Cold.
Shrieking. Movement, white on brown on white. Something large... loud crunching, more shrieking. The cry of eagles. Something large bounded through the snow, beat its wings. Ansfrid. He trembled as he fought to push himself upright. Cold. Snow. He'd fallen in the snow. Getting his bearings was proving difficult. How--
Panic as something struck them midair. Griffincry as they struggled to straighten out before they plummeted too far. Fear as he glanced over a shoulder and saw the billowing plume of smoke snake back towards them. Another collision. Grappling midair as they fell again. Impact.
Hands and knees, now. He looked up and found a terrifying sight.
Bubbling black ooze, like boiling oil in appearance, splattered the drifts as his friend raked their assailant with his claws. Another shriek, this one followed by a thunderous roar… and there stood Ortolf Forgehands, grip tight upon the griffin’s throat, claws still raking across his chest and drawing “bloodâ€.... the highlander roared again and struck Ansfrid across the face. Once, twice… the third was a hook that drove the beast into a snowbank. The Crow spat to one side, then turned and stalked Melkire down.
“Treach’rous bairn… ungrateful… tear ye t’pieces, aye….â€
“Ortolf,†the midlander cautioned as he scrambled for purchase, “don’t-- y’don’t need t’--â€
“Give it t’me. The temple stone.â€
Osric swallowed as he finally found his feet. His hands balled into fists. “No.â€
Snow erupted. Forgehands was on him in a flash. “GIVE IT T’ME!â€
The smaller man turned as he reached for fear and drank it down, fed it to his fire. In some far and distant corner of his mind, he wondered at how fortunate he was to have discovered this talent. To withdraw and regard himself and his surroundings coldly, to disassociate himself from the present… the rest was as simple as wishing he were elsewhere, that he was somewhere other than where he was, and then drawing upon the first below, upon Atala.
He turned and pushed off with all the power that his chakra lent him and with all the agile grace that had come with growing up gutterborn… but he slipped. The ice below his feet betrayed him, and something seized his left leg, clamped down hard and dragged him back through the green wisps of aether that were his signature. Ortolf turned and whipped him ‘round through the air... he knew I’d slip, he picked here and now because he knew, Root, endu-- ...and down into the snow and onto the ice and stone beneath.
Osric cried out in pain, though tapping the first above had saved him broken bones. Shadow. Ortolf went from looming over him to reaching down for his throat; he kicked out at the other man’s torso with all the force and all the anger he could muster. The highlander’s grasp slackened, and the Lominsan scrambled free and back to his feet.
Forgehands came at him again, and this time he struck out. Jab, hook, jab again and again… the Crow slapped his strikes aside, almost contemptuously, with no regard whatsoever for the aether-driven blows. Whatever forward momentum Melkire had found faltered… and soon he found himself driven back, draining his reserves down the dregs as he fended off Ortolf’s assault.
Cheat, run, or die. Tried runnin’, so.....
He dropped low, right fist and arm drawn back, elbow to the sky, to strike down into snow and ice and stone--
Forgehand’s foot struck him clean in the face, and he went tumbling head over heels across that selfsame ice and stone.
“Weren’t meant for you, else that’s what you’d have been given, bairn! We told you how this was t’go, we did. Clear as crystal!â€
He coughed and spat as he listened to Ortolf rant and rave. Red on white. Blood.
“Did you forget? Rhalgr’s Own Fist, bairn, what’s the point in feedin’ your beast if you won’t use it? Coward.â€
Melkire laughed. ‘Twas a ragged thing, macabre. “You… you’ve no gods-damned idea.â€
Seated on the gods-damned cold stone floor. Because that's where he deserves to be, damn it all.
"Give me the Lotus," he said as he unwound his wristwraps and dropped them into his lap.
Tiergan Vashir reached into a satchel and drew out a small box of Allagan design that was adorned with a crystalline lid. The crystal funneled down towards what lie inside: The Lotus. the flower wrought of steel and power. It gleamed crimson as Vashir held it out towards Osric. The voices were stronger now, strong enough that they could be heard in the room and not merely in the mind. They were begging him not to do it, pleading with him to simply take the Lotus from Vashir instead.
