He felt as though he was drifting down an endless stream where if he stayed everything would be fine.
Here there were no light or noise or laughter or cries.
No fingers to thread through his own.
No scars on his chest and back; ever reminders upon his body of the crime he committed and the hate his home held for him. A warning for him never to return.
No icy cold in his chest, demanding to be let out every second of the day. A threat that had become such a constant it was near just a nagging itch in the back of his head.
Here there were nothing that could hurt him.
Here he was home.
He sighed. The mere sound was like thunder to his ears before it disappeared. Swallowed by the eternal darkness surrounding him. The eternal bliss of nothingness. Of no worries or regrets or people who wished him dead.
This was what he could gain. This was what they could give him if he returned.
His eyes opened. His vision adjusting to the dark.
There were faint shifts in the dark barely visible to the untrained eye; Peculiar shapes and forms. Some he recognized. Others he did not.
He thought of them as weird.
They thought of him as stubborn. As something that should not exist but did it anyway. Something that should have died but still lived under false pretenses.
He understood. He knew.
They knew as well. They knew what he was and who he was and what he desired in the deepest and darkest parts of his should-be-still heart.
They could show him what they knew. Help him see the truth of the secrets forgotten and alive.
Secrets that never should see the light.
He blinked as they reached for him.
Once.
Twice.
Then his chest exploded. Old and ancient magic forced its way out through his skin as it awoke, ripping his chest open as a horrible display of magic and blood mixed together.
So cold. So horrible. It hurt so bad. Killing him. Tearing him apart.
Whispers of ancient curses rushed through his veins, out through his chest. Shadows of the past danced at his vision's edge as the shadows took shapes; a dynasty of kings and queens all suffering beneath the curse lain upon them. Their shapes barely whispers as they passed him by. Their bodies nothing but dust and bones in the passing of time. Suffering by the hand of the ancient magic. The curse lain by Him and Them and everything He did and It caused.
They wanted him to know the truth behind all the lies told but none of them knew them fully.
Just fragments.
Always fragments.
Nothing full. Nothing complete.
He did not understand and neither did they.
He tried to breathe.
The air was too thick. It did not reach his lungs.
He tried to clutch his throat but found he had no body of his own. No arms to use or legs to bend. No beating heart or mouth to scream. His existence was gone and yet here he was. Floating. Existing. Watching magic and blood burst from the chest he did not have. Watch it mix and create displays he did not understand. Crating enchanting whispers of a language far forgotten from the world. Showing him things he wished never to relive and things he did not understand.
He felt tears fall where tears should yet felt none to the trail they should have left behind.
He did not wish to relive this but there they were; his mother and father laying dead on the ground where they had fallen by his hands. Their blood near burning against the snow as it left their bodies. Burning on his skin where it dripped from his fingers.
Eyes empty, mouths open in a mimic of the screams that had left their lips before their last breaths had been taken. His mother's hand still outstretched in a last desperate attempt to try to reach him in time before he had caused her untimely death.
He did not want to see it. He did not want to look. He did not want to remember.
They understood. They made them change. They made him change. Made him bigger. Made him stronger. Made him into someone else. Someone old. Someone powerful. Someone ancient. Someone wrong.
They let his parents' familiar bodies becoming strangers before his eyes. Changed them. Made them smaller, different, lighter, weird. All colorful and feathered. He did not recognize what they were.
Women and men and children. Like humans but not.
Dead. Countless of them slain, fallen to what was nothing but a pure massacre.
No mercy.
Show them no mercy.
A near perverted enjoyment filled him as he watched them lay before his feet and bled on the ground among strange artifacts and buildings with patterns which like he had never before seen.
He felt his body but it was that of a stranger. Solid and strong. Clad in ancient armor he only barely recognized. The sword in his hand dripped with their blood whilst powerful dark magic rushed through his veins.
He needed blood. He needed them to die.
He was breathing heavily as he tried to adjust to his new and strange form. It was not his and that freaked him out. He was a stranger to himself and did not know who or what he was and the whole thing was scaring him and yet...
And yet…
And yet…
It was familiar.
Wrong and strange, of course, but something he understood. Somewhere... Deep inside him.
A calling to kill. A calling to end them. To right what was wrong. To end their dynasty. To end their people. To make their empire crumble to dust. To watch their blood soak the ground and hear their dying screams. Watch the light disappear from their eyes as they would take their dying breaths.
To help satisfy It.
It wanted him to do it.
It demanded him to.
He did not understand but he did not need to; His new body did and that was all he needed. He did not go against it when it moved on its own, turning to where he heard the faint whimper of one of the human-like creatures.
