies today." he laughs, but underneath the lightheartedness of his remarks, there is a sinking element of worry, or, perhaps, pity.
"At this rate I am going to carry her the rest of the way, I do not think it helps that she appears to have vampire venom coursing through her, her willpower is significantly weakened." Kal runs a despairing hand through his black-y blue locks, gloved fingers parting each strand in an elegant disarray as he peers out into the void of darkness, searching with a dull and hopeless gaze, before returning his eyes back to my unsteady form. I try to croak an apology, but it comes out as little more than a breath on the wind- swiftly carried off into the darkness. Kal sighs languorously. "No matter, keep on my tail, Ithuriel, we are almost there."
The rest of the journey flashes by in a messy blur of blackness and brambles, icy air and the heavy scent of spruce trees with a subtle mix of a strange pollen from a flower that is unbeknownst to the senses of my nose. Ithuriel trails rigidly behind us, his eyes tightly trained on me as we dance our way through the forest, ignoring the distant screams of shadowy mutants, as though he disdained to see a foreign hand (albeit a helpful one) so closely pressed upon my body. At some point- although upon recollection is it impossible to tell when, darkness seeps into the cracks of my vision and consumes me into a lulling blackness, fading away all thoughts of existence from my fragile mind until all that is left is the soothing murmur of a far off voice whispering my name.
***
Down, down into the void I go. I float in a silent abyss, enveloped in the cold embrace of darkness and the stagnant nothingness of either being asleep, or being dead. I desperately hope it is not the latter.
A flash of short white hair streaks the melancholy blackness, and a ruby glimmer, my vision blurring to a hazy half sight as a dim room creeps into the depths of my cognition. Yet something does not feel right. My body feels strange, airy, like there is some unknown force pulling on the edges of my skin, threatening to whisk me away into the void of darkness where I came from, away from wherever it is I am now.
I peer round the room hazily, or more specifically, a series of maze like rooms branching off from a long, gruelling corridor, laced with vines that protrude from the cracks in the stone bricks like the coils of a snake, green tendons slithering out into the corridor from a source that I neither know, nor particularly want to know.
At the end of the corridor, the door is ajar, a thick wad of light streaming out from the gap and illuminating the grim tiles of the floor, a lone source of light for the whole expanse of the building.
Something overhead screams. It's anguished wails echo out against the cavernous stone walls.
The air feels heavy, and yet equally I can hardly feel it, just like I can hardly feel the cold, or the bitter chill of stone bricks under my feet, or the blood curdling screams that echo from the door at the other end of the corridor.
My heart flutters in my throat.
I take off at a sprint towards the rigid light of the room, panic rising inside me as I begin to wonder who, or what, could be under such monumental pain, and why there is no-one around to hear it. Questions flood my mind as I draw closer and closer to the door, my spirit straining to reach for the handle, to fling it open and burst into the room to offer my aid to whatever creature's screams continue to permeate the air with its heart wrenching sorrow- the sound of grim agony, and death.
But just before I can reach the door, the screaming dies to a whimper and there is a flash of familiar white hair as gleaming red eyes that appear at the edges of the light, casting me into hungry shadows as the door closes in front of me with a violent slam. I stop short. The screaming peaks again.
Sweat begins to pool in the palm of my hands as an unnatural warmth shocks my body. There is something else in there too.
A white flame, encompassed by a crystalline sheath.
A flame my people haven't seen for nearly 3000 years. My stomach drops, pulled down by a leaden weight that gives rise to a sickening nausea in the back of my throat. Wherever this is, whatever this place is, whoever is in that room, they have the eternal flame. And something is awfully, awfully wrong.
Yet as is the tragedy of all things, my mind has little time to dawdle on the new found information as a tugging sensation takes a hold of my body, pulling me back into the darkness and sinking me into that empty nothingness that cradles me in its arms like death embracing a soul lost to the mortal planes of the world.
My mind revolves slowly, as if in a dream, hardly having the mental capacity to withhold a thought for more than a second in such a pressing darkness, unable to determine if I truly am dreaming, or instead experiencing an incredibly vivid hallucination- perhaps as the courtesy of the magic and creatures in the end. Or perhaps Kal.
The darkness opens up once more and I am spat out into open air, covered lavishly in the golden glow of the sun that has trailed its destined path across the sky and has since begun to sink low over the horizon, casting various hues of orange, red and pink streaking across the sky and dousing the land in its eternal warmth. Yet despite the radiance of its glow, I fail to feel a single ounce of its warmth soaking into my skin at all, as though the land itself was some monumental illusion. I blink back the sun, trying in vain to figure out where I am, or why I keep shifting from place to place like a witch who has just discovered her ability to teleport. Nausea begins to subside within me.