"I'll hold it," explained the former gladiator. “You need only to spill the blood. If you touch it directly somehow, things will be bad... for the both of us.â€
Osric nodded. He drew a knife from his belt and murmured, "promised Kanaria I'd never use one o' these ever again...."
“You'll not be using it the way you normally would. I'd not count it against your promise.â€
.He held a hand out over the crimson flower, then slowly drew the knife across his open palm. Blood pooled... and then trickled. Dripped. Into the Lotus.
A sudden burst of shrieking, screaming howls tore from the Lotus like a gale, wailing and weeping and roaring and crying, cursing the midlander as power course throughout the room, pulling at clothing, equipment, and furniture until suddenly the room was plunged into darkness. The darkness swallowed them both, dragged them down into the abyss. When the light returned, they were standing, struggling. Snow fell. The cobbles ran red. A little girl shrieked and wailed and sobbed. This was the Brume, and these were the corpses of children. She pushed at them, kicked them, struck them bit them flailed at them. Keeping a firm hold was proving difficult, but she wouldn’t escape. She couldn't. She was but a young girl and they were but a strong man.
"Do it," they heard, and they recognized that voice, they recognized it because those were the words spoken by Ortolf Forgehands, and he would see their hellish training brought to a satisfactory conclusion. "A hundred innocents," he said, there and then, "a thousand, he will hide behind them all, he will knock them down, drown you in them if you let him. You will fall, and you will fail... unless you can do this. So do it. Do it."
At last, their hand found purchase, and they lifted her bodily off her feet by the front of her tunic. The axe head they set against the frail skin of her neckline quivered in their grasp. She meets their eyes with her own, and they trembled harder as she begged them. BEGGED them. "Do it," he said again, but they could not. They could not, because the girl they were holding was D'lyhhia Lhuil.
Say rather, the girl looked like D'lyhhia Lhuil. She had D'ly's hair, her face, her eyes. There were no ears, no markings, no slits... but she was her to the life. "Don't," she wailed, "please don't, please, Halone forgives, please let me go mister I don't want to die I don't want to I... I... please..."
"DO IT!" barked the higlander, and they screamed, they bellowed, and she shrieked in fear, and they raised the axe high. There was a sickening squelch, and then there was red. Then, their whole world was red. They were red. They had done it. They were ready. But at the same time, they had fallen. Their stomach turned and flipped. They fell to the floor, and they puked. Gods. She deserved better. She deserved far, far better than them.
The screaming, the sounds, the rush of pain, emotion, and horror - all of it spiraled down and down and down, howling into the Lotus in a torrent of madness before light suddenly sprang back into the room again and silence swallowed up all of the noise. The candles softly flickered. The sheets on the bed laid undisturbed. Everything remained as though nothing had happened at all. ...and then the petal bearing the mark of the Knife clicked a third of the way shut.
Vashir scrambled backwards, away from Melkire.He let out gasping sound, choking, panting as he blinked something back, staring at Osric, but not really seeing him.
Osric Melkire stared down at the floor in shame. He did not look up. The only sound from him was the slow and steady dripping of blood from hand and knife onto stone.
Vashir's grip on the Lotus was like iron. His hands shook as he put the container back into his satchel, burying it deep as he worked to get his breathing back to normal, gazing down at the Hyur in front of him.
Melkire wiped the blood off his knife onto the back of his already-bloodied hand. He sheathed the blade, then rubbed his hands together until the blood dried. "...are we done here?"
Vashir swallowed hard, his voice low, soft, and ragged - as though he'd had been the one who'd screamed. As though he'd been the one who lifted his axe, brought it down hard, made the world red, red, red, re-
He hissed, snapping his eyes shut. "I..."
"Now you know," growled the midlander as he wound his wristwraps back on.
Here, now, he grimaced as he watched the highlander loom over him again.
“You will not cost me my vengeance. Rotunda will deliver, but first I must deliver Epinoch… which means I must deliver you.†Two large, strong hands seized him by the collar and lifted him up, held him aloft. “The stone.â€
“You… you want Mindclaw,†gasped Osric in desperation. “You want Horace Windwhistle.â€
Ortolf’s eyes went wide and wild. Those hands clenched against the leather they held. “How do you know that name, bairn?â€
“I have m’sources.†No way in the seven hells was he giving up Memith and Nahare.
