Author's note: This is a sequel to Cut Apart, a continuation of Lavenda's story. No, Cut Apart is not done; if all goes well, that will continue too. We plan on writing both at once, revealing bits of what happened.
Only the pov written as Lavenda is mine. New writers have joined in addition to Mentiri and her. I hope this does not decrease the quality of the posts.
The world of Randland belongs to the lovely Robert Jordan.
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Absent.
Revive.
Past.
Ultimatum.
Blind for ten years and still I am pathless... Mentiri felt the soft splashes of rain slick down his shamed body with a certain glee in their guts. They smiled at his failure, yes, they danced about on his skin as hot as pyre while cold as ashes. His teeth grit and his pale skin blackened with a rage he had only felt in the days he was truly blind...the way he felt now. Entering a forbidden waste such as this blight to conquer, all he had achieved was loss. Leaving with a party of six, he was now one. One man. Left to perform such futile tasks like "rid the world of evil" and "defend the innocent." What has he now? What does he do now? His eyes would have wept for him had they been alive to this day, but like so much else in his cursed life they were taken from him.
Taken.
What now? What now Mentiri? What now Da'gere? Ha, you once were proud to have that name, and now all you do is loathe the very days you were such a man. That man has been dead for so long, and you killed him. You killed...so many others. You and this waste are one! Killed so many...do you even remember their names you piece of waste? DO YOU?
"I REMEMBER!" Mentiri screamed in a lustful anger, one that he regretfully admitted that he enjoyed, and he smiled, feeling as though if he were to die of hell this very second he would welcome it's torture with a sarcastic taunt. He stood, his black cloak now shredded feathers from the doomed battle, and his skin showing more prominent than his once polished armor. The black band 'round his eyes was darker than ever, and seemed to melt into his face as actual flesh. His palms longed for the curves of his weapon, Song, and he curled his fingers in contempt for dropping his beloved. How many have you called friend and foe, and how many have you killed? He felt the night smother him down to the soil, and he seemed as small as a dead blade of vine. When will the killer justify the slaughtered? Hasn't it been justified for years? He felt the wind push him a step forward, and then another, as he slowly began to walk, blind, into the darkle of blissful death, the closest he has ever been to it.
"When will I be the innocent dead?"
Never.
xxxx
I've been here too long.
The heat caressed Lavenda's skin along with the warm rain, so similar and yet so very different from the land she rightfully called home. No, not home. Her face hardened further, if that was even possible. Never again will that Light-forsaken wasteland be home. But her heart rebelled against her head, telling her different from what she now knew. And thought. Some bonds run too deep… like my dearest Laina… and Jacquelynn… I'm sorry, Jacquelynn, but I needed to do this. This, or go completely mad… like… like… Then her mind and heart worked together to overwhelm that particular thought. Just focus on the task at hand. If it can be called a task…I am going insane.
The stench of rotting trees lingered in her nostrils, almost bearable after so many days. Deftly swiping at the growths that seemed to reach out for her- likely they did- she walked on, adjusting her spears and bow as she did so. As always in the Blight, her black veil lay across her face, light in spite of the humid air. Her boots left no print behind her on the damp ground. The only way anyone could tell she even existed, was not a shadow ghosting behind the rocks, was the blood covering her fighting clothes alongside the rain. Trolloc blood, and even a Halfman's life had spilled onto the cloth despite her most nimble dances.
What am I searching for? Can I find forgiveness for my kin's sins by killing? Can I find forgiveness for myself? What is there for me here?
A scream in the distance, all too normal for this haunted land. Yet something in the shriek seemed almost… human… But that, too, was normal. Any creature of Leafblighter seemed too human for any comfort. Nevertheless, she trotted up the nearest rise to look. It might even be something for her to slay. Even at worst… no. It was always better not to think of the worst.
A figure shimmered in the haze and rain, but not too far that she could not easily catch up. A Halfman? No, there. A cloak rustled. Not a Halfman, then, but that meant next to nothing. Then another whisper of sound floated to her on a putrid breeze. It seemed… familiar… somehow. A face hovered just out of her reach. A voice seemed to ring in her ears, but she couldn't hear it. Her heart wouldn't let her. Now the figure was moving towards her, further into the Blight, when they were already so deep…
The tiniest ray of light escaped its cloudy prison , lighting up the dim landscape for the briefest moment; but then, a moment is all Lavenda ever needed.
Memory rushed back.
Mentiri…
xxxx
"Ya know, this hell on earth would be more tolerable if there might be some pubs to play and drink in, but sadly, this is hell. Where good times can never be had."
Talking to himself made Nik feel a little more sane at times. It had been days since he lost contact with Mentiri, Fa Tseung, and the others. And he still didn't know where he was going.
"Not like I ever really did." Nikolai said as he kept walking aimlessly around the cursed Blight. "I do hope the rest of the group is keeping their sanity better than I am. Blasted nothingness that is the blight. Why did I come here again? Oh yeah, a story. Dammit Nik all you ever do is chase stories you stupid, stupid, light-be-blasted gleeman. GRAH!" Nik sat down with a short grunt in the middle of the rain soaked wasteland. "Well, at least I didn't get too wet in that rain that passed, though it does feel as if it's going to rain yet again." He had found shelter enough in a deserted cave during the first shower, but now he didn't see anything that was even partly habitable. No sooner had the thought passed his mind that it began to pour.
