Idina Doc
Wildgardian
Could we start again, please?
Posts: 258
|
Post by Idina Doc on Sept 14, 2014 21:29:59 GMT -6
The girl was only about half-listening to the Clanless at this point, overcome with a strong sense of dread. This was the barrier they needed to reach, that was certain; powerful waves of foreboding magic emenared from in front of them, possibly concealing mysteries that lay beyond that could not quite be seen. This was old magic, however, magic unlike anything she had ever experienced firsthand. Legends of magic like this didn't tell you how to disable it...
A sharp pain shot up her arm in an instant, the feeling blossoming from the middle of her right palm. She shrieked, a reaction both of shock and of pain, and yanked her arm away from him. Her eyes went wide and her other senses heightened with it. Every word the elf said felt like another stab in her ears.
Most people, when they lose themselves, would immediately start screaming and cursing, perhaps breaking down into tears. Idina, however, avoided gaining a wild demeanour, although here eyes glittered with a fierce light that rarely lit their muddy depths: rage.
"If you could simply ask me to cooperate," she hissed, "then I would help you. But up until now" - her voice was crescendoing - "you have done nothing other than order me around. And if you refuse to show me respect, then I will refuse to respect your wishes!" Both hands here clenched into fists, her knuckles white on both with a little bit of red dripping from between the fingers of her right, and she bared her teeth at him like fangs. "Your orders have almost killed us both once this week. Why should I do as you wish this time?!"
|
|
|
Post by Faljere D'ael Elderbaden on Sept 17, 2014 20:06:02 GMT -6
Clanless' eyes went wide as the girl cursed at him: this was the first time he'd seen her so angered. Her face was red, her words were sharp and spitting...what gave her the right to get so upset at him? He was doing perfectly fine at not getting her killed, despite the many times she may have died without him. There was no reason for her to be mad at him. None at all!
Given their questing, there was no time for niceties, no time for asking for something. When something needed to be done, it got done.
The elf reached out and grabbed her wrist before shoving it into the well gently; enough for blood to be smeared on the stone, but not too much as to cause the girl pain. After all, that wasn't the point of his mission. Right then, the barrier began to fade, and its sound lessened, until there was a clear path to the stone corridor before him.
"See? Innocent blood," he told her half-heartedly: at this point, she was starting to get on his nerves now, but he kept his cool.
|
|
Idina Doc
Wildgardian
Could we start again, please?
Posts: 258
|
Post by Idina Doc on Sept 18, 2014 16:40:27 GMT -6
Another noise of surprise slipped through her lips upon contact with the stone, the fresh wound stinging from having picked up dust that had been collecting there for who knew how long. She brought her hand back and kept it open and close to her body. As soon as she had done that, she turned to look at the Clanless again, ready to ask if she needed to keep her had where it had been--
The question was murdered on the tip of her tongue. He hadn't want to ask for basic courtesies. Why should she?
The blood had been draining from her face a little, but her ears were still red from her outburst, and her throat yearned to yell. Her expression hardened again, eyes shining with a diamond-like hardness. "Acknowledge - what I - have said," she demanded, her tone harsh and deliberate.
|
|
|
Post by Faljere D'ael Elderbaden on Sept 18, 2014 20:04:16 GMT -6
Clearly, the dust from the well was stinging in her wound. Perhaps he should have thought about that before putting her hand in there.
Still, the deed was done, the barrier was gone, but not for long, and Idina was spitting harsh words at him, despite her calm demeanour. There was indeed something strange with the way she now held herself and her voice; she'd calmed down from her outburst a moment ago, yet her tongue was shrill and cruel.
He had no time for shrill and cruel. But he knew the words that she had said.
"Words acknowledged. Now come with me before the barrier falls," he ordered. Right then, he stopped in his tracks, knowing she wouldn't follow unless she understood that he really did acknowledge what she'd said.
"Please," he added half-heartedly.
|
|
Idina Doc
Wildgardian
Could we start again, please?
Posts: 258
|
Post by Idina Doc on Sept 18, 2014 23:45:09 GMT -6
A two-word response and a change of subject was hardly what Idina had been hoping for. Unimpressed, she straightened her spine and grounded her feet firmly, ready to let the elf know exactly how she felt... However, the stinging in her hand coupled with his words kept her focus on the reality of the situation. The Clanless hadn't said anything about how often the barrier could be opened, and if it closed for an indefinite period of time while they were on this side...