Forgehands snarled, eyes narrowing again. “No one’s seen Windwhistle in decades.â€
“I have. Fascinatin’ man, Horace. Talented. Heard he gave a man his eye back. Reconstituted. Meanin’ grown. From nothin’.â€
The highlander trembled. The midlander smirked.
“Rotunda doesn’t know where Horace is, does he?†That smirk grew into a grin. “I do.â€
Agony. Red colors swam across a black field. When he came to, he found himself with his back to the frigid ground, Ortolf’s hands tight as a vice around his throat.
â€WHERE IS HE?!â€
“Th--,†he choked out. “St-- the st-- stone….â€
The pressure lifted, and he gasped for air. Gulped it down.
“I… the temple… leave me the temple….â€
The highlander growled. Somewhere off in the distance, there came another griffincry. this one pathetic and wracked with pain.
“...you will return to me the one we gave you. You will not display the other so brazenly again, as you did with Castille in the Forgotten Knight. Zhwan saw. The captain… he is not like to leave you under my care. Pierre will be watching you from now on… but we cannot sense the nature of these stones. Only their presence. Their number. Am I understood?â€
Osric nodded meekly.
“You will meet me three bells ahead of schedule, each time you present yourself for training. We will trade stones. You will train. I shall find you three bells after you take your leave. We will trade stones again. Am I understood?â€
Another nod.
“The stone. That of the Hells.â€
Fumbling. Cold fingers. Cold leather. A moment later, a red gem went sliding across the ice. Ortolf Forgehands stooped and plucked it from where it lay.
“You play dangerous games, Osric Melkire.â€
“...go piss in a river.â€
The winds rose, and then there was white between them, like a veil. The silhouette that was Forgehands turned and dissipated. The Hyur sighed with relief and laid his head back down. He shuddered as he struggled to control his breathing, to stay conscious.
He didn’t last. Within seconds, he was out.
Shrieking. Movement, white on brown on white. Something large... loud crunching, more shrieking. The cry of eagles. Something large bounded through the snow, beat its wings. Ansfrid. He trembled as he fought to push himself upright. Cold. Snow. He'd fallen in the snow. Getting his bearings was proving difficult. How--
Panic as something struck them midair. Griffincry as they struggled to straighten out before they plummeted too far. Fear as he glanced over a shoulder and saw the billowing plume of smoke snake back towards them. Another collision. Grappling midair as they fell again. Impact.
Hands and knees, now. He looked up and found a terrifying sight.
Bubbling black ooze, like boiling oil in appearance, splattered the drifts as his friend raked their assailant with his claws. Another shriek, this one followed by a thunderous roar… and there stood Ortolf Forgehands, grip tight upon the griffin’s throat, claws still raking across his chest and drawing “bloodâ€.... the highlander roared again and struck Ansfrid across the face. Once, twice… the third was a hook that drove the beast into a snowbank. The Crow spat to one side, then turned and stalked Melkire down.
“Treach’rous bairn… ungrateful… tear ye t’pieces, aye….â€
“Ortolf,†the midlander cautioned as he scrambled for purchase, “don’t-- y’don’t need t’--â€
“Give it t’me. The temple stone.â€
Osric swallowed as he finally found his feet. His hands balled into fists. “No.â€
Snow erupted. Forgehands was on him in a flash. “GIVE IT T’ME!â€
The smaller man turned as he reached for fear and drank it down, fed it to his fire. In some far and distant corner of his mind, he wondered at how fortunate he was to have discovered this talent. To withdraw and regard himself and his surroundings coldly, to disassociate himself from the present… the rest was as simple as wishing he were elsewhere, that he was somewhere other than where he was, and then drawing upon the first below, upon Atala.
He turned and pushed off with all the power that his chakra lent him and with all the agile grace that had come with growing up gutterborn… but he slipped. The ice below his feet betrayed him, and something seized his left leg, clamped down hard and dragged him back through the green wisps of aether that were his signature. Ortolf turned and whipped him ‘round through the air... he knew I’d slip, he picked here and now because he knew, Root, endu-- ...and down into the snow and onto the ice and stone beneath.