After a few moments of deliberation, I decide I am the Soren's rose gardens, somewhere far off from civilization; the lavish garden watched over by the comforting shade of a willow tree, carved out with a glittering lake and a young nymph who never seems to stop dancing around for attention in the waters. The air is tranquil to the point of almost being silent- almost since the faint gales of the wind brush their whispering laments through the leaves to rustle them in a flurry of warmth, showering the land with a flurry of glistening dew drops. There is a pattering sound, like that of feet, slow and steady, but carrying an air of frustration with the weight of each step, too light to be angry, yet too heavy to be calm.
"I must say, I did not expect to see you here, darling,"
I swivel myself around to face the sly, honeyed voice.
Under the shade of the willow a familiar, curly haired figure paces, ram's horns jutting out past his pointed ears, fine golden eyes scanning my form with the deliberate calculation of a predator with its prey, lips curved into a fanciful smile- as though debating what form of deviltry he might get up to today. I suck in my cheeks a little.
"To be honest, I am not entirely sure how I got here," I admit, shrugging my shoulders hopelessly as I make my way towards him, weaving my way past the spindly willow branches that flicker in the low breeze of the clearing. I run my fingers steadily through my hair, the distance screams and flashes of white hair already fading from my mind to be replaced with a singular, other feeling.
"I am pretty sure you are just a dream, anyway," I mutter, but before I can say any more, Soren materialises in front me, body knitting together from the shadows under the willow, coiling up like a snake towards the sky.
"A dream, hmm?" he muses, the former frustrated tightness vanishing from his voice, replaced by a sudden and raunchy smoothness. "Well," he says, a light humour playing in the depths of his voice, along with a twinkle of mischief. "How about I test that theory, hmm?"
I narrow my eyes at him. Knowing Soren, whatever he is about to do is probably going to embarrass me to hells end- and dream or not, there is no way I am letting him get away with that. My hand shoots towards the sword at my hip, gripping the hilt tightly in my fingers until my knuckles turn white with tension, but before I can draw it, something else stops me.
A glamour laces his sultry voice, washing over me with its menacing dominance.
"Don't move."
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Kal's eyes grow wide as I collapse before him, and without a second thought he is soon jumping forward to catch me as my knees collapse beneath me, weak and wobbly from the effort of simply keeping myself upright. He clicks his tongue in ambiguous disapproval, taking a hold of my arms to let me lean my weight against him, an action seemingly so natural to him that I could almost presume he has performed it several times over. My body weighs heavily against him, but his form remains sturdy. For someone so slender, he has a surprising amount of muscle on him.
"It is shame Fangorn has put up these magic barriers, it seems to be draining you of your energy," he sighs, then stopping for a second, halts his train of thought and glances down at Ithuriel. From my limited view as I endeavour to keep my eyes open enough to not pass out, I catch a glimpse of the little white fox, hair prickly with the notion of seeing some unknown lay their hands on me and teeth bared like knives against the gloom in a spiteful disregard. Kal, however, is having none of it.
"Come now, no need to be jealous, I am simply holding her up, because you don't have the hands to do it- and no, don't try and take that collar off yourself, because no matter how handsome you may be in your humanoid form, I am not going to see any naked bodies today." he laughs, but underneath the lightheartedness of his remarks, there is a sinking element of worry, or, perhaps, pity.
"At this rate I am going to carry her the rest of the way, I do not think it helps that she appears to have vampire venom coursing through her, her willpower is significantly weakened." Kal runs a despairing hand through his black-y blue locks, gloved fingers parting each strand in an elegant disarray as he peers out into the void of darkness, searching with a dull and hopeless gaze, before returning his eyes back to my unsteady form. I try to croak an apology, but it comes out as little more than a breath on the wind- swiftly carried off into the darkness. Kal sighs languorously. "No matter, keep on my tail, Ithuriel, we are almost there."
The rest of the journey flashes by in a messy blur of blackness and brambles, icy air and the heavy scent of spruce trees with a subtle mix of a strange pollen from a flower that is unbeknownst to the senses of my nose. Ithuriel trails rigidly behind us, his eyes tightly trained on me as we dance our way through the forest, ignoring the distant screams of shadowy mutants, as though he disdained to see a foreign hand (albeit a helpful one) so closely pressed upon my body. At some point- although upon recollection is it impossible to tell when, darkness seeps into the cracks of my vision and consumes me into a lulling blackness, fading away all thoughts of existence from my fragile mind until all that is left is the soothing murmur of a far off voice whispering my name.