Nothing but disgust and pity filled his veins as he watched the figure, too small to be anything but a child, try to drag themselves away from him; even as blood gushed from its wounds and it barely had a chance at making it far.
It scared him when he found he did not care for its misery. That he felt no pity towards it, even as its cries increased when it reached one of the adults, trying to shake the being as tears were running from its eyes as its cries grew desperate, like a child calling its mother as it tried to awaken her, not understanding she were no more.
He found the sight pleased him and that made him afraid and still it did not, for his body did not care. His body felt no empathy and so neither did he.
His walked to it slowly, calmly. The sword in his hand burned against his gauntlet, calling for blood as it came down on its leg; burying the blade deep into the ground, through flesh and bone, pinning the child to the ground with no means of escape.
Its scream of despair and pain was near music to his ears.
A blood-chilling smile split his face as he watched the terror form on the child's face.
His foot landed on its head. Pressing it into the ground even as the child's eyes met his own, showing nothing but horror and death for they both knew how this ended. Still the child screamed desperately. Wiggling and fighting against him; its tiny hands clawed against his boot in a try to get him off; desperately clawing against the metal to remove the growing pressure as he forced his foot against its skull.
He enjoyed the sight; How it fought and wiggled, ripping its own leg apart against his blade, how its screams intensified and its blood colored the ground. How its fighting was getting more and more desperate as it fought for its life.
His satisfaction grew to near perverse levels when finally his boot crushed its skull with a sickening wet crunch, forcing its body into spasms before finally laying still.
His tongue licked its blood off his lips where a few drops had landed.
The near perverse satisfaction of its demise left him in near blind bliss and yet it was not enough.
Not enough...
He took back his sword and turned to look, only to find another of the creatures watching in horror at the display.
Another child.
A little girl.
Jack blinked. His new body did not.
He recognized it. Somehow… Its eyes…
He had seen them before, and yet-
His thoughts disappeared as his strange body moved, intent clear. Another victim. Another pleasure. The silver adorning its unnaturally colored hair made this one special. Made this one one he would have fun with for long. To use to satisfy himself with in whatever perverse way he would want before he would kill it like the rest of its people.
It ran and he pursued. The hunt being on and he was going to win.
He wanted it. He wanted to take it and rip it apart limp for limp. To watch it squirm in pain and horror as it would be subject to his own perverse fantasies.
So small… So fragile… So weak… So easy to abuse.
He caught up to it with ease. His hand nearly close enough to grab its hair.
He could already taste the victory. How its skin would taste on his tongue. How it would scream when he would break its body and spirit before cutting its throat and skinning it alive.
His hand touched its hair but closed around nothing as the child disappeared in an explosion of magic. Knocking him down, crushing his armor, destroying the buildings around him, letting debris rain down upon him. Crushing him. Destroying him. Burying him alive as it all changed, morphed, gathered as the vision disappeared and cut its tie to his mind. Made them two instead of one as one died and the other came free. Giving Jack back his mind and emotions and the disgust and horror and fear he had truly felt but had not been allowed when in the body of the stranger.
He had no time to gather himself before everything changed again. The debris becoming something else. Something strange. Something dark. Something ancient.
He did not understand.
It was taking form; Dark and ancient and dangerous and forbidden and wrong. Like black smoke but like water as well. Unable to take a form. Unable to exist as more than a whisper of a figure. Unable to show itself truly.
Much too powerful still and too evil for this world. Only kept back by unseen forces.
It demanded and it sought and it yearned and it wished to claim.
Free but trapped and dead but still living.
It was glowing; Desperately trying to take shape.
He could not look away. It demanded him. Wanted him. Owned him.
Unable to explain why.
He had never seen it before, and yet-
There was something about it. Something he recognized. Something inside him calling for it and for him and for everything and it was ancient and strong and strange and he did not understand.
It wanted him closer. It wanted him to come.
Its shape had not yet been formed and while something inside him longed to get to it – to touch, to feel, to succumb to its power, his mind was screaming and fighting against the fascination the wrong made him feel.
Wanting him to kill.
It wanted the last of the blood.
It desired him to give it to it. To pay the price of what the First received.
He could not look away even as the shapeless shadow came too near; stealing the breath from his lungs, the thoughts from his mind, the life from his veins, the warmth from his heart.
It wanted him to fulfill the deal. It wanted him to kill. Like the one before him.
Like the First who promised to set it free.
It wanted him to use the gift. It wanted him to allow it free and it would help if he did as he should and fulfilled the deal and all he had to do was give it the blood. Slay the last of the People. Make its screams fill the air like music and let its blood paint the ground.
