A giggle escaped Xelloss' mouth, his face blank. "Are you trying to look threatening? It's rather cute."
Lafitte dodged as a hand swung at his throat. A chain swept up to knock him down, followed by more icy hands. His journey to Xelloss was constantly impeded by these silly obstacles. Avoiding them was effortless, yes, but they never stopped coming! "Blasted thing! How dare you invade Master Xelloss' inner chambers? And attacking the most trusted servant that Lady Zelas has. How could you be so badly mannered?" He lept to the side as a loop of chains fell from above, attempting to snare him. At least in this huge chamber of white woven glass there was plenty of room for evasion tactics.
"A surinni is giving me an etiquette lesson?" The knife's laughter was like steel sliding against stone. "You little runt. If Lord Dynast decides he wants to take some weak little bitch-queen's poor slave into more glorious service, then he'll do it. He deserves what he wants." An icy hand tenderly stroked Xelloss' hair. "I can't blame him for wanting pretty things." As Lafitte's mouth opened to issue a retort, the knife cut him off. "I'll take no more insulting titles from your mouth. If you're going to address me again, call me Edge." Xelloss' mouth drew up into a smirk. "From someone of your diminuitive stature, I'll accept Master Edge."
Lafitte growled. "I'll never call an object my master."
Edge tsked. "Don't be so hasty. Look at who I possess. If I own him, and he owns you..." Xelloss' face shifted into a possessive smile. "...then you're mine."
"He's NOT yours!" Lafitte narrowly escaped the clutching fingers of a hand approaching from behind. "Just because you're a thieving, sneaky bastard-"
Xelloss shifted against the ceiling as frozen hands cradled his face. "No. He's all mine." Xelloss turned to face Lafitte, his eyes glassy and soulless. "What's wrong? Did you want him?" Fingers stroked the back of the priest's thigh. "Is that why he thought you were so vital to his existence? That's funny. Well, I guess it would work..." Xelloss cocked his head. "...a surinni would make a wonderful bedtoy. I'm sure you weren't hard to train." Edge fully anticipated Lafitte's enraged lunge. Before the surinni could react, he was snared in a web of chains and clutching fingers. He writhed in the knife's grasp, unable to escape as it cemented its hold with more gripping hands and winding links.
"Pitiful little thing." A hand cupped Lafitte's chin, tapping his lip. "But very devoted. I can at least appreciate that. I understand now why Xelloss wasted his last real struggle on you."
"What?"
Xelloss smirked, Edge's smugness resonating through his voice. "Xelloss' only real struggles were his first ones. After that, I had him so bound that he could barely manage anything formidable. He apparently realized almost immediately that I would have him no matter what he did, but he never gave in to me. He managed to reach beyond my grasp only twice. Once in the beginning, to warn you away from me. And another very recently, to tell his cute dragon pet not to let you lead her in either. Well, I suppose he failed in both of his pursuits." Firia and Lafitte swung in Edge's grasp as he laughed. "But he seemed deeply concerned for the two of you. I suppose Xelloss values his bedmates that highly."
Lafitte strained against the links. These were different than anything he'd ever touched surinnar. The cold in them froze him into place, rendering him unable to jump about the plane as he pleased. He'd never found anything that could hold him completely still. Damnit! Both he and Firia were trapped by this wretched thing!
"We're not bedtoys." Firia spoke for the first time since Lafitte's losing battle had begun. "Xelloss cares for us because we care for him. It is a relationship of trust that he couldn't possibly find with any incarnt like you."
Lafitte blinked. Firia's voice, calm and quiet, stated exactly what he could not put into words. Brava, girl.
"Not a toy?" The chains holding Firia jerked her up and down, swinging her about. "I know what I'd want a pretty dragon like you for. But what Lord Dynast would do with you..." Firia dropped midair, the chains catching her just before she could smack against the floor. "...don't try to get yourself into trouble, little girl. My master would love to cut out that pretty little tongue of yours and listen to you beg with what mouth you had left. At least with me you'd be very..." A hand slid along her cheek. "...intact."
Lafitte's eyes flashed. "Don't you dare touch her, you bastard!" His struggles were so wild that Edge almost worried for a second that he might lose his catch. But the knife's grip was unbreakable, and the surinni would soon learn the futility of rebellion.