Osric cried out in pain, though tapping the first above had saved him broken bones. Shadow. Ortolf went from looming over him to reaching down for his throat; he kicked out at the other man’s torso with all the force and all the anger he could muster. The highlander’s grasp slackened, and the Lominsan scrambled free and back to his feet.
Forgehands came at him again, and this time he struck out. Jab, hook, jab again and again… the Crow slapped his strikes aside, almost contemptuously, with no regard whatsoever for the aether-driven blows. Whatever forward momentum Melkire had found faltered… and soon he found himself driven back, draining his reserves down the dregs as he fended off Ortolf’s assault.
Cheat, run, or die. Tried runnin’, so.....
He dropped low, right fist and arm drawn back, elbow to the sky, to strike down into snow and ice and stone--
Forgehand’s foot struck him clean in the face, and he went tumbling head over heels across that selfsame ice and stone.
“Weren’t meant for you, else that’s what you’d have been given, bairn! We told you how this was t’go, we did. Clear as crystal!â€
He coughed and spat as he listened to Ortolf rant and rave. Red on white. Blood.
“Did you forget? Rhalgr’s Own Fist, bairn, what’s the point in feedin’ your beast if you won’t use it? Coward.â€
Melkire laughed. ‘Twas a ragged thing, macabre. “You… you’ve no gods-damned idea.â€
Seated on the gods-damned cold stone floor. Because that's where he deserves to be, damn it all.
"Give me the Lotus," he said as he unwound his wristwraps and dropped them into his lap.
Tiergan Vashir reached into a satchel and drew out a small box of Allagan design that was adorned with a crystalline lid. The crystal funneled down towards what lie inside: The Lotus. the flower wrought of steel and power. It gleamed crimson as Vashir held it out towards Osric. The voices were stronger now, strong enough that they could be heard in the room and not merely in the mind. They were begging him not to do it, pleading with him to simply take the Lotus from Vashir instead.
"I'll hold it," explained the former gladiator. “You need only to spill the blood. If you touch it directly somehow, things will be bad... for the both of us.â€
Osric nodded. He drew a knife from his belt and murmured, "promised Kanaria I'd never use one o' these ever again...."
“You'll not be using it the way you normally would. I'd not count it against your promise.â€
.He held a hand out over the crimson flower, then slowly drew the knife across his open palm. Blood pooled... and then trickled. Dripped. Into the Lotus.
A sudden burst of shrieking, screaming howls tore from the Lotus like a gale, wailing and weeping and roaring and crying, cursing the midlander as power course throughout the room, pulling at clothing, equipment, and furniture until suddenly the room was plunged into darkness. The darkness swallowed them both, dragged them down into the abyss. When the light returned, they were standing, struggling. Snow fell. The cobbles ran red. A little girl shrieked and wailed and sobbed. This was the Brume, and these were the corpses of children. She pushed at them, kicked them, struck them bit them flailed at them. Keeping a firm hold was proving difficult, but she wouldn’t escape. She couldn't. She was but a young girl and they were but a strong man.
"Do it," they heard, and they recognized that voice, they recognized it because those were the words spoken by Ortolf Forgehands, and he would see their hellish training brought to a satisfactory conclusion. "A hundred innocents," he said, there and then, "a thousand, he will hide behind them all, he will knock them down, drown you in them if you let him. You will fall, and you will fail... unless you can do this. So do it. Do it."
At last, their hand found purchase, and they lifted her bodily off her feet by the front of her tunic. The axe head they set against the frail skin of her neckline quivered in their grasp. She meets their eyes with her own, and they trembled harder as she begged them. BEGGED them. "Do it," he said again, but they could not. They could not, because the girl they were holding was D'lyhhia Lhuil.
Say rather, the girl looked like D'lyhhia Lhuil. She had D'ly's hair, her face, her eyes. There were no ears, no markings, no slits... but she was her to the life. "Don't," she wailed, "please don't, please, Halone forgives, please let me go mister I don't want to die I don't want to I... I... please..."
