"Welcome." Thus boomed thrice shadow's spectres. At their appearance, my attention shot to them immediately. Somehow, don't ask me how or why, perchance it was due to my accumilated experience from travelling the lands, I had, after all, seen both the beginning and end of far too many dark happenings, nontheless; I knew that I had walked into a trap.
The three shadows stood atop a stone altar, a platform which I could not get to for the great casm separating me and the girl from them. Them. Who were they? I could not say. But by the Heavens, their irridescent forms like perfectly pitch black stood as becons of, not evil, no, not that, yet some a thing undeniably cold. Ten feet tall judges of foreboding meaning. And they were looking at me.
"One of you has the seal." They boomed and mimicked eachother's voices like one great being. "Yet only one of you is required to fulfill the sacrifice." I shifted my right foot back, taking a battle stance as so many times before. Purely out of habit did I do this and went on to sneer, eager for their blood, that is, if they had any. Not until after I had struck this somewhat boastful pose of mine did I recall the fact that even if I wanted to, and Hell, did I ever, I could not touch them. My breathing came in fast, gushing out of me as if my heartbeat leapt, kicking me from inside, yelling: Leave! For Christ's sake get the hell out of here! But how could I leave? I was not alone.
The girl next to me once more assumed her whimpering cries and much to my heart's crush, she stepped closer, hiding off my shoulder. She wished protection of me. So then how could I leave? Whatever this sacrifice they spoke of entailed, I would have to face it for her. I could not let an innocent village girl come to harm while I, a practised Hero stood by to stop it. I groaned at my own predicament and I cursed Reaver under my breath, spitting his name at the ground in spite. The three-times-voice spoke anew and I looked defiantly on.
"Whom shall pay the price for the one known as Reaver? One of ye shall give up your youth and your beauty in exchange for his. Such is the deal." Between that of long, black bone, strapped and covered by a material imitating skin, a contract appeared at the clap of a shadow's hands. I squinted my eyes so as to see, and sure enough, there, aglow shone the name of Reaver.
"Oh, you son of a bitch." I hissed in scorn, air pressing out from between my teeth nigh cracking from the anger at my jaw. The girl screamed behind me and suddenly clung to my arm. Deathly afraid she cried:
"No! No please don't! I just want to go home! I want to see my parents! Please!"
"You!" The shadow's echoed, pointing to me. I raised my chin into the air at their mention. "Seal-bearer! You shall make the choice. The one who holds the seal shall pay us our due. You may give the seal to the girl. But you may also keep it for yourself. It makes no difference to us." I felt my throat close up. Give up my youth? I am but thirty years old! I spent a decade locked away in that infernal spire, longing for Charlie every waking moment and defying the commander every chance I got! Not a day went by in that place of nightmares where I did not think of my wife, my screaming banshee of a wife, and longed to lay by her side again. And now, finally home and free of those shackles, I must give up the time I have left and never see my girl become a woman!? And my beauty... I set free a dark smile at this thought as I stared hard at the seal, pulsating in my two hands. My beauty, huh? You would have that too? I should've known, I thought, that my vanity would come back to bite me in the ass one day.
"Make your choice, Little Sparrow." The voice of Theresa, my guide and seer, echoed in my mind, lending me her aid the one way she knew how. "But make it fast, time is running out. Be careful." She said. Her voice - old and dusting, as if cracking at its edges, it sounded weary from time. I sympathized with her then. "Should you hold onto the seal, it may age you permanently." I looked to the girl still clinging to my arm now. She was crying still. And at finding my gaze upon her, no doubt it scared her something awful for she screamed in terror, releasing me as she stumbled backwards. I frowned at this, holding out my hand in question at her. I had never heard an innocent scream so, never because of me. It broke my heart and maimed my until now solid pride. And then I cursed her too.