***
Down, down into the void I go. I float in a silent abyss, enveloped in the cold embrace of darkness and the stagnant nothingness of either being asleep, or being dead. I desperately hope it is not the latter.
A flash of short white hair streaks the melancholy blackness, and a ruby glimmer, my vision blurring to a hazy half sight as a dim room creeps into the depths of my cognition. Yet something does not feel right. My body feels strange, airy, like there is some unknown force pulling on the edges of my skin, threatening to whisk me away into the void of darkness where I came from, away from wherever it is I am now.
I peer round the room hazily, or more specifically, a series of maze like rooms branching off from a long, gruelling corridor, laced with vines that protrude from the cracks in the stone bricks like the coils of a snake, green tendons slithering out into the corridor from a source that I neither know, nor particularly want to know.
At the end of the corridor, the door is ajar, a thick wad of light streaming out from the gap and illuminating the grim tiles of the floor, a lone source of light for the whole expanse of the building.
Something overhead screams. It's anguished wails echo out against the cavernous stone walls.
The air feels heavy, and yet equally I can hardly feel it, just like I can hardly feel the cold, or the bitter chill of stone bricks under my feet, or the blood curdling screams that echo from the door at the other end of the corridor.
My heart flutters in my throat.
I take off at a sprint towards the rigid light of the room, panic rising inside me as I begin to wonder who, or what, could be under such monumental pain, and why there is no-one around to hear it. Questions flood my mind as I draw closer and closer to the door, my spirit straining to reach for the handle, to fling it open and burst into the room to offer my aid to whatever creature's screams continue to permeate the air with its heart wrenching sorrow- the sound of grim agony, and death.
But just before I can reach the door, the screaming dies to a whimper and there is a flash of familiar white hair as gleaming red eyes that appear at the edges of the light, casting me into hungry shadows as the door closes in front of me with a violent slam. I stop short. The screaming peaks again.
Sweat begins to pool in the palm of my hands as an unnatural warmth shocks my body. There is something else in there too.
A white flame, encompassed by a crystalline sheath.
A flame my people haven't seen for nearly 3000 years. My stomach drops, pulled down by a leaden weight that gives rise to a sickening nausea in the back of my throat. Wherever this is, whatever this place is, whoever is in that room, they have the eternal flame. And something is awfully, awfully wrong.
Yet as is the tragedy of all things, my mind has little time to dawdle on the new found information as a tugging sensation takes a hold of my body, pulling me back into the darkness and sinking me into that empty nothingness that cradles me in its arms like death embracing a soul lost to the mortal planes of the world.
My mind revolves slowly, as if in a dream, hardly having the mental capacity to withhold a thought for more than a second in such a pressing darkness, unable to determine if I truly am dreaming, or instead experiencing an incredibly vivid hallucination- perhaps as the courtesy of the magic and creatures in the end. Or perhaps Kal.
The darkness opens up once more and I am spat out into open air, covered lavishly in the golden glow of the sun that has trailed its destined path across the sky and has since begun to sink low over the horizon, casting various hues of orange, red and pink streaking across the sky and dousing the land in its eternal warmth. Yet despite the radiance of its glow, I fail to feel a single ounce of its warmth soaking into my skin at all, as though the land itself was some monumental illusion. I blink back the sun, trying in vain to figure out where I am, or why I keep shifting from place to place like a witch who has just discovered her ability to teleport. Nausea begins to subside within me.
After a few moments of deliberation, I decide I am the Soren's rose gardens, somewhere far off from civilization; the lavish garden watched over by the comforting shade of a willow tree, carved out with a glittering lake and a young nymph who never seems to stop dancing around for attention in the waters. The air is tranquil to the point of almost being silent- almost since the faint gales of the wind brush their whispering laments through the leaves to rustle them in a flurry of warmth, showering the land with a flurry of glistening dew drops. There is a pattering sound, like that of feet, slow and steady, but carrying an air of frustration with the weight of each step, too light to be angry, yet too heavy to be calm.
"I must say, I did not expect to see you here, darling,"
I swivel myself around to face the sly, honeyed voice.
Under the shade of the willow a familiar, curly haired figure paces, ram's horns jutting out past his pointed ears, fine golden eyes scanning my form with the deliberate calculation of a predator with its prey, lips curved into a fanciful smile- as though debating what form of deviltry he might get up to today. I suck in my cheeks a little.