Just slay it. Just let it suffer. It is not human. It is not worth living. It is nothing but a pest in the world from a time long forgotten.
And then when its throat was cut and its blood had been spilled, he would have fulfilled the deal when he would return and set it free.
But he did not understand. He did not know of what it spoke. He did not know what it was or where it was and what the deal was it mentioned.
It understood. Time had not been gentle to its memory. Time had made the People forget. But it could help, it said, as its form was finally starting to take shape, to show edges and details and colors and tried to be real while absorbing his energy and the magic and blood still spilling from his chest. Using it to take a form. To gain power.
It could make things right. Make things how they were supposed to be.
How, Jack wondered, stuck in a trance whilst his body dissolved, his mind blank for any thought of escaping the evil before him. To get away before he would disappear from the world and be no more.
He waited and listened for an answer but none came as the evil was pushed away by a much more powerful source; It screamed and it fought and it demanded to stay, and it clawed and it bit and it tore his body apart as its shapeless form washed away like water slipping through one's fingers as a hand lay itself upon his chest, making the explosion of blood and magic come to an end and force the evil away before it could take shape and settle and be real.
His mind was as drawn out of a fog, seeing the world around him for the first time again, no longer filled with emptiness and evil thoughts.
Long eternities passed before his body finally was complete anew and he finally could feel the body behind his own, holding him in a tight embrace. Even longer did it take before he could look down upon his chest and see a pair of petite hands tightly lay upon his scar where blood and magic still threatened with spilling, and where he could feel the hands send strange magic through him.
He wished to turn to look upon the owner of the hands alas something told him not to. Something inside him forbade him from doing it. That it would end horribly were he to do so just yet.
He felt not afraid. He felt no dangers. Not with the hands upon his chest nor with the dark silence around them nor had he done it when the evil had been there, trying to suck out his life to regain its own.
The voice from the stranger behind him was gentle when it told him not to look upon her – for it was a her, that he could hear all too clearly. She wished for him to stay a while longer until his mind would be his own and not belong to the shadows still trying to reach him. The words of his language fell strange from her lips as were she not used to speak the near rough patterns it offered.
He wanted to know who she was.
It did not matter, was what she told him.
Gentle. Light. Soft. Angry. Hateful. Devastated. Shaken. Her voice being a peculiarity and one he knew he had heard before but could not quite recognize.
Questions escaped his lips – so many he barely even knew where to start. He wished to know what this place was, what the sights meant, what the voices wanted, what the Evil had been, what it meant with 'deal', and who she was to control it all.
She ignored him by letting his questions fall for deaf ears as she asked him some of her own.
Were they alive? Were they happy? Did they ever speak of her?
He blinked again as a faint hint of surprise settled upon his face as he realized who she meant.
The nod he gave was slow while he told her they were alive and well but that he did not know who she was. They had never mentioned her.
Something else had, he realized, but his mind declined to provide him with the necessary memories to make such a claim verbally.
Long moments passed before he heard her sigh and felt her hands on his chest tighten. Her head rested against his back and the faint flutter of her eyelashes tickled his skin as her eyes closed.
A question for her name escaped his lips.
Again she told him it did not matter and asked how he had ended up here.
He did not know, for truly he did not. It was no lie. He remembered walking. He remembered the city and his companions. He remembered a tavern with people after a long day. He remembered someone yelling and something crashing into his body and how he found himself floating among shadows and darkness and magic.
A huff of air escaped her lips, tickling his backside as she spoke a language far forgotten from the world, so foreign from that of his own.
He asked what she was saying but she spoke no answer to him. Instead she told him to never come back. To stay away from this place and let her go for she was lost and unable to be saved for she was no longer her own.
He did not understand for she was the one clinging to him. She was the one who had sought him out. Who had helped him.
Twice, he remembered.
He told her so, and he could feel her breath against his back as she sighed and admitted she had.
It meant nothing. He had merely been in need for her help.
Dreams were dangerous. Dreams contained spirits. Dreams contained hidden truths and secrets did one stray from the paths as he had; floating along the rivers, allowing the spirits and memories of forgotten pasts to reach him as he drifted by.
Again he understood nothing of what she meant. This world was strange and she even more so.
She was more strange than what he thought her to be.
He frowned as he heard her words in his mind without her having moved her lips.
What was she? What did she mean? Why would she not allow him to look upon her?
It did not matter. He would forget as soon as he left, she spoke. She would make sure of that.
Her words only made him more confused for if it did not matter then why could she not tell him? Why could he not look upon her? He had so before. He remembered seeing her as barely anything more than a whisper but also he remembered her eyes being the most beautiful thing he had seen.