"DO IT!" barked the higlander, and they screamed, they bellowed, and she shrieked in fear, and they raised the axe high. There was a sickening squelch, and then there was red. Then, their whole world was red. They were red. They had done it. They were ready. But at the same time, they had fallen. Their stomach turned and flipped. They fell to the floor, and they puked. Gods. She deserved better. She deserved far, far better than them.
The screaming, the sounds, the rush of pain, emotion, and horror - all of it spiraled down and down and down, howling into the Lotus in a torrent of madness before light suddenly sprang back into the room again and silence swallowed up all of the noise. The candles softly flickered. The sheets on the bed laid undisturbed. Everything remained as though nothing had happened at all. ...and then the petal bearing the mark of the Knife clicked a third of the way shut.
Vashir scrambled backwards, away from Melkire.He let out gasping sound, choking, panting as he blinked something back, staring at Osric, but not really seeing him.
Osric Melkire stared down at the floor in shame. He did not look up. The only sound from him was the slow and steady dripping of blood from hand and knife onto stone.
Vashir's grip on the Lotus was like iron. His hands shook as he put the container back into his satchel, burying it deep as he worked to get his breathing back to normal, gazing down at the Hyur in front of him.
Melkire wiped the blood off his knife onto the back of his already-bloodied hand. He sheathed the blade, then rubbed his hands together until the blood dried. "...are we done here?"
Vashir swallowed hard, his voice low, soft, and ragged - as though he'd had been the one who'd screamed. As though he'd been the one who lifted his axe, brought it down hard, made the world red, red, red, re-
He hissed, snapping his eyes shut. "I..."
"Now you know," growled the midlander as he wound his wristwraps back on.
Here, now, he grimaced as he watched the highlander loom over him again.
“You will not cost me my vengeance. Rotunda will deliver, but first I must deliver Epinoch… which means I must deliver you.†Two large, strong hands seized him by the collar and lifted him up, held him aloft. “The stone.â€
“You… you want Mindclaw,†gasped Osric in desperation. “You want Horace Windwhistle.â€
Ortolf’s eyes went wide and wild. Those hands clenched against the leather they held. “How do you know that name, bairn?â€
“I have m’sources.†No way in the seven hells was he giving up Memith and Nahare.
Forgehands snarled, eyes narrowing again. “No one’s seen Windwhistle in decades.â€
“I have. Fascinatin’ man, Horace. Talented. Heard he gave a man his eye back. Reconstituted. Meanin’ grown. From nothin’.â€
The highlander trembled. The midlander smirked.
“Rotunda doesn’t know where Horace is, does he?†That smirk grew into a grin. “I do.â€
Agony. Red colors swam across a black field. When he came to, he found himself with his back to the frigid ground, Ortolf’s hands tight as a vice around his throat.
â€WHERE IS HE?!â€
“Th--,†he choked out. “St-- the st-- stone….â€
The pressure lifted, and he gasped for air. Gulped it down.
“I… the temple… leave me the temple….â€
The highlander growled. Somewhere off in the distance, there came another griffincry. this one pathetic and wracked with pain.
“...you will return to me the one we gave you. You will not display the other so brazenly again, as you did with Castille in the Forgotten Knight. Zhwan saw. The captain… he is not like to leave you under my care. Pierre will be watching you from now on… but we cannot sense the nature of these stones. Only their presence. Their number. Am I understood?â€
Osric nodded meekly.
“You will meet me three bells ahead of schedule, each time you present yourself for training. We will trade stones. You will train. I shall find you three bells after you take your leave. We will trade stones again. Am I understood?â€
Another nod.
“The stone. That of the Hells.â€
Fumbling. Cold fingers. Cold leather. A moment later, a red gem went sliding across the ice. Ortolf Forgehands stooped and plucked it from where it lay.
“You play dangerous games, Osric Melkire.â€
“...go piss in a river.â€
The winds rose, and then there was white between them, like a veil. The silhouette that was Forgehands turned and dissipated. The Hyur sighed with relief and laid his head back down. He shuddered as he struggled to control his breathing, to stay conscious.
He didn’t last. Within seconds, he was out.
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