"To be honest, I am not entirely sure how I got here," I admit, shrugging my shoulders hopelessly as I make my way towards him, weaving my way past the spindly willow branches that flicker in the low breeze of the clearing. I run my fingers steadily through my hair, the distance screams and flashes of white hair already fading from my mind to be replaced with a singular, other feeling.
"I am pretty sure you are just a dream, anyway," I mutter, but before I can say any more, Soren materialises in front me, body knitting together from the shadows under the willow, coiling up like a snake towards the sky.
"A dream, hmm?" he muses, the former frustrated tightness vanishing from his voice, replaced by a sudden and raunchy smoothness. "Well," he says, a light humour playing in the depths of his voice, along with a twinkle of mischief. "How about I test that theory, hmm?"
I narrow my eyes at him. Knowing Soren, whatever he is about to do is probably going to embarrass me to hells end- and dream or not, there is no way I am letting him get away with that. My hand shoots towards the sword at my hip, gripping the hilt tightly in my fingers until my knuckles turn white with tension, but before I can draw it, something else stops me.
A glamour laces his sultry voice, washing over me with its menacing dominance.
"Don't move."
Kal's eyes grow wide as I collapse before him, and without a second thought he is soon jumping forward to catch me as my knees collapse beneath me, weak and wobbly from the effort of simply keeping myself upright. He clicks his tongue in ambiguous disapproval, taking a hold of my arms to let me lean my weight against him, an action seemingly so natural to him that I could almost presume he has performed it several times over. My body weighs heavily against him, but his form remains sturdy. For someone so slender, he has a surprising amount of muscle on him."It is shame Fangorn has put up these magic barriers, it seems to be draining you of your energy," he sighs, then stopping for a second, halts his train of thought and glances down at Ithuriel. From my limited view as I endeavour to keep my eyes open enough to not pass out, I catch a glimpse of the little white fox, hair prickly with the notion of seeing some unknown lay their hands on me and teeth bared like knives against the gloom in a spiteful disregard. Kal, however, is having none of it."Come now, no need to be jealous, I am simply holding her up, because you don't have the hands to do it- and no, don't try and take that collar off yourself, because no matter how handsome you may be in your humanoid form, I am not going to see any naked bodies today." he laughs, but underneath the lightheartedness of his remarks, there is a sinking element of worry, or, perhaps, pity."At this rate I am going to carry her the rest of the way, I do not think it helps that she appears to have vampire venom coursing through her, her willpower is significantly weakened." Kal runs a despairing hand through his black-y blue locks, gloved fingers parting each strand in an elegant disarray as he peers out into the void of darkness, searching with a dull and hopeless gaze, before returning his eyes back to my unsteady form. I try to croak an apology, but it comes out as little more than a breath on the wind- swiftly carried off into the darkness. Kal sighs languorously. "No matter, keep on my tail, Ithuriel, we are almost there."The rest of the journey flashes by in a messy blur of blackness and brambles, icy air and the heavy scent of spruce trees with a subtle mix of a strange pollen from a flower that is unbeknownst to the senses of my nose. Ithuriel trails rigidly behind us, his eyes tightly trained on me as we dance our way through the forest, ignoring the distant screams of shadowy mutants, as though he disdained to see a foreign hand albeit a helpful one so closely pressed upon my body. At some point- although upon recollection is it impossible to tell when, darkness seeps into the cracks of my vision and consumes me into a lulling blackness, fading away all thoughts of existence from my fragile mind until all that is left is the soothing murmur of a far off voice whispering my name. ***Down, down into the void I go. I float in a silent abyss, enveloped in the cold embrace of darkness and the stagnant nothingness of either being asleep, or being dead. I desperately hope it is not the latter. A flash of short white hair streaks the melancholy blackness, and a ruby glimmer, my vision blurring to a hazy half sight as a dim room creeps into the depths of my cognition. Yet something does not feel right. My body feels strange, airy, like there is some unknown force pulling on the edges of my skin, threatening to whisk me away into the void of darkness where I came from, away from wherever it is I am now.I peer round the room hazily, or more specifically, a series of maze like rooms branching off from a long, gruelling corridor, laced with vines that protrude from the cracks in the stone bricks like the coils of a snake, green tendons slithering out into the corridor from a source that I neither know, nor particularly want to know. At the end of the corridor, the door is ajar, a thick wad of light streaming out from the gap and illuminating the grim tiles of the floor, a lone source of light for the whole expanse of the building.Something overhead screams. It's anguished wails echo out