"My blasted luck, eh? Well, maybe I can find something in those hills over here, that looks dark enough to maybe be some trees." As he stood again, he heard a nearly inhuman scream in the distance to his right. "Blast, I had better find cover before whatever that was finds me." Suddenly his feet didn't feel as tired as they were less a moment before.
xxxx
Did I wish upon a time to feel this way? Or have I just forgotten that there is such a feeling as happiness? I have been journeying for so long...journeying for what? What I want died long ago, so why do I stay here?
Mentiri stood still.
That Glow... Unbelievable. Undeniable. Unrelenting. It reminded him of warmth, power, and a soul whose adventure and honey scent could never leave his memory, never fully. Such a figure of perfection should not be here...why is it here? He reminisced the days long gone, years and years gone. He bowed his head for a second as he pace, and he felt a single split of rain fall into his ear. The Glow flickered a deep red for just an instant to him, and suddenly, all of the forbidden past soaked into his mind. I'm sorry.
Mentiri saw the golden shine within his darkness, and it was as if an angel of death was floating down to him.
"Have you come to battle me?" he spoke to softly to himself, not knowing whether this angel would be graceful to him. "If so, you will be the victor, though not flawless. I am without wind here...and without Song." Mentiri walked closer and closer to the Glow. "And maybe, that's just what I need...you are my angel of death, Lavenda."
xxxx
It's not possible!
In denial Lavenda stared across the distance separating them, closing slowly as the ghost from her past moved closer. Breaths of wind brought mutters to her ears.
He's dead! And I like it that way! Liked… It's not fair. He can't be back…
Unconsciously, she hefted her spears. When did I take them out? The glittering blades whistled through the air as she twirled them around her thumbs, glaring the distance to him, almost nothing now. Strands of fiery hair escaped her head scarf, adding to the wildness of her eyes.
If you didn't die then, Mentiri, I'll make you wish you did. That I swear to you. Her never-ending patience ran out, and she closed the final steps to the blind man, carefully keeping her spears slicing the air to ribbons a hairs-width from his face.
Unable to stand the familiar eyeless stare, she broke the silence left by his scream.
"Why are you here, Mentiri? Do you wish to take from me everything you somehow missed before?"
Her eyes spat sparks. "If you wanted to die, Mentiri, you came to the right place, for before you stands the one being that can and will put a blade through your heart in a blink of the eye." Lavenda had to do something or kill the old warder before he replied. Moving her hands the slightest bit possible, her blades moved closer to his face.
A tiny scratch appeared on Mentiri's cheek as his black eye band fluttered to the ground.
xxxx
Now which way is North Nik? You think its that way? well you're probably wrong. "Ya know what voice in my head? You would be a lot easier to deal with if you didn't heckle me all day long." If you're so eager to silence me, why don't you go see what that screaming was you heard a moment ago? "Okay, fine, I will. And maybe you'll finally leave me alone when I show you that I can take care of meself." That settled with himself, Nikolai decided to test fate by walking right into his impending doom.
He turned right around and saw two figures in the distance. One looked like the night had swallowed him whole and spat him back out. "A forsaken or some other evil, you can never tell what is what in this light blasted place." The other, dressed lighter, what looked like the side of a mountain. "I wouldn't notice 'im if he wasn't holding that sword to the other's face."
Nikolai took a deep breath, drew his twin blades, and proceeded to trot quickly towards the figures. "Hopefully I'll go unconscious from exhaustion before I die, to keep me from screaming at the top of my lungs for mercy. That's no way for a gleeman to go." He hoped this other figure stayed alive long enough for him to get a couple of slashes in before his death. "Ah well, I do always say the light favors the brave and the stupid. Shall we see which I am today?" With that, Nikolai broke into a run.
xxxx
The Glow entered Mentiri's True Sight, and it shown like a gorgeous golden figure running and dancing about in the darkness, singing. Its light affected all pitted blackness in his eye, and now even the most shadowed cracks and corners of Mentiri's vision were now a slight orange colour. It made him feel tender and warmth simultaneously alongside a damp death and corroded blanket of fear. He grasped at the golden sun, it's power sheerly maddening, trying to understand it's secrets, just as he tried all those ages ago.
"Why are you here, Mentiri?" Why am I here? In this spot of my life, trying to rid the world of...evil. The same stagnant spot as always. Mentiri sighed. Maybe you should end this insanity.
"Do you wish to take from me everything you somehow missed before?" I may have taken everything, everything but your life. Mentiri's hand felt an emotion to extend towards the tortured, lost Aiel, but his mind refused, thinking that she would probably just make him cripple as well as blind. He felt those deadly spear blades of hers wisp around without moving, remembering her cunning precision and mutilating charges. She stood close to Mentiri now, their bodies capable of friendly touch -as it once was- and still he felt her blades cutting the air apart around him. He said nothing still.
Her shining, golden eyes spat sparks, tiny little beams of light that flooded Mentiri's perceptions and pooled into the back of his mind, creating a well of guilt where he was asleep at the bottom, drowning. "If you wanted to die, Mentiri, you came to the right place, for before you stands the one being that can and will put a blade through your heart in a blink of the eye."
Lavenda, I have wronged you. I welcome your wrath.
Her blades moved closer to Mentiri's face, blazing with golden, searing hatred.
A tiny scratch appeared on Mentiri's cheek as his black eye band fluttered to the ground, and then...
Silence.
"We all bear scars, Lavenda."
