Chapter 11: The love I have lost
Here we are once again, I suppose it's finally time to tell the world what Carmine's REAL goal was, I mean I kinda gave it away in the last chapter but it can't be that clear already….I think.
"Who are you!? What exactly is Carmine doing here!? And where on the PLANET has he been for the past week!?" The man with the flask grimaced at the headmaster's furious line of questioning "Easy Ozzy boy….it don't work like that okay? I tried to warn you about my nephew but...well it seems after that little incident it's already too late, the boy's doomed now."
"DOOMED!? What are you talking about?! Was it that, that thing that grabbed him? Is he in danger? ANSWER ME DAMMIT!" Carmine's uncle Sanguine took a good long look at the flask in his hand...then he scowled and tossed it his mind clear for the first time since his birth. "I can't say much but I can say that he's okay, if anyone needs to be worried, I'd say it's them."
He pointed up at the floating coliseum, Ozpin's face darkened "What's going to happen?" Sanguine shrugged "Not my job to know, but when it does happen, you better hope to god's that Carmine is here to stop it."
/
Carmine woke from his sleep and stretched out yawning, he pushed the green blanket off and stood walking over to his chest, he waved his hand over the lock and muttered the proper password, a blue spark jumped from his hand and a loud Click! signaled the lock's release.
He grinned and pushed open the lid and grabbed his elven cuirass, lifting the gilded moonstone up he slid the loose armour over his shoulders, he pulled on the leather straps and tightened up the chest piece, a small switch bolted the piece in place as tiny dwarven mechanisms adjusted and tightened, fitting the piece exactly to his form, he smiled "Innovation, never gets old." he leaned down and pulled out his gauntlets which he fit smoothly over the fabric sleeves of the cuirass flexing his hands into fists and then open palms again.
He finished with his boots and grabbed his helmet and sword from a weapon stocked shelf a few feet away and put them on, he quickly inspected himself in the mirror and tied the usual knot in his beard before grinning to himself and walking out. He pushed open the bedroom door and walked towards the front of the manor grabbing a sweetroll of the table as he passed by, he pushed open the heavy wood double doors and chomped into the sugary roll as he walked outside, in front of him was the most beautiful view in the Summerset Isles, the humble wooden manor was placed on a flat mountain side plateau overlooking a forest of golden leaves, the sun shone brightly down illuminating the sparkling blue ocean beyond.
He breathed in deeply stretching out his arms, his eyes shot open suddenly when a swift movement snatched the roll out of his hand and he whirled around his hand going to his blade. Shing! A curved silver dagger pressed to his throat and he froze his golden eyes gleaming in anticipation, matching perfectly with the broad smile on his face "Please! Take me but spare my sweetroll!" a laugh rang out making his heart cartwheel in joy at the pure music of the sound.
His beloved smiled brilliantly, her teeth shone like pearls against her fair skin, her lustrous snow white hung in a braid down her back and the side of her face and her eyes, they were cheery and light but at the same time held a fierce mettle in their emerald pools, a man could drown in those eyes before he realized all of his belongings were gone and he was facing the sky.
"So when did you hear me?" she raised a snowy brow and pulled the blade away sheathing it at her hip, the high elf shrugged with an innocent look on his face "Hear you? Whatever do you mean madam? I heard naught of your regal approach." his voice deepened into his 'pompous noble tone' as he called it as he bowed low, those perfect lips pouted in a way that made him want to kiss her so badly.
"Yes yes Mr. Prince of Apocrypha, now when did you hear me?" Carmine's face became even more innocent to a state one might call angelic "Only when I was putting my gauntlets on." she giggled exuberantly and threw her arms around him pulling him into a kiss, for a Snow Elf she had quite the talent for making him melt. She pulled away still smiling "You're the worst, the most immature old man I have ever come across."
It was his turn to pout now "Who are you calling old? I seem to recall you having a few decades on me yet." A punch rattled his shoulder and he gripped it laughing as the goddess in front of him chomped into his sweetroll her eyes sparkling with a playful sort of warning "I can still kick your hide there spellboy."
"And don't I know it, you never let me forget." she gasped with a look of mock horror "Why on earth would I let you forget our first date!?" the pair grinned slyly then burst out laughing like two giddy children.
"OI! Lovebirds!" the elves turned to see their band of merry comrades, two high elves, an imperial and even an orc who was leading the group up the to the manor. Carmine sighed and put his arm around his wife's shoulders who leaned her head against him fingering the hexagonal locket at her neck "Rog! How goes the recruiting old friend!?"
The orc's smile was grizzly and fanged "We got a young boy off his farm! Take a look!" the group stepped aside to reveal a terrified looking black haired breton in iron armor, he stepped forward and spoke with a steady voice that contradicted entirely his appearance "A pleasure to meet you sir, I'm-"
"Have you any training?" Carmine interrupted raising an eyebrow, the youth spluttered not expecting the disruption "I-I-I-I…...no..no I don't." the high elf sighed "Well until you learn how too-"
"Relax dear." his beloved smiled and pulled away to take a look at the boy "He can learn next job, we can just say he has training and teach him on the fly, it's not like you're big on the truth Mr. I'm only forty-three."
"I am though." he frowned and she laughed again making him smile "Only if you remove the pair of zeros behind that number." she walked forward and kissed him on the nose with a sly look on her face "Now go play with your chemistry set spellboy, I can handle the work for today." Carmine laughed heartily "As you wish milady." she smiled and drew her dagger twirling it as she headed down the path talking to the new recruit. The elf turned towards the house smiling….that was the last time he'd ever see her alive…..