The time for retort was not now, she decided.
She started moving immediately after he'd added "Please" to his order; an unintentional move on her part, although certainly not a bad one for the point she wanted to prove. Falling into step behind him, the pair crossed through the space where the purple energy had been almost solid a minute before.
No sooner had they reached safety did that energy return, filling the small space with magical energy once again. Now was the time.
"I want you to listen to me properly," the blonde announced, "and to answer in kind. I want you to tell me exactly what it is you need me to do beyond this point." She grasped at the tartan sash he wore across his torso, holding it hard and fast. "Tell me now, or I will not help you."
|
|
|
Post by Faljere D'ael Elderbaden on Sept 21, 2014 20:54:15 GMT -6
Clanless entered the hallway, with Idina close behind. At the end of the hall would be a chamber, and with the chamber would come with books and tomes about how to enter his own mind and soul. After all, that was what the Sorcerer of the North was known for.
Now was the end of their quest, and yet, he still felt as though it shouldn't quite be over. He turned to the girl, with her grumpy and stubborn face.
"I wish for you to accompany me to the end. That is all," he told her. He turned back to the hall. "I wish not to be alone for now."
|
|
Idina Doc
Wildgardian
Could we start again, please?
Posts: 258
|
Post by Idina Doc on Sept 21, 2014 22:20:13 GMT -6
That... That was it...? Well, perhaps she should have expected it, given the air of finality that hung over them as they had entered the hallway. Even so, it felt a little strange that the elf would ask her to stay with him for a while longer, given how all throughout their quest he had made it quite clear that she was little more than a thorn in his side. Or maybe she wasn't giving him enough credit, hadn't given his actions enough thought...
As was typical for her when in a confused state, Idina stared at him, unmoving, for a few moments, with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. She hardly dared to breathe during that spell, even. "...Okay," she said finally, her words carrying a strong note of surprise. She then shook her head and stepped lightly behind him into the chamber.
A library. One more thing to make her miss the past.
Now she was thinking plenty of everything he'd done. She had felt for some time that the man he once was, the man that she knew... This was still Faljere, even if he was wearing a Clanless mask. But something had happened to him over the time that they had been apart last year, that much was certain, and whatever had happened had taken all happiness from him. Whatever had happened had been the worst possible thing that could have happened to him. That happy light with which his emerald eyes once shown had gone out, had been snuffed out by whatever he had lived through. For a man as happy as the elf monk had been, such a radical change in behaviour was worse than death in her mind.
She did not know a Clanless. She knew a Faljere, and her heart ached to think that he now wore such a pained mask.
|
|
|
Post by Faljere D'ael Elderbaden on Sept 24, 2014 20:56:48 GMT -6
Clanless breathed in as he entered the chamber, inhaling the scent of dusted and ancient wood and leather. This place had not been touched since its old master had been here, that was for sure. The shelves that held the tomes were caked with white and ivory dust, and there were papers-rotting, brown-scattered across the floor. The stone was not necessarily level, which meant that if he had to go into a trance, it might be a little uncomfortable.
But now was not the time for comfort. Now was the time for action. He couldn't have Faljere-or any of his past selves-popping up while there was so much to be done.
The elf turned around and looked at the girl, who seemed so fascinated by the books. But there was another look in her eyes, one that trailed along his lean body. Big and pensive, almost nostalgic. He could tell what she was thinking. She practically wore her thoughts like a mask. Her words printed across her face.
Like a book.
The elf sauntered towards one of the shelves and began trailing his finger across all their spines, searching for the right book. "I know what you're thinking, and my response is that you're delusional," he spoke to the girl in a hushed tone, much unlike himself. Pulling out a purple leather-bound book, he spun towards her, the pages opened. "Faljere went to war. What Faljere experienced there was too much for him to handle. So Faljere had to die in order to make way for me, the warrior who could handle it."
He shoved the book back in its shelf and began his search again on a different shelf. "That didn't help. I am not Faljere, but what I experienced in the final days of the Century War were the worst horrors to ever grace this earth."
He yanked a red book from the shelf, but a few pages fell out onto the floor. He grabbed at them and managed to fit them back into the book, which he proceeded to examine. There was silence until his finger began tapping a simple rhythm of four beats against the wooden cover of the book.