"Oh fuck you!" I shouted over the storm quickly building about the cave. A magical storm, I could tell, its winds were laced with enough energy to make my skin prickle. The seal was by now painful in my knuckle-whitening grip. "I don't even know you! To hell with you!" I held on, screaming in the magical gusts. The shadow judges mumbled incantations like rumbling thunder, similar to my favored element, tempting the storm ever more violent in its move. "Who the hell do you think I am!?" The girl screamed and cried harder, staring up at me like I was some monster. Perhaps I looked like it. My eyes were sure to look different, I bet. It took alot of work so as to force these pools of red light into anything remotely kind-looking. But in a rage? Man. I must have looked like a demon, standing there. "Just get out of here! Don't ever let me see you again! Go home!" The seal was by now glowing, burning me. And the storm blew strong enough to nearly knock me off the ledge and down that faithless casm beneath. The seal seemed angry, ferocious to the touch of a sudden and I knew what was coming next.
What scared me, to tell you the truth, was not the fact of the choice that I was making. I would pay the price in her stead. I would not live with such an evil deed seared to my mind. I would not do it. My ethics would not allow it. I would not be myself if I had! But this is not what frightened me to death and shamed me beforehand. No. It was the fact that I so badly wanted to give the girl the seal in my place, thus keep my youth and my beauty and go home to my family. I wanted to do it. It was utterly irresistable to do so and I can honestly say that I know not how I resisted the temptation. I have no idea.
The seal shocked me. Sending powerful force - Will - concentrated floods of the stuff into my system. I fell to my knees and I screamed at the ceiling. Howling in pain as my time was up. Vaguely, I noticed the girl looking curiously to me, seeking my eye.
"H-Hero?" She whimpered, reaching for me amongst the storm. I'm pretty sure that she must have had a death grip round the stone pillar to her side. She was far lighter than I was and I was sure as hell slipping and sliding like newyear's eve. She leaned for me, trying to grab me, save me, I assume. But I stopped her. Fearing what might happen should she touch me now, I summoned my strength, tainting it by rage and yelled at her over my shoulder.
"GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" And the girl, well, she screamed anew. A sound like steel, cutting through flesh, it pierced my head, pushing my own pain to greater heights. For what she saw was a sight most spine-curling. My skin, ere now so smooth, a-lighted by wondrous blue patterns of my magic gleaming beneath, beautiful, most fair of all they called me, it quickly dried and assumed a hideous pose of deep-set grooves and fores, aging me for her to see. My cascading, golden hair was suddenly not so easy on the eye anymore and I could see the effects of the Shadow Court's work unfolding before me by how it blew in front of my face. Gold fading to gray. A dusty, bone-gray with not a speck of gleam left. I howled in grief for my vanity's lashing out in punishment for my fickle heart. And lastly, a sensation like that of an explosion went off in my chest and I screamed no more.
The lights of the sorcery vanished simultanious to my silence and all was still. I collapsed. Or I would have, I mean, I have some pride left even as an old man, you know? I braced myself, gasping, on all four, dropping the seal at last. And this is how I remained. Staring down at my wrinkly, dotted and wretched hands like talons clawing into the dirt, my grieveous moans mixing with my eyes far too dry to cry. I mourned the discovery of finding my body weak, my eyesight a blur. What have I done?
"Very well." The shadow's said afresh, their voice reminding me once more of this to be no dream but a choice I was conned into by one, soon dead man. "The price has been paid in full. But when the sacrifices cease, we will come for Reaver." Without further a due, the shadows vanished and all was still. Silence. Save for the pathetic whine sounding from me. My fingers raked the dirt beneath and they faced my hate-fueled glare.
"Reaver..!" I growled. The dirt seemed to mimic his laugh then to my anger. His smug face. His condecending smile. His scoffing posture. His Treachery! With a feral growl, my head snapped to the side, my eyes wide with fury as I sought the girl, spared by my hand. But she was gone. My mouth fell slack for a second as I found myself completely alone and left to my fate inside the dark, desolated cave. In a moment of madness, I guess, I looked for her everywhere. But no. She was gone. And I was a fool for thinking that she would stay by my side to thank me. She had been through hell. Not anywhere nearly as hot as my hell, however! I braced my hand to my knee, hissing in strain as I forced myself; Stand! I stood. And my chest heaved with rage, my breath flaring my nostrils and I knew there to be perdition's flames to my eyes. Renewed wrath found me and made home in my soul, my first true corroption through a selfless deed was upon me and I threw my head back and I roared a bestial hymn of redemption. "REEEEAVEEER!" The walls shook with my cry.