Someone was screaming…
"No! No! Don't take him away, please!"
A child was crying…
"Aaran! Run!"
Screaming, someone was holding her back…
"…rena…rena…" Someone was calling her name…
"RENA! RENA!" Someone was screaming her name.
Rena's eyes bolted open to see Xerxes, pale as a sheet, hovering over her face. "Xerxes?!"
"Master in trouble! Master dying!" Xerxes kept yelling twitching every which way like a rat trapped in a cage. "Need help! Need help!"
Rena sat upright and quickly got to her feet. "What do you mean he's dying? Where is he Xerxes?"
Like a shot, the flying eel zipped through the air and out the door, the copper-haired girl running after him. As she ran she could hear screams resonating from the halls, an eerie echo of a tormented soul. She followed him to Mozenrath's chambers where she found mamluks guarding the door, the zombie faces seeming nervous showing even they were concerned.
As she opened the door she could see a dark figure thrashing and wreathing on the bed in the room, screaming in agony as he held his right arm, the flesh purple and black more so then usual.
"Mozenrath!" She exclaimed, quickly moving towards him but dodging as an object, a book, sailed past her head, just missing her.
"GET OUT!" He screamed, still clutching his arm, letting go only to throw more things at her. "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
Despite the random objects being vaulted at her head Rena moved closer still to the bed. As she did so her breath caught in her throat as the stench of rotting flesh filled the air. The smell, most foul, coming the stump of flesh that shifted to bone of his right arm. On the bed was black with blood turned rancid and rank, small chunks of flesh here and there from where it had fallen off his arm.
The curse of the gauntlet was worsening.
Without much thought and a burst of energy she shot to his bedside, tearing at the sheet, yanking it out from under him; tearing it to shreds.
"What are you doing?! I told you to leave!" He screamed at her, grabbing for her only to reel back in pain.
Rena took a strip of the sheet and grabbed at his rotting arm. "I will once I get the bleeding stopped."
Mozenrath reeled back, "Don't touch me! I don't need you!"
She reached again. "Yes you do, I can help you!"
"NO ONE CAN HELP ME!" He screamed in her face, eyes filled with pure hatred which made her freeze in place for a moment or two. She held his gaze a moment before narrowing her eyes right back at him and grabbing his stump of flesh, ignoring his outcry as she started to quickly tie and bandage it, the wound seeming to instantly soak with blood. The smell made her want to vomit but she kept wrapping even when he clawed at her arms and shoved at her, demanded she release him and leave.
As the minutes passed he began to still, becoming limp on the mangled bed and simply watching her as she kept tearing up strips and removing and rewrapping his hand once the bandaging became too soaked. When the smell had subsided and the bleeding had stopped, Rena finally stopped to evaluate the situation. The room was torn to shreds, torn sheets and strips all over the bed and bloody rancid strips all over floor, pillows were torn with their feathery insides on every surface. On the bed a sweat, drenched, half naked man, fading in and out of consciousness with his fishy minion fluttering to and fro above him.
"Master better?" Xerxes whimpered, looking down at the pale and bandaged man.
Rena slipped a curl of hair over ear and sat up some, wiping sweat from her brow. "Yes, Xerxes. He should be fine now."
"Curse getting worse. Much worse…"The eel whined, looking nervous. "Master use too much magic too quickly."
"I see…" She said softly, looking the slender man over silently. He was exhausted, finally passed out and flailed out like a fish. She carefully got up and moved about the room, cleaning up what she could for the night and making plans for the rest of it tomorrow. Grabbing an extra blanket she covered the sleeping man, placing a hand to his forehead which was cool and clammy to the touch. She wiped his face clean of sweat and sat in a chair next to his bedside. Keeping an eye on him through the night.
Mozenrath woke with a start, jerking awake, his eyes shot open. He looked about frantically, letting recognition sink in that he was still in his own bedroom, though several things were different from the way he'd originally left them such as the bedsheets were torn to shreds, wads of them on the floor stained with blood, several pillows were destroyed, the room seeming to be covered in a gentle layer of goose down, and a woman, familiar, dressed in her usual sleeping tunic, slumped in a chair by his bed fast asleep.
He sat up, holding his head with his right, boney hand, taking a deep breath. The memories of the night before…of extreme pain and anger coming slowly back to him. He looked down at his arm, staring hazily at it.
Shifting one knee up he moved to lean back against the cool wall that his bed was pressed up against, eyeing his boney appendage. Gently, he undid the wrappings Rena had tied on it, revealing skin attempting to heal fading into bruised and rotting flesh and shifting then into bone, the creamy white of the marrow showing he'd lost at least two inches of flesh that night. At this rate, his whole arm would be gone within half a year easy.
In frustration he threw the blood encrusted wrappings across the room, the end of it flapping in the breeze like the tail on a kite.
…he remembered kites…
Laughing, playing, a smiling child looking at him happily, calling his name to come and play.
He looked down at his rotting arm in putrid disgust, muttering softly. "One must make sacrifices in order to become great."
Rena shifted in her chair, sighing lightly. Mozenrath watched her sleep for a moment.
She'd come to him. When he was in such dire pain and there was nothing she could do still, she'd come and refused to leave. He could still see her face, determined and unyielding as she tore his linens to shreds and bound the wound despite his demanding her to leave.
She really was a horrible slave…
The dark haired young man shifted to sit up, letting his bare feet touch cool stone. He took it slow like usual for morning after a "rotting session" as he liked to call it but this time, surprisingly, he wasn't nearly as lethargic and weak as he usually felt. He moved to a standing position and found himself quite solid on his feet which brought a smirk to his face as he moved over to his servant and gently lifted her out of her chair and into his arms and deposited her on his bed. She remained asleep and seemed to curl up in the spot he once occupied, nuzzling into it like a kitten in a sunny spot for an afternoon nap. He couldn't help the smirk that crossed his face as she sighed again, happy in her dreams. It was there that he left her, grabbing his work tunic and waking Xerxes quietly before heading off to the lab.
He'd kept her up all night with his torment, the least he could do was let get sleep in…until he got hungry that is…