As Lafitte jerked about, Firia watched Xelloss' face. If where it looked was any indication, then Edge's attentions were focused completely on the surinni.
"Fool. But an entertaining fool. We'll see if Xelloss wants you anymore after he truly begins to serve my master. If not..." He squeezed the chains tight. "I'll keep you. Surinni are so much fun to play with. After all, if you break them it's no loss."
Firia concentrated, shutting Lafitte's screams out of her mind. Xelloss was extremely ill now, and what she was about to do...
There's no hope without trying.
Firia relaxed her mind and slid into a trance. What she was about to attempt would be risky, but not difficult. She had always known light. She was familiar with the light. She could ask anything of the light. If she beckoned, it would come to her in a heartbeat. She wanted the light to come, to gently flow, to barely touch her. With a grip of steel and nervous precision, Firia eased the light in.
Lafitte's chains loosened enough for him to relax as Edge stopped his torture in stunned amazement. They had seen a dull glow engulf Firia before she simply vanished. No fanfare, no farewell. Lafitte turned to face Edge.
"So that's what you do with pretty dragon girls! You lose them!"
* * *
Xelloss sucked warm air into his 'lungs', each breath burning his chest. The painful gasps were relentless; Xelloss couldn't stop them. He only truly breathed in fits of severe panic or worry, and he had been gulping in air like a stranded fish ever since Dynast finally left him alone.
After Dynast had dragged him into his bed, Xelloss no longer felt chills. A fever was consuming him as the knife tightened its grasp with every second. He was colder than ever before, everything he touched singing his skin with its warmth. Even the chess pieces had their own heat for Xelloss now, and they were lifeless chunks of rock.
Where was Dynast? The Lord's absence made the priest more nervous. He knew about Firia, and Xelloss didn't trust him to leave her at peace. Xelloss curled his fingers into fists, feeling the lack of his gloves ever since Dynast had taken-
A shiver consumed Xelloss' body. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself through the onslaught, his limbs shaking so hard that it hurt. Nothing he could do would stop it! Nothing would stop Dynast from doing whatever he desired to Firia. Xelloss couldn't behave for the Supreme King in the conditions he was forced into every time they talked. He wasn't even given a chance to try. The icy bastard enjoyed punishing him too much.
The cold bitter fire in his chest was consuming Xelloss. What could he do? He couldn't prostrate himself before Dynast knowing that his actions were not only in vain, but could be twisted to harm himself even more. Doing nothing was just as dangerous - if Dynast declared Xelloss was in debt to him, then Firia would feel the payment! What to do?! What to do?!
Xelloss clutched a bishop he'd claimed from Dynast - was that 500 years ago? - between his fingers. This was quite different from Xelloss' men. His pieces were simple miniatures carved from tourminilated quartz, the artisan too bewitched with the beauty of thousands of tiny black arrows piercing white flesh to marr it with any kind of detail. Dynast's army contrasted this simplicity, and the clergyman that Xelloss was currently strangling stood as a fine example of its allies' superb craftsmanship. The artist must have molded the pure, flawless quartz with his fingers to achieve such graceful curves in rigid stone. Details were picked out so finely that his hands surely were steadier than the bedrock itself. This carving was a perfect manipulation of medium and tool to create something far superior to the mere gravel that formed-
Xelloss winced, relaxing his death-grip on the man. In his anger he'd squeezed so hard that the piece had cut him in self-defense. He stared at the quartz carving. A priest made entirely of ice - a shaft of cold pain bit through him - standing in an obedient posture stared soullessly back with a face of perfect docility.
It was with a sobered expression that Xelloss finally realized the knife in him was beginning to truly work. A part of him was entirely frozen, inaccessible to him. It had been nulled so completely that he had been unaware of its passing.
His power of denial was dead. Without it he could only stand the torture and tactics for so long until he either gave himself to Dynast or was led to him by the knife's reins. Facing cold reality with no defenses against it...this was Xelloss' death sentence.
Xelloss felt grief well up and almost consume him, but his stubborn will refused to make his passing that easy on him. It wasn't fair. Faced with certain death followed by rebirth into a life of oblivion, Xelloss still couldn't make himself stop caring. Worry for Firia and thoughts of Zelas plagued him so much that he suspected he might just die of anxiety.