Like the little girl.
Was that her? The girl with the unnatural hair and silver adorning it? The little child who had run for her life when faced with the massacre of her-
SHUT UP.
He fell silent when her voice exploded around them with an unseen force of power near as ancient as what he had felt from the Evil. It forced him to let the words stay stuck in his throat in fear of her reaction.
She was shaking. He felt wet streaks find their way down his back left behind by her tears. How her nails dug into his skin near to the point of drawing blood.
He should not have seen that.
He should never have witnessed that.
She did not want to remember.
She could not make herself forget and yet he made her recall it.
It was His fault. His and his alone. He had massacred her people. He had left them all to rot, bathing her home in their blood. He had destroyed them as had they been nothing but ants and not families and friends and people with hopes and dreams and wonder wishing only to live in peace.
It hurt too much to think about. She did not want the pain to stay. She did not want the pain of remembering.
She did not want to be alone.
Jack thought he understood, but she did not care for he did not truly do so and for that she did not wish to stay. She did not wish to be near him any longer. He asked too many questions, he dug up a past he should never have known. He saw things he should not have seen. He spoke to her when she was supposed to be dead and were near good enough to be so. As she should. It was a blessing. Her mind not her own enough for her to be gone from her thoughts and sorrow. Although her body was used in ways she wished never to be used she would tolerate it. Her mind was free then, for her mind was gone until she slept and then it would be free as it was now.
Used in ways she did not desire? Was she being raped?
Her voice fell silent at the question he spoke, no answer coming his way no matter how long he waited.
An anger flared in his chest behind the cold and magic still kept at bay behind her hands. She should not be treated as such. No man or woman deserved that.
It did not matter.
It was a price she was willing to pay to get her mind at ease.
He did not understand.
His hands folded to fists at his sides, trembling in barely kept anger and fury; he knew her not. Not by name and barely by face, and yet something in him wished for him to protect her. To right what was wrong. To fix her. To help her.
To kill her.
It was as though time stopped for the both of them as the unwelcome thought went through his mind.
Jack stiffened in shock.
No.
No this was not right. This was not true. He did not desire that. He had no reason for wanting to do that. It made no sense for the thought to have even crossed his mind. That had not been his own thought!
He had not meant it. He had no desire to kill. He was not a murderer!
"But you will be."
His blood ran cold as he heard her voice speak in a way he had not yet done. It felt so strange and wrong in this world but-
He tried to speak. He tried to object yet no sounds came out.
She let her hands disappear from his chest with but a single constant line of magic dripping from his chest to the dark abyss beneath them. Her hands dissolved into nothing but a ghostly form flickering at the edges.
He had to leave.
He had to go back to the Waking.
She did not want him to linger here any longer.
Quickly he spun around and locked his eyes with her own as he tried to explain himself and beg for forgiveness for it had not been his intent to make her think ill of him. He was not like that. He was not a monster like the stranger he had seen before the Evil had shown himself. The thought had not been his own. It had belonged to someone else. Someone ancient and strange and wrong.
Blinking she pulled herself away from him and out of his reach as ancient words left her lips and let the dark void around them disappear and replaced sounds and smells and lights near blinding their eyes, tossing them through a whirlpool of senses near dizzying them to the point of nausea.
He blinked as the madness melted away and gave way to familiar sounds and smells and sights whilst she was forced away from his mind and back into the nothingness. Walls and tables and people and lights took form before him like sand whisked away in the wind. The world once again becoming clear and bright and warm and dangerous.
He felt his body again. His arms, his legs, his fingers, his tongue. They all existed once more.
It took him long before he understood everything around him. The calm and nothingness of the dark still present in his mind, as were he watching the world through the surface of the sea and he was trapped below.
Words were spoken around him. Exchanged back and forth yet they made no sense to him. Their meaning a mystery for him yet to solve.
He did not understand.
Not at first.
He listened to the voices – some yelling, others not - focusing on them as his mind cleared and the world made sense anew, and yet, although the world once again became real and alive and bright and noisy, for some reason, his mind yearned for but a glimpse of a pair of pink eyes, which in itself was ridiculous for no human-being he knew had ever possessed such a pair of eyes.
With a frown he looked upon the world around him, finally registering he was on the floor in a puddle of what he could only hope was not bodily fluids. The floor was dirty and wooden, and he himself was surrounded by boots and chairs.
Disoriented he pulled himself from the ground, blinking as he took in the scene unfolding before him; patrons yelling and cheering, the Southerner fighting a man twice his side, the dwarf and Cossack looking as though this was something that happened on a daily basis and they were beginning to tire from it, meanwhile the guards simply sat by their table and observed without much interest in getting involved.