"Four beats. The drums of war." At this point, it was more like he was recounting what was appearing in his mind. "Burning corpses as dwarves trampled over them, their boots bloodied by them. Fire. Smoke. Blinded by it all. The night sky is black, and the chanting of battle is growing stronger and stronger. There is a child...crushed by rubble. Burning. No option but to..." The elf caught his words and put the book down: he knew it was the right one, but that wasn't his reason for putting it down. He turned to Idina and grabbed her shoulders desperately, shaking her as his eyes watered. His face was bent into alien angles, his white teeth bared and his eyebrows as sharp as daggers, angry as if they wanted to remove themselves from the elf's face and form their own independent state of angry.
"And there was death, all over! Lia...beside me, she fell! She fell! I watched her as the dwarf cleaved her head off of her body and raised it in the air in triumph! And so I repaid him in kind...my hands...the ones I touch you with now are guilty hands. The hands of a deceitful murderer. And yet they are the only ones capable of stopping the looming darkness. Not the monk you once knew, but me! Only me!"
He pushed her back and raised his head to the ceiling. "Why do you follow me everywhere, O Carrion Fowl? Why do you stalk me in every waking hour? My dreams are filled of angels past, and your face appears as one! An angel of death, of loss! Why? Why is it only you I see? What does this herald?!" His hands became a whirlwind as he slammed them into the bookcase adjacent to him, knocking it and its contents over.
Clanless knelt in the middle of the room, his right hand clutching his heart, his left upon his crown. "You are...the oncoming storm. The looming darkness...the evil I must stop. You've come so far...have you really found me after all this time? How so...how so?" He paused to bring himself to the table; his breathing was still ragged, and his face was red and puffed from tears welled in his eyes. "It is me you want...it is the Clanless Warrior of the Highlands you desire so much. Then it is that man you shall get."
He turned back to the book and began flipping through the pages. "Idina," he began. "I--beware. Your friends are not your friends. Your enemies are lesser than what dawns upon you now. Beware...beware the raven."
With that, he paid her no more attention as he sat in the middle of the room, cross-legged and with the book in front of him. He closed his eyes as he began muttering the incantation that the dragons of old created so long ago to venture into his very mind. Into his soul.
With one final, deep breath, the elf began his journey elsewhere as the world around him darkened.
Farewell, Idina. And thank you.
|
|
Idina Doc
Wildgardian
Could we start again, please?
Posts: 258
|
Post by Idina Doc on Sept 27, 2014 21:58:12 GMT -6
For a minute or so, Idina remained there: in the chamber, back against a bookshelf only feet away from the one that was overturned in front of her, staring wide-eyed at a random point on the opposite wall. Everything about her was made small and compact in her position, like a fearful creature preparing to pounce, but she hardly moved at all.
Her breath was coming to her in loud, airy whisps, large enough that she needed her mouth open to take them in, and they didn't stay long, for too much was already inside her head and spreading - spreading from her mind to her heart, and further down from there. Died. Blood. Guilty. Harsh words that struck her each like physical blows. Her own eyes stung with welling tears. This could not be real, she thought, pleaded. But the phrase was lost among the others buzzing around in her mind. No matter now many times she hoped to be right, the Clanless' words were quick to drown that thought. Her chest ached the more she thought: she yearned to be right, yearned to reclaim what she once had, once loved. She felt caught, she found a shortness of breath familiar to her in nightmares...
"Your friends are not your friends... These are guilty hands... Beware..."
The thoughts finally spread throughout her body, causing her limbs to spring to life. From her coiled position she leapt, bounding out the doorway of the chamber in a flurry of white and brown. Aside from her even footsteps and her breathing, however, she made no sound.
Once the barrier was in sight, a lump formed in the healer's throat, bringing a subconscious noise with it. With each step the lump seemed to grow; she bared her teeth as she braced for impact with the energy force, letting the noise escape more and more. She squeezed her eyes shut a couple of paces away from it, by now her growl having escalated significantly.
She crossed through the barrier, screaming. Unharmed by the energy, she kept running, kept screaming, tears streaming down her face. All of the thoughts, all that she had just been told, she was trying to get rid of it: there was not enough room in her body for this much heartbreak, this much confusion and confliction. She kept running.
|
|