What can one do about pain that stays with them when they try to run away?
Ballard felt foul on the inside, like a wickedness seeded amidst his duty and prayers. He needed Neria to hold him until the evil slept.
The templar fell into a dream in which Neria was bound to be burned at the stake like Andraste. Arms fixed tightly behind her back and head hanging lifelessly. She raised her head but her swollen eyes remained closed. Branches sprouted menacingly from the wooden post and weaved around her as dried oak boughs. A golden snake slithered on the tethered mage and coiled tightly around her neck. Metal scales settled against skin and her bright green eyes shot open.
The withered branch nearest to her wavering body began to bear fruit, slowly at first, then rapidly one glistening red apple after the next. They shriveled into rotten clumps at Ballard's touch and fell from the tree. Neria begged him, wordless, as airy gasps escaped her lips.
Gusting wind blew dried leaves and dust around the two of them. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the stinging grit storm. A flash of lightning sliced through the gale revealing a figure standing behind him.
You witness evil in yourself and thus choose to see it in others when it is not there.
Ballard turned around and beheld Solona Amell, Neria's the best friend and constant companion in the Circle.
What have you done, Ballard? I hate you!
The woeful templar struggled to explain himself, but the words he spoke were not the phrases swarming in his mind; not closely resembling what he wanted to say at all. He was trying to tell her how he had begged for Neria's life but the Templar Order had forced him to hunt her down. He wanted to echo the Knight Commander's threats… but all he said to Solona was how disastrous and terrible she was. She was a wicked temptress deserving of the same fate as her treacherous friend.
She hated him? She had no idea what real hate was. Rage unconsciously clenched his fists. A rushing feeling that called him to action when he had seen Solona's seductive undertaking of his fellow templar recruit. He was not going to let Cullen fall prey to the mage's trap. He was deserving of so much more than just forbidden fruit; and so was Ballard.
It's alright, I'm in love with the king now.
She glided passed him, her robes wafting a foul scent as she went. Ballard's gaze follow her… Neria had vanished and a golden throne was in the place where she had stood. Solona turned and placed one hand atop the glimmering vessel, and as she did, she too turned to gold.
Ballard sat up in his bed. He was drenched with sweat but his cotton sheets were parched. Nightmares had plagued him fiercely every night since Neria had fled Kinloch Hold. He grew more anxious with every passing sunrise and now the day had finally arrived. Weakly rising from bed, he made his way across the sleeping chambers of the templar recruits. The stone floor chilled his feet. He walked briskly passed sleeping men, snoring and tossing in their beds, and approached a washing station. A small standing mirror and a stack of clean folded linens accompanied the vessel. Ballard splashed cool, refreshing water onto his face and sighed heavily as his eyes rose to meet his reflection.
The day had come… at dawn he would depart on his hunt for Neria Surana, the dangerous maleficar. He shut his eyes and thought of his elven lover. Soon his cock was hard and pressing against the seams of his smallclothes. Taking a deep breath, he reached for a cloth and dabbed it against his drenched face. Water dripped down his square chin and he inhaled deeply. He looked at the mirror, watching his large round nose fill with the stench unique to a men's sleeping quarters. The odour furrowed his thick eyebrows over his sunken brown eyes.
I wish this night could last forever.
But it wouldn't. He would be marched out the grand front doors of the tower as an example of templar resolve against the rising tide of mercy for mages. Knight Commander Greagoir had told him, those touched by magic could not be treated equal to the ungifted children of The Maker.
He fought back tears while his heart pumped blood from his nethers up to his head. He would hunt his lover and bring either her or her corpse back to the tower.
He would.
He would, or the Knight Commander would send someone far more cruel to do the deed.
He never wanted anyone else to feel this tormenting agony. He glanced over his shoulder at his sleeping comrades. His eyes searched in the dark, gliding from one recruit to another until his gaze fell on the man he sought; the hapless curly haired Cullen. Ballard had seen him wandering down the path of temptation. A blonde sojourn would gladly be his guide to doom. Solona Amell desired Cullen, and she would no doubt get what she wanted in time. Neria had taught her well.
Ballard vividly remembered a night in the library as he turned back to the mirror.
He was retrieving a satchel of dry white beans from a storage alcove when he spotted Cullen.
He guarded Solona familiarly in the library. She peered up from her tome and spoke,
"There may be trouble ahead for us, but I know you care. It's something about your eyes… amber eyes. I'll make you mine if you'll have me".
They had met after dark on many occasions to talk alone among the towering shelves of books. Half a dozen candles perched around the two of them. It allowed the perfect atmosphere for dreaming of a better tomorrow. Solona settled comfortably at a study desk resting her chin in her hand over a red book. The tome lay spread open to a center page.
"There'll be nothing but suffering for us", the templar stood over her and responded, placing an armoured hand gently on the desk alongside her. The mage dropped her arms and clasped his gauntlet, turning his palm up to cup her rosy cheek.
Ballard leaned on a mahogany bookcase listening to his fellow swallow hard in the dim candlelight. He knew Solona dreamed how things between them ought to have been. Cullen, however, held a more pragmatic point of view; realistic and difficult to accept.
Ballard and Neria were a severe truth that existed within The Circle. He knew this more than he would care to admit at the time.
The two of them had an undeniable spark, like a Fire Emblem flower bloomed, or rather it shriveled and lasted when dried. Preserved flowers from outside the tower had made a frequent appearance between the pages of Solona's spellbook. Dried flowers had been pressed within her grimoire as gifts from Cullen.
Perhaps Solona had misread the gesture? She spared no time in showing Cullen the beckoning contents of the Verus armor erotica.
"I know you care", she pleaded. Her hands released him and dropped to unfold the pages. This secret book, unlike her others, lacked vibrant orange petals among its crevices.
"I think we could be closer. I would give anything to have you do this to me", she pointed to a drawing. Cullen leaned forward to behold the lover's diagram and beheld the image for a moment before withdrawing from the table.
Ballard made a point to pass Cullen as he returned to his bed. One look at the young man's face planted a seed in his mind. He would tell the Knight Commander everything he had seen to spare Cullen a fate wrought with torture and heartbreak.
I don't want to. I don't. No.
He wouldn't.
Ballard's resolved faltered as he returned to his bed. He opened the lid of the seasoned trunk that held his templar gear.
Neria's smile and curved cheeks flashed into his mind one last time.
An early glimmer of sunrise danced through the stained glass windows of the sleeping quarters.
The day beckoned Ballard.
He glimpsed the lustrous beauty of the high window frame and imagined Neria's hair curling around her pointed ears.
Ballard turned back to Cullen and felt like his heart was bleeding into his chest. If the young recruit was spared the same sorrowful departure that awaited him, it would be worth it.
He would.