3 years. That was how long it had been since his initiation as Warden. Had it really been 3 years? It was certainly difficult to believe, especially when he had been having so much... Fun. Perhaps, a little too much fun, in the eyes of his colleagues.
Concerned. That was what the other members Order would say to him. Concerned that his job was, as they perceived, taking its toll on him. That maybe he was being a little too… Dedicated.
Obsessed. They thought he was obsessed. That he had developed a fixation with the dark and corrupt artifacts placed in the vault. They couldn't lie to him, no one could. Thresh saw right through their thinly-veiled attempts at being polite. No. They weren't concerned. They were never concerned. They were afraid. Of him.
It was plain for Thresh to see in the way they spoke to him, the way they carried themselves when around him, as if walking on broken glass. Such a curious mixture of both respect and fear. Then again, was there really a difference between the two?
He couldn't say that he blamed them. It was, simply put, not normal for someone to single-handedly have so much ease dealing with magical objects that were deemed too dangerous to remain in the open. The entire Order had been warned that a certain sickness lay upon such artifacts and relics, a darkness that existed only to torment and corrupt.
It was a job that was supposed to be difficult. It was supposed to be riddled with resistance and danger and hardship. And yet for Thresh, it was all so effortless.
Throughout the years, Thresh had kept privy to his methods of establishing control and order within the vault. When probed for how he managed to keep it all so very, very calm, the Warden's reply would always be ominously vague. He had his reasons for remaining tight-lipped.
His methods were, less than conventional, to say the least. Thresh thought about the mirror. Yes, one of his personal favorites.
It was a seemingly innocuous mirror, an ornate oval-shaped thing. But like all the other things in the vault, the mirror was locked away for good reason. Within it's glassy surface, resided the spirit of a man. An angry spirit, bound to the mirror by the sheer will of his hatred and malice.
There was never a moment where Thresh didn't feel like he was being watched. The gaunt, half-rotted figure would stare, vacantly and hauntingly with hollowed eyes at Thresh wherever he went. It taunted him. Challenged him.
Thresh welcomed the challenge. With a scythe in his hand, Thresh would scratch the mirror's surface with endless little lacerations. The spirit and the mirror were one, to damage one was to hurt the other. And scratch by excruciating scratch, Thresh made sure that it hurt, slowly marring the mirror's surface.
He would not stop until the entire mirror was covered in scratches, trapping the spirit in darkness. In silence. And then he would painstakingly polish the mirror until it was pristine and iridescent once again. It was, at the spirit's expense, a delightfully entertaining cycle, an assertion of the power he wielded.
Now that Thresh thought of it, the spirit trapped within the mirror never gave him trouble these days. He found it mildly disappointing, but it was not like the vault posed a lack of options.
Granted, his ways of establishing order and control were likely to be frowned upon by his morally uptight elders, but who were they to question the measures he took? Who were they to think that they could do any better? And moreover, what right did they have to judge him?
If everything under his watch was evil or corrupt in some way, how dare anyone judge him for exacting the appropriate punishments? Justice was, after all, what the Order stood for, was it not?
But they wouldn't understand. Their feeble minds would never understand. Thresh knew this. And that was why the sinister details of Thresh's system remained within the meandering stone tunnels of the vault, buried secrets locked away along with the rest of the relics.
As far as he was concerned, this was his job. His house, his rules.
And so deep in the heart of the citadel, Thresh had made a home for himself. A home where his reign went unquestioned, where everything was his to control. It was a home of isolation, a home that held no love, but to Thresh, it was perfection: A throne upon which he would sit, untouched by all things. And then came the day that the Order brought in the warlock.
There was something in the air that day that spoke of great promise. Thresh wasn't sure what it was, but he made sure to move swiftly, walking out of the winding citadel hallways accompanied by an elder in the Order, towards where the newest addition to the vault awaited them. A human.
It is often inherent in human nature to wonder about what could be, and Thresh was no exception to this. He was well-aware that his skillset could very well be applied to human subjects, actual living things that could feel and writhe and suffer, but he had never thought that there would ever be any living beings transferred into the citadel, it was simply unheard of.
"And why is this person being delivered to the vault again?"
"Because he's infused his own flesh with healing runes!" His elder panted as he tried to keep up with Thresh's long, brisk strides. "The amount of dark magic performed in that ritual violates at least 50 of our laws! Not to mention the existence of someone that can never be killed, simply unnatural! Magic of that kind is absolutely forbidden! Surely you of all people would understand why?"
Thresh stopped in his tracks, silent for a few seconds. "Yes. Yes in fact, I do."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"You meant exactly what you did."
The elder flinched slightly under Thresh's gaze. No need to pretend like you're sorry, He thought with disdain.
They soon reached the entrance, and Thresh took the moment to examine his newest charge. There wasn't much to observe, with the man wrapped, no smothered, in a layer of cloth, bound at both the arms and legs, a sack draped over the warlock's head. Thresh watched as the imprisoned warlock writhed furiously in his colleagues' grip. Like a worm on a hook…
"Amused, Thresh?" The head of the Order greeted him with a fond smile.
"Only slightly," He replied with a thin smile. "This warlock is to be my newest charge, yes?"
"Yes, that is correct."
"Regeneration from any wound..." Thresh murmured. Vivid images of splintered bones and massacred flesh played through his mind, stained scarlet with blood. He took a deep breath, and reigned the thoughts in.
