The creaks of a rocking galleon and gentle waves of the sea. The pale moon, full and brilliant, shined above the Black Rose. Crew members slept, others drank and sang. Their captain, however, locked in his quarters. Away from them all. He pondered, brooding at his desk at the thought of where his brother could be. His thumb rubbed the jewel at his neck, wondering if he could tap just enough of his dormant energies for her to feel.
Aranya.
The name caught his mind, repeating itself as his eyes shut to focus any energy he could muster. The most he could do was to focus that on sudden acts of stealth, covering himself or his weapons in shadow magic. But those hardly took any effort. He didn't expect an answer, this far at sea. But he kept hope, wanting her companionship in a moment where he feels lost and alone.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
A feeling woke Aranya from her sleep. Intangible, yet it had the intensity of a strong, tender touch upon her flesh. It carried a presence, and emotions with it, longing, loneliness... a sense of being adrift.
She knew it was Rhovin before her brain could even finish processing his name through her thoughts.
The sorceress blinked her eyes open, re-orienting herself to the waking world, and then closed them again. She focused and reached back along the connection her lover had opened, feeling out his place in the world, to find him. Once she was sure she could teleport to him by their connection - rather than by knowledge of exact geographic location - she cast the spell in a whisper, transporting herself to his quarters. True to the captain's word, the wards were down for her, and no backlash or interference caught her.
Aranya appeared, from her bed to his, and after a moment she rose and stepped in her bare toes over to his desk, watching his ears twitch and his posture turn towards her with the quiet sounds and soft scents of her presence. He always caught her so quickly. The enchanted moonstone that she had given him gleamed in the soft light of the moon and stars outside. His eyes smoldered in the dark, burning mist curling from their corners.
Aranya's soft hands came up to his handsome face, his eyebrows forever in a scowl that few besides herself and his own family truly knew how to read. His mind was far from at ease, and his thoughts weighed on his heart, she could tell. She had felt it, and now she saw it. No sooner had she gotten close and met eyes with him then Aranya found herself grasped tight in Rhovin's arms around her, his face buried in the crook of her neck. She melted into the feeling of being held by him, feeling whole again now that she was with him. Too often she suppressed how it felt to be without him by her side these days, made herself numb to it just so she wouldn't crack apart.
"I've missed you," she whispered. "Came once I felt you call, love." She pulled back only the slightest bit, just enough to bring her arms from where they had slid around his strong shoulders and neck to let one hand touch the side of his face. "Tell me, what's amiss?"
There was a time when affection would be ideal. When feeling the comfort of her arms, her scent, her love all made the problems go away, if only briefly. This wasn't one of those times.
As he turned away from his lover, both hands on his hips, Rhovin approached his table and looked down at all the scattered papers, the gold coins scattered variously, rolled herbs and tobacco, and a half bottle of bourbon... All suddenly thrown as he flipped the table over. He punched the wall adjacent to him, leaving a shattered hole. Pulling his now bloody fist out, he picked up a chair and threw it across the room.
The screams and grunts plagued the pirate's quarters, forcing chills to even the coldest buccaneers. Before he knew it, his quarters was trashed. Rhovin was covered in sweat, falling to his knees and hunching to drop both fists on the ground. The anger and rage shifted into pain and tears. The Captain grieved: what for, he did not say. The petals of black roses on the wooden floor, however, would hint at what he had lost.
An alarmed gasp at his outburst escaped Aranya, but she didn't look on in fear as Rhovin demolished his ship cabin. She watched in sympathy, staying out of his way.
She was well aware of how they both had their tempers - though Rhovin's more often was quicker than hers - and she knew first-hand how anger was easier to feel in times of pain or confusion than anything else. Anger and rage had a release, other emotions didn't. All you could do was let them wash over you and hope that they would pass in some bearable amount of time.
When it seemed that Rhovin had no more rage to use, when he slid into tearful shudders, that was when the Phoenix finally moved towards him. His sweat-slicked back was the first thing her hands touched, and as his head just barely moved up, one hand went under his chin. "Hey," she urged softly. "Look at me." Not waiting for him to comply, she used her touch to guide him upright. "Here with me," she said, both hands on his face now, her smoldering eyes connecting with his. "Here with me," she repeated.
She was giving him an anchor, something to focus on, lest he get swept away. And then her lips were on his, soft but strong, hoping that she could bring some bit of clarity through the shroud of the moment he was in.
When Aranya broke away, she rested her forehead on Rhovin's. It disquieted her, seeing him like this. How could it not? She loved him; his anguish left a pain in her, too, to witness it. Her luminescent eyes flicked to the black rose petals strewn about on the floor. A brush of her fingertips across the boards brought a few into her fist, and then she tried to re-connect her gaze with is again, waiting for what he would do or say next.