Truthfully it was near embarrassing how long it took for Jack to recall just what he had been doing on the floor to begin with. Somebody had crashed into him and sent him out of his chair, he remembered. Must have been the guy the Southerner was currently in a fist fight with, but surely the fact he had sent him out of his chair to the ground was nowhere near enough for the Southerner to get into a fight, on that he was certain.
"Why are they fighting?" Jack wondered aloud, poking their unofficial leader on the shoulder to gain his attention.
"Wat you mean? You saw yourself?" The Cossack stared at Jack in wonder before he crossed his arms with a sigh and nodded towards a young midnight skinned woman standing to the side of the fight. "The guy he is fighting tried to force himself on girl. He is one who pushed Bunny into you so you fell out of chair, do you not recall? Ah, it is not to worry about. Bunny is good fighter, yes? He will be done before long. He is having fun."
Frowning Jack observed the fight unfolding before them, how the to-be-rapist landed a fist against the Southerner's chin only to get back tenfold. Where the thief had strength his opponent had speed and flexibility.
Fists flew around them both, with the Southerner's opponent clearly being on the losing end as he struggled to follow the speed of his opponent.
Truth to the Cossack's words however, the fight did not last long.
The Southerner kicked his opponent's knee and sent him to the ground, hitting him with a series of fists so fast it was near impossible to see him land them, knocking him into a near unconscious state for the guards to deal with.
He spit upon his opponent and turned to the woman who frightened had been watching but a few paces away.
Sweaty the Southerner dried his forehead, a sheepish grin upon his lips. "Be a little more careful who ya talk to, won't ya? Ain't gon' be around ta save ya next time."
Although clearly still surprised by the whole ordeal the woman nodded and sent him a tiny smile in response. "Ya know," spoke she as she slowly seemed to regain her composure. "I could have taken care of him on my own. Ya did not need to get involved."
"I can see that. Ain't nothing like a guy lifting yer skirt and makin' ya clearly uncomfortable ta show ya got it all under control. A weak woman like you-"
"A weak woman?" Jack herd her scoff as she glanced towards the beat up man on the ground as he was being taken away by the guards. "I do believe I am anything but weak, my good sir."
Rolling his eyes at her the Southerner could not help but scoff as well. "I ain't see ya beat up the guy who forced 'imself on ya."
A long pause stretched out between them before she finally sighed and spoke in a near over-the-top mock of a noble voice, "I believeth I still oweth thee a grant you mercy for standing up to me. What award doth thee desire for an act of bravery? Coin perhaps? Or doest that gent desire a kisseth?"
"Now yer just mocking me," the Southerner deadpanned as the woman dramatically did a pose, only for her to burst out laughing and having to support herself against the nearest table.
"Nai, I sayeth, fleering thee, mine own rescuer, is nothing couldst ever desire to doth." Her laughter only tenfolded before she finally seemed to compose herself enough to dry her eyes and drop the act enough for a proper answer. "Dude, thanks though. Ya did not have to but ya did and that makes ya alright in my book. So, ya want a reward or something? I do not know, coin perhaps? I may not have much but I am sure we can figure something out, right?"
"A job?"
The woman blinked in surprise, obviously not having expected the request she had received. Jack could not blame her; for the Southerner to request something like this this out of the blue, without even knowing anything about her really took some gut. Not to mention being somewhat rude and demanding and-
"Consider it done."
Wait what.
The imminent surprise at her response was not only for Jack to feel. The Southerner looked just as taken aback by her answer as the rest of their companions seemed to be.
"Yer serious? Just like that?"
She shrugged, nearly as if it was no big deal. As had he asked for something as simple as if he could have gotten an apple from her, and not an actual paying job. "Sure. The old man is getting old anyway. It's the least I can do to my savior. Plus I know you guys need it. It is not exactly a secret the Rat- I mean, High Lord Morton made the deal with you guys. Consider it a deal. And if we are to work together I might as well introduce myself; the name is Wokabi."
The Southerner blinked as she outstretched her hand towards him, as he clearly had to take a few moments before processing what was happening before he took it and immediately flinched when her hand clasped around his own. "Aster."
"Aster. I will come tomorrow morning and pick ya up then. Do not be late or the deal is off." She sent him a look that all too easily said she was being serious before she disappeared out the tavern, leaving the Southerner rubbing his hand where her hand had left a mark upon his own.
Had it not been for the floral tattoos covering the Southerner's skin, Jack could have sworn he saw something akin to a blush having spread on his companion's cheeks.
But surely that could not be right.