"As you know, magic that defies the natural order of life and death is prohibited in the Isles. The warlock's success in pursuing such a venture has breached numerous, if not most of our regulations."
"At least 50, or so I've been told." Thresh cast a sideways glance at the elder who had accompanied him, indifferent to the way his colleague seemed to shrink under his gaze.
"Is that so? Perhaps you are right." Cyrill looked at his former apprentice quizzically before continuing. "As a sentence, the warlock shall remain under your charge indefinitely as a prisoner. The prisoner shall inhabit one of the chambers in the vault, you will find that the appropriate installments have already been made."
"And what happens in the event that the prisoner tries to escape?"
"That... is highly unlikely." Though Cyrill spoke evenly, there was something he was withholding from Thresh. It was as if... As if he didn't really think that the warlock was dangerous. Without further elaboration, Cyrill continued. "Ensure that the prisoner is provided with daily supplies and oversee the appropriate access to the hygiene facilities in the vault."
Food, daily supplies, access to the showers, even a whole cell provided for, it didn't seem like much of a sentence at all.
"This is a rather... Kind sentence, don't you think, Cyrill?"
"Our responsibilities lie with protecting knowledge. We are only meant to keep the warlock from spreading this form of magic. Contain, not detain." It made little sense to Thresh, but he didn't question it, watching as the members of the Order forcefully carried the figure into the vault.
"If I may be straightforward, Cyrill. This... Containment of which you speak. It is not exactly something the Order has concerned itself with before. Why couldn't the local prison take the warlock in?"
As the other members left, Cyrill turned back to look at his apprentice. "Thresh. It is, as they say, complicated..." The silver-haired man trailed off, implications weighing heavy in his tone. "But I believe, with good reason, that this person would be far better off in your hands, even if it might not be someone you expect."
Cyrill's departing footsteps soon faded to silence, and Thresh was left alone in the vault again. Well, not quite alone now, he thought as he glanced at the figure on the floor, still bound and cloaked.
"Are they gone yet?" Thresh blinked in surprise when he heard the warlock speak.
"Hey! I know you're there, you just spoke to Cyrill. Are your friends from the Order gone yet?" There was no mistaking it. The warlock… Was female.
"Yes. And they are not my friends."
"Oh, great!" With a surprising amount of ease, the figure picked herself up from the floor and shuffled into what looked like a more comfortable sitting position. Thresh made a note in his head to tell the other members that their binding skills needed work. "So… Mr I-Don't-Have-Friends, what's your name? I'm Amaranth."
She sounded so… Young. It was certainly not what he was expecting, much less her unusual name. In his head he had pictured a greying old man, a master of the dark arts with unimaginable power. Someone like… That mage. But that wasn't relevant.
His attention was on this strange young woman. She could heal from physical wounds, couldn't she? How was it even possible that someone could perform magic that surpassed even his knowledge at such a tender age?
Contain, not detain. Cyrill's words echoed in his head. It made sense now. The reasons for Cyrill's leniency with the warlock's imprisonment suddenly became blatantly obvious. This wasn't someone out to wreak chaos on the world with his invulnerability, no it certainly wasn't. This was no more than a child, thrust into confinement.
But how and why did she… It didn't matter. What mattered was that regardless of whether she was what he expected or not, she was his prisoner. He was the Warden. She needed to learn her place.
"My name is none of your business, warlock."
"Warlock? I'm not a warlock." She sounded offended. "That's my father."
"Father?"
"You know, the male that contributes to a person's biological existence by-"
Heavens, why had he even said anything?
"As shocking as it might be, I know what a father is."
"Someone's a grouch." She swayed about playfully in her seat as if to tease him. "Though I suppose given your age, that's sort of expected..."
"My age?"
"No need for denial, I've seen the 'Order of the Blessed Isles' type. Grey hair, wrinkled skin, missing teeth. If I were that old, I guess I'd be pretty grumpy too."
What the devil was this ridiculous woman talking about? He held no faith in greater entities, but yet he found himself praying with every fiber of his being that she wasn't usually this energetic.
"Then I regret to inform you my dear, that I fall terribly short of that description." He reached for the sack covering her head and pulled. Dark, raven hair spilled out to frame a very young, very stunned female face.
Thresh smirked. He was well-aware of the effect he could have on women sometimes, but was never truly bothered with affairs of the heart or physical desires. Such attachments and pursuits had always been rather mundane to him.
"Well, prisoner? Do I fit your... 'Type'?" He asked with a lazy grin as he fixed his gaze on her.
"I… Uh. You are not," She cleared her throat. "You're not what I was expecting."
"That makes two of us," Thresh muttered under his breath. Cyrill was right. How very unexpected indeed.
Author's Note: As mentioned before, for readers who have been following this story for some time, sorry for deleting all the previous chapters! I was largely unsatisfied with the pacing and some of the interactions in the story, but all the main events (no spoilers for new readers!) will remain the same. Mainly, I'm going to add more... scenarios (hint: semi-fluff, but Thresh-style of course. Nothing too cheesy for our beloved Chain Warden) that will hopefully make this a more enjoyable read. Bear with me, and we will most definitely get back to where we left off. I do hope you enjoy the rewritten chapters! To new readers, thank you for giving this fic a read, I hope you like it! Please leave a review about this chapter if there is something you liked or didn't like :)