Dare he let himself fall to such vulnerabilities? Likely not. As much as Rhovin loved the arcanist, his own pride stopped him from letting those walls fall completely. She got through already. But she will not see them shatter and drop.
Bringing his thumb and finger to pinch his eyes and flick the tears away, Rhovin stood and wiped his nose. With a sharp, deep breath, he regained his composure and stood, turning on his heels. He started a slow path to what looked like a cabinet straight across. "Some months ago, before Lutero became the dying wretched of his own addiction... he said one day I would need to tap into this inner darkness I seem to avoid. The 'true potential of your hidden power', he said." He gave a momentary gaze over his shoulder. "Because apparently I haven't done enough to prove that." He stopped clear front of the cabinet. "He reminded me how our beloved father had reached his potential through the dark teachings, and how he reached his by tapping into the void. So he left me a gift. To help me tap into mine and fully unleash whatever I have inside whenever the time came."
The Captain revealed the contents within the cabinet - a pair of black blades, shaped in the form of a devil's horns with blue jewels at the center. But what made the blades so unusual was the darkness that radiated from them. The shadows pulsed, strong yet empty. They almost called to the captain, who stepped aside to give Aranya a full view as he looked at her. "He blessed them. A portion of his power to reach into mine the second I touch them. They're almost symbiotic, as he coldly put it. That I would become the very thing I was meant to be - a killer, void of a soul."
Aranya eyed the blades - their cold, dark beauty. Her gaze never left them as she murmured, "You don't need to be without a soul to be a killer." Her eyes met his as she continued, "Or is it more than flesh, blood, and magic that sates your father and brother's idea of a kill?"
The sorceress glanced back to the blades. "Can you really see a day when you will need these?" Aranya asked, moving closer to wind her arms around Rhovin's waist from behind. She turned her head in towards him, ghosting the tip of her nose along his strong neck, breathing in his warm scent, catching the feel of the rhythm of his pulse in the veins along his throat. She started to place soft little kisses in the places where the beat felt strongest, closest to the surface - at the edge of his jaw, at the dip of his collarbone, and in a languid trail between.
"Do you even know what the power in you tastes like?" Aranya breathed onto Rhovin's skin. "It doesn't burn like a demon's, nor scintillate like an ethereal's," she said. "But it's sharp, sweet, and it quickens." One of her hands slid up from where it rested, clasped around his waist, to curl her fingertips over his stomach - like claws, but without her nails - dragging down, smooth and slow as she whispered in his ear, "I could bleed you of it and glut myself over and over again... But if I didn't stop, there would be nothing left of you for me to love." She pulled away, just a bit, just enough to look him in the eye, connecting her gaze with his for one brief, silent instant.
Aranya turned her eyes again to the dark blades, one arm still around Rhovin's waist, but the other came away, her fingers moving in a graceful rhythm, like moving the strings of a toy. One of the blades lifted up and began to spin slowly in the air. Nothing unsurprising for a mage to do in an idle moment. "Do you know what makes me any different from your mother, Rhovin?" Aranya asked. She locked eyes with him again and didn't wait for him to answer. "Nothing," she said. "Not a gods-damned thing. She couldn't help loving your father any more than I can help loving you. Completely. Entirely. Every last facet, bright and dark."
Suddenly the blade spun to her throat, quick as a striking snake, and held still only a hairs-breadth away from her perfect skin, poised as if to tear her open at any second. "So, when will you need them?" Aranya calmly asked. "After I've died a thousand deaths? Or will I die all thousand of them with just... one... pull...?" She didn't say it with any tone of rhetoric. She sounded as if she were musing aloud - albeit in a most alarming fashion - genuinely wondering about the outcome of the future.
A turn of her fingers sent the blade back to its twin, and the phoenix reached for her captain's bloodied hand. "You need this cleaned and wrapped," she murmured. "Where are the bandages around here?"
Rhovin looked at his fist. The leather was torn and bloody at the knuckles. "I've had worse," he assured her. Still, heavy footsteps went and grabbed what she had requested - an old rag for a bandage, and a half empty bottle of bourbon to clean the open wounds. He set them on a table and sat before it, holding his hand up for the arcanist while facing the blades that damn near called his name. But there was no fear, only curiosity. Curiosity of what exactly he would become if he fully embraced the shadows.
When would he need them? Good question.
Author's note - Originally finished Jul 10, 2017, this was an RP between me and Rhovin's creator/player/owner. This was sadly our last RP for this ship for a long time. Real life happened in hardmode for Rhovin's writer, and Halenvar and Aranya ended up getting back together.