A/N : I wrote this ages ago, and posted it on sffworld. I have been completely absent from fanfic since then (We'll see how long this latest dabble lasts). Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. It's assuming a past relationship between Arkan and Sharma, as you can probably tell.
"I can not defend you much longer before the councils, elemental or bardic. You are dabbling in magery that I don't understand, Sharma." The winterking's voice was filled with infinite sadness, though his face was dark and implacable. "Magery that I don't think I want to understand."
The words cut into some piece of Sharma that still felt pain and love, leaving him with a raw feeling he had not known he could still have, after… after the act that he knew Arkan would despise him for, if he told him what he had done. He had not known it would feel this way, he had not known the endless torment that came when it was impossible to love, to feel grief.
It was so ironic, so terribly ironic, to think that he had done this for love. He had become this monster in some desperate hope that in his immortality, he could never be separated from the man he loved more than his own life, the Icewitch. Had loved. For Sharma knew now that he would never love again, and he felt only scorn looking at the Immortal across from him, the Immortal he had given up everything for. And Arkan would never know, never know that this useless sacrifice had been for him, for love, and not for the power or greed that now filled him, replacing true sentiments, true emotion.
Arkan would always hate him, for he would consider him as a stupid mortal, blinded by greed. And he had been blind, he had not listened to the masters who had taught him, who had warned him, but he had not been blinded by greed, no, never greed.
"You are weak, Arkan," Sharma laughed, his mocking voice a whisper in the icy palace. "I have explored farther the paths of magery than any bard alive, I have become the greatest bard that ever lived, for I have torn down the barriers of immortality itself. I am great as you, Arkan, great as any Elemental. I am worthy of you, if you will have me and share my power."It was a ridiculous thing to say, borne of the evil that had clouded his soul when he had cast off his Name, for now everything he said would be naught more than lies. But he could not correct it, for only evil could leave his mouth now, only twisted words, as twisted as his soul had become.
"You would not share your power with me, Sharma. You have forgotten what it is to love; you are but a shadow of your mortal self. I would not have believed you so power hungry, Sharma," The tenderness in the Winterking's voice hurt Sharma, as any love would, forever, because what he had traded his name for, he knew now, was not eternal life, but eternal torture.
Love twisted itself to hate in his mind, blackening his soul. It was not he who controlled his actions now, but the darkness inside him, and he realised that soon it would have hold of his feelings too, and the mortal Sharma, the man who had loved and felt the sun rise cold on his face in the Winterking's icy realm, would be dead. Dead in every way that truly mattered, except the one that would free him from this world, from this eternal misery.
"You have abandoned me, Arkan. No one can follow me along the path I lead, to glory and victory and absolute power, for I am the only one strong enough. I thought you might have the force, but I see you are as weak as the bard's council, and the rest of your kind." This time, the words seemed true to Sharma, and as the last vestiges of humanity left his soul, his transformation to Nameless One was complete. Never again would he love, or look upon the Winterking with tenderness. Those feelings were a strange memory of a past that no longer belonged to him, he who scorned humanity, and it's weakness.