against the cavernous stone walls.The air feels heavy, and yet equally I can hardly feel it, just like I can hardly feel the cold, or the bitter chill of stone bricks under my feet, or the blood curdling screams that echo from the door at the other end of the corridor.My heart flutters in my throat.I take off at a sprint towards the rigid light of the room, panic rising inside me as I begin to wonder who, or what, could be under such monumental pain, and why there is no-one around to hear it. Questions flood my mind as I draw closer and closer to the door, my spirit straining to reach for the handle, to fling it open and burst into the room to offer my aid to whatever creature's screams continue to permeate the air with its heart wrenching sorrow- the sound of grim agony, and death.But just before I can reach the door, the screaming dies to a whimper and there is a flash of familiar white hair as gleaming red eyes that appear at the edges of the light, casting me into hungry shadows as the door closes in front of me with a violent slam. I stop short. The screaming peaks again.Sweat begins to pool in the palm of my hands as an unnatural warmth shocks my body. There is something else in there too.A white flame, encompassed by a crystalline sheath.A flame my people haven't seen for nearly 3000 years. My stomach drops, pulled down by a leaden weight that gives rise to a sickening nausea in the back of my throat. Wherever this is, whatever this place is, whoever is in that room, they have the eternal flame. And something is awfully, awfully wrong. Yet as is the tragedy of all things, my mind has little time to dawdle on the new found information as a tugging sensation takes a hold of my body, pulling me back into the darkness and sinking me into that empty nothingness that cradles me in its arms like death embracing a soul lost to the mortal planes of the world. My mind revolves slowly, as if in a dream, hardly having the mental capacity to withhold a thought for more than a second in such a pressing darkness, unable to determine if I truly am dreaming, or instead experiencing an incredibly vivid hallucination- perhaps as the courtesy of the magic and creatures in the end. Or perhaps Kal.The darkness opens up once more and I am spat out into open air, covered lavishly in the golden glow of the sun that has trailed its destined path across the sky and has since begun to sink low over the horizon, casting various hues of orange, red and pink streaking across the sky and dousing the land in its eternal warmth. Yet despite the radiance of its glow, I fail to feel a single ounce of its warmth soaking into my skin at all, as though the land itself was some monumental illusion. I blink back the sun, trying in vain to figure out where I am, or why I keep shifting from place to place like a witch who has just discovered her ability to teleport. Nausea begins to subside within me. After a few moments of deliberation, I decide I am the Soren's rose gardens, somewhere far off from civilization; the lavish garden watched over by the comforting shade of a willow tree, carved out with a glittering lake and a young nymph who never seems to stop dancing around for attention in the waters. The air is tranquil to the point of almost being silent- almost since the faint gales of the wind brush their whispering laments through the leaves to rustle them in a flurry of warmth, showering the land with a flurry of glistening dew drops. There is a pattering sound, like that of feet, slow and steady, but carrying an air of frustration with the weight of each step, too light to be angry, yet too heavy to be calm."I must say, I did not expect to see you here, darling," I swivel myself around to face the sly, honeyed voice.Under the shade of the willow a familiar, curly haired figure paces, ram's horns jutting out past his pointed ears, fine golden eyes scanning my form with the deliberate calculation of a predator with its prey, lips curved into a fanciful smile- as though debating what form of deviltry he might get up to today. I suck in my cheeks a little."To be honest, I am not entirely sure how I got here," I admit, shrugging my shoulders hopelessly as I make my way towards him, weaving my way past the spindly willow branches that flicker in the low breeze of the clearing. I run my fingers steadily through my hair, the distance screams and flashes of white hair already fading from my mind to be replaced with a singular, other feeling."I am pretty sure you are just a dream, anyway," I mutter, but before I can say any more, Soren materialises in front me, body knitting together from the shadows under the willow, coiling up like a snake towards the sky."A dream, hmm?" he muses, the former frustrated tightness vanishing from his voice, replaced by a sudden and raunchy smoothness. "Well," he says, a light humour playing in the depths of his voice, along with a twinkle of mischief. "How about I test that theory, hmm?" I narrow my eyes at him. Knowing Soren, whatever he is about to do is probably going to embarrass me to hells end- and dream or not, there is no way I am letting him get away with that. My hand shoots towards the sword at my hip, gripping the hilt tightly in my fingers until my knuckles turn white with tension, but before I can draw it, something else stops me.A glamour laces his sultry voice, washing over me with its menacing dominance. "Don't move."
