Clouds in the Blood (18+)(Closed)

[Askier]

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Had he really been a merchant prince once?

 

Heir to a his father's legacy across the sea?

 

Or was it all a dream?

 

A past woven by the the threads of opium?

 

The male couldn't recall anything clearly.  For years now, he'd been constantly on a mix of opium to keep his mind a fog.  To keep him lost in his own head.  Keep him dreaming dreams that were memories.  Memories were never real.  Memories that were more real than his life of chains.

 

Day in, day out.  Chains, perfumes.  Forced sex.  Brothel walls. 

 

How many years?

 

He couldn't recall. He only knew two things had once been real.

 

He had once been called K'hole.  And he had once known the art of hemamancy.

 

That was his appeal.  His slavers offering paying customer the chance to screw a blood mage.

 

Course one who had been...collared.  A collar that made his talent useless.

 

But that's not what they wanted.  They wanted his body and the bragging rights. To use. To sell. To exploit.

 

And so they kept him drugged to make him docile.

 

Even now, he was in chains.  Silk sheets around his body.  Perfume on the air.  Drugs clouding his mind.  Making him see the world as a dream. A nightmare.  A hell he was too trapped in a fog to see. 

 

Another day, another eternity. This was his life.  The past four years?  Four millennia?

 

Did it matter?

 

Every morning he awoke, praying for either death or freedom.  To the Twelve he prayed. Begged.  Threatened.  Made deals.

 

Yet, so far, nothing.  Only more suffering.  More chains.  More days in this hell. More dreams sent by the vapors in his blood

 

The drugs consumed his mind and the slave slipped into the clouds as the door opened.

 

In his mind, he saw the angel again.  The vision of the miqo'te in black.  The one who had come to him in his dreams last night.  The one who had promised him freedom.

 

The angle.

 

The one who promised kindness.

 

The door shut and K'hole lost himself in the drugs power.

 

Kindness, it seemed, was not to come tonight.

[Askier]

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Where had the knife come from?

 

Did it matter?

 

It was the angel's gift.

 

That angelic miqo'te in black had set Khole free. Set all the slaves free.

 

Blood filled the air. Pounded in Khole's veins. Coated his tongue, lips, and throat. It coated the walls. Drenched his flesh. Made Khole look like a monster. 

 

Drugs. Clouds. Violence. Death.

 

Khole  and his fellow slaves. Hacking, stabbing, murdering. Killing guards and brothel patrons apart. No mercy. No kindness. Only a mad clawing for freedom.

 

The silk curtains cut. Flesh sliced. Screams silenced. Blades clashed.

 

Khole swung. Cutting. Cutting. Cutting.

 

There. More guards. Better armed. Dead slaves at their feet. Khole howled in a primal rage and charged. Behind them was the door. His freedom. He would not be denied. Blood lust and drugs rose up and his mind was lost in their haze.

 

***

 

Outside.

 

Ul'dah nights were cold. The streets vacant. Allyways emptier. 

 

Khole ran, holding his gut with his left hand. Blood oozed from a gash that had opened his abdomine from left to right like a weeping mouth. 

 

The miqo'te was holding his organs back as he staggered in a haze. He wanted to cry. 

 

He did.

 

Tears of blood.

 

He was free. After four years, he was at last free. But where to go?

 

He needed the Navigator.

 

She sent her angel. 

 

There the miqo'te in black stood. An angel of kindness made flesh. The miqo'te pointed a pale hand towards a route that went towards the Goblet.

 

"That way. You will find safy there in the form of a woman. If you get lost, straight is always the answer home."

 

The angel in black was gone. A flock of crows cawing was there now as a white raven led the way.

 

KHole followed the white wings as his mind was lost again as the drugs took over.

 

***

 

Houses. Streets. Footprints of blood. 

 

A trail.

 

Time.

 

How long was he walking?

 

How long had he been free?

 

Khole staggered down a tunnel in the Goblet. Following a white raven. Straight. Straight.

 

A form. 

 

The first person he'd seen in his haze. A woman. With eyes gold. Twin suns beneath bloody hair. A coat. 

 

Khole staggered up to her and fell before her as if she was an altar to the Navigator. 

 

"Help...me..." Khole wheezed as blood fell from his lips. "Please."

 

The drugs arose again and his mind was lost.

 

Lost. 

 

But he was free.

 

Darkness.

[Askier]

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Time had passed.  Nights, days, round the world spun in the heavens as the celestial bodies danced their eternal dance.

 

His wounds were healing.  The physical ones.  He had been taken in and was being healed slowly over time.

 

The damage to his mind, however, was still being determined.  Memories were lost.  He could recall pictures but not the specifics, and sometimes the specifics and not the picture.  He could not recall his mother's face but could recall her voice.  He knew he had been a heir to a wealthy merchant and his company.  Knew he had fallen in with the darker elements of trade and business.

 

He knew he could once play 'The Game' of business very well.  His silver tongue had been skilled.  But he had been beaten by his rivals. Sold into slavery.  Made to learn humility. 

 

The drugs were gone from his mind, but the damage remained.  He could not recall all of his past.  Gaps.

 

So many gaps.

 

The male slowly walked alone through the Goblet's streets as he thought.

 

He was free. 

 

He owed Nahare a life debt.  He would kill one person in exchange for his.  But what then?  What when his life debt was over? 

 

He was in a strange land.  He had few friends.  No money.  No influence. No power.  And the male was unsure if he -wanted- those things again.

 

What had power and coin gotten him?  Humility. Separation. They had lost him everything he had ever cared for. 

 

Would it not be better to devote himself to his studies of blood?  To devote himself to his self perfection and the art he had once used as a weapon?

 

Perhaps, in the purity of his cult's chants and its rituals he would find peace.  Purpose.  Happiness.

 

Perhaps.

 

A white raven cawed. 

 

Khole lifted his head, black hair parting for his emerald eyes to see the same white bird from the night of his escape gazing back at him.

 

That bird.  The herald of the angel in black.

 

He blinked as the avian creature took to the sky, dropping a single feather that danced on a sudden wind that guided the white thing down into an alley.

 

Like blood in the vein, Khole felt that he was free to move around but his path was set by the Navigator.  Was this her sign now?

 

He followed the feather into the darkness of a tunnel, wind tugging at his raged attire.

 

The pupils grew in the dark as he followed.  He smelt.  He listened as his ears flicked.

 

Something close.

 

He drew further and further into the tunnel until he saw the feather, resting at a small side departure.  He picked up the feather and, in the growing vision of his dilating eyes, saw it.

 

"Blood in the veins, guided to our fates."  Khole said calmly as he looked and understood.