/
"Hello?" Carmine scowled as he raised the orb of light higher in his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on Misery as he stepped deeper into the tomb. The halls shone silver in the light, slimy green mold covering the floor, each step caused a squelching noise to echo through the ruin, a myriad of carvings lined the walls stained and blackened by centuries of decay. Carmine spent a lot of time in his father's library and even he had not yet come across anything of their like, they spiraled and twisted, forming monsters and men, zig zagged into jagged lines then flattened entirely forming images of seemingly useless plants and furniture with no relation to the previous wall….his uncle Sheo would have loved it.
"Hello?" he spoke uncertainly, he had been expecting resistance of some kind, skeletons or ghosts, even a lich, but there was nothing….just silence, and in his experience silence meant either he had already killed everything….or something wanted to kill him. He froze suddenly as a squelching noise ahead alerted him, he put his centuries of thievery to use and vanished into a shadowy alcove dowsing his candlelight, only one person in the world had a chance of finding him in stealth, and she was somewhere in this tomb.
He gripped his sword tightly as the noise got closer….and closer….a shambling of rough leather and metal could be heard….closer….closer….a grunt sounded, could be a lich….closer….and….. "Rog?" Carmine said surprised as his old comrade revealed himself and he sighed relieved….then he tensed again as he saw the blood.
The orc's green chest piece was rent with a massive hole, blood matted his face, a red haze revealed the last vestige of a berserker rage, he leaned on his left leg, a jagged bone could be seen poking out of a wound in his other leg. His figure tilted forward and he groaned in pain, Carmine was at his friend's side in a flash catching his musclebound frame and lowering him to the ground "Rog! What happened!? Where is she!? Rog!? ROG!?" the warrior looked up at the altmer with empty eyes "I….I…." Carmine leaned in "WHAT!?"
"I couldn't….save…..ssssseeee…...you…..later." the orc slurred his last words, then slumped in his brother's arms. "Rog? Rog!? No, no no no nononononononono, NO!" he set down the corpse and bolted down the halls abandoning all caution, he rounded the corner to see the cause of his peril, a horde of skeletons crowded in the narrow passageway, Carmine screamed enraged and unleashed a wall of lighting disintegrating the skinless fiends, he barreled through their remains screaming…. "AAAAARRRRRYYYYYYAAAAAAA!"
/
The ash smoldered around him…...croaks emitted from the few bone draggers still partially intact as they tried to desperately escape his sight with their melted limbs and shattered heads…..but he didn't care….none of them mattered….destroying them would change nothing…..she was gone…...Arya….was gone.
He cried silently as he kneeled over her form, she lay there in front of him, her arms and legs spread, eyes once glowing with a love for the world….blank. Her fingers gripped tightly to her dagger, the blade covered in powdered bone, she went down fighting, her white falmer armor scarred and wrent. A skull clutched in her other hand was shattered and dented, she'd beat them to oblivion with one of their brethren's own heads.
And that smile….she had that sly smirk on her face….the one she always wore in victory….her last victory now….within this tomb….there was not a trace of the other's, he didn't want to know where their fates lay now, and he cried at the injustice that he could not take her with him, old magic held these halls, no dead may exit so as to prevent the monster's from leaving, not even he could break a charm like that.
One of his tears fell from his face and dropped onto the gleaming knife, it stained the metal, and that stain would stay there, a single speck of sorrow, until the day he died. The room was wide around him, a large raised platform stood in the center, he picked up his love, and carried her to it, raising her there he placed Arya there face up. He folded her arms across her chest and straightened her legs, he delicately pried her dagger out of her cold hands, he unclasped her locket from around her neck and and carefully slid her wedding ring off her finger. He held the items close to his heart for a moment….then he tucked them away and stood, he raised his hands and he casted his magic upon her, a transparent square of ice froze underneath her, it grew and raised her up to waist height, it stopped there and froze around her, forming a coffin of the stuff…a nearby stone flew from the ground and cracked and grated as words carved themselves into the rectangle, he stepped back and bowed his head.
In front of him was now a perfectly shaped rectangular prism of clear ice, Arya lay within frozen...completely preserved for all the world to behold, and the stone tablet lay on top, and Carmine read the words aloud,
"Here lies my friend…
My lady in white….
Here lies my wife….
The love of my life….
Here lies my joy….
The mother of my boy…."
He became aware of a hand on his shoulder, he didn't even turn his head to see him, his father spoke quietly, in the same voice he used when he witnessed his own wife's death so many years ago "Mother? But you didn't have….oh my boy, oh Carmine, I'm so sorry." Carmine turned to see his father, long dark haired and inky green eyed, but otherwise his face a perfect but weary mirror of his son's. Carmine hugged Hermaeus tightly, and he cried….he sobbed….he mourned…
/
Carmine awoke in his father's arms, not his tendrils, not his claws or his grip….his arms, the same arms that held him on that day so long ago, just as they held him then, they held him now. "Son….is this why you accepted? Because you thought there might be some device on this planet that could….?" Carmine was silent for a minute, then he responded quietly "Yes….but...I think…...I think I'm done, it just….it hurts…"
His father pulled away grasped him by the shoulders "That's because you're alive." the dragonborn frowned confused, then he noticed the rhythm. Familiar, yet one he'd lived without ever since he met a monster named Harkon….his heart was beating, and he was a mortal again….his eyes grew moist again and he hugged his father tightly….then the world shook.
So….yeah, give me a sec…...I have to be perfectly honest…...I started to cry a little while I was writing this chapter…..this is….well, this is going to be the second last one…..I hope you liked it and stuff….well, all good things must come to an end, so watch for the end.