A faint noise slowly caught Xelloss' attentions, and he glanced at the chessboard. It was the sound of rock sliding against weak fibers. He had been scratching into the board with his captured bishop for the past five minutes. His previous thoughts completely forgotten, Xelloss cracked a smile as he realized how infuriated Dynast would be at this. He had etched a sizeable crater into the playing field - perhaps one of the pawns has a cannon - piercing thick layers of varnish to scour at the fine dark mahogany underneath.
He is going to be so angry... Xelloss could only laugh. He'd be beaten within an inch of his sensibilities, but why worry about trivial things like that? Xelloss just wanted to see the expression on Dynast's face when he realized that his chessboard had a foxhole.
Lifting it away from his holey altar, Xelloss began scratching the bishop into the table's surface. His thirst for contrition wasn't that great, but he was finding the habit relaxing in a way that only calculated destruction could be. His nerves were being soothed for the first time in days. Xelloss set the bishop to carving tiny spirals in his little corner, penance for being Dynast's ideal servant. As Dynast would probably say of Xelloss, the bishop made a fine instrument when it simply allowed itself to be wielded.
That's it.
Xelloss didn't allow his hand to slow its pace, didn't let his therapy pause in his moment of hope. His mind raced at the potential and factors that the weeks ahead could contain, making fast and excited calculations at a frantic speed. He had to keep himself calm. He had to look as normal as ever to Dynast. He couldn't give himself away now, now that he had a plan.
There was no room for dignity now. Dynast would get anything he wanted - respect, humility, flattery...Xelloss grimaced. He would have to be a good boy for a long time. He hoped he could get used to Dynast's touch on a daily basis, because he expected that would be one of the compromises involved in his scheme. He could do it, though. He had hope now, and that would allow him to do overcome Dynast's manipulations and taunts. Firia wouldn't feel Dynast's frosty gaze upon her if he could help it. He clutched the chesspiece in his palm.
You're the perfect role model, you know. I wonder if I'll make a good bishop.
Xelloss' gaze traced the room for a long time. Marble and ivory, intricate reliefs and ornate scaffolding. It was a grand game room, but cold and white and deathly pale. It had scared Xelloss slightly when he had first come to play many centuries ago. Now it terrified him.
I'll have to be a very, very good boy. Xelloss looked up, feeling the pressure change. Was Dynast back alr-
Dynast overturned the table in an angry zeal to show Xelloss his appreciation of the priest's carving skills. He found himself on the floor, trapped under the chair as Dynast wound his fingers around Xelloss' wrists.
"You're going to remember this lesson in etiquette, my boy."
"Y-yes sir..." Xelloss closed his eyes as Dynast knocked away the chair and straddled him. The Supreme King used his knuckles as a teaching aid, too intent on instructing his student to notice the faint scritching as Xelloss carved blind spirals into the floor.
Lafitte dodged as a hand swung at his throat. A chain swept up to knock him down, followed by more icy hands. His journey to Xelloss was constantly impeded by these silly obstacles. Avoiding them was effortless, yes, but they never stopped coming! "Blasted thing! How dare you invade Master Xelloss' inner chambers? And attacking the most trusted servant that Lady Zelas has. How could you be so badly mannered?" He lept to the side as a loop of chains fell from above, attempting to snare him. At least in this huge chamber of white woven glass there was plenty of room for evasion tactics.
"A surinni is giving me an etiquette lesson?" The knife's laughter was like steel sliding against stone. "You little runt. If Lord Dynast decides he wants to take some weak little bitch-queen's poor slave into more glorious service, then he'll do it. He deserves what he wants." An icy hand tenderly stroked Xelloss' hair. "I can't blame him for wanting pretty things." As Lafitte's mouth opened to issue a retort, the knife cut him off. "I'll take no more insulting titles from your mouth. If you're going to address me again, call me Edge." Xelloss' mouth drew up into a smirk. "From someone of your diminuitive stature, I'll accept Master Edge."
Lafitte growled. "I'll never call an object my master."
Edge tsked. "Don't be so hasty. Look at who I possess. If I own him, and he owns you..." Xelloss' face shifted into a possessive smile. "...then you're mine."
"He's NOT yours!" Lafitte narrowly escaped the clutching fingers of a hand approaching from behind. "Just because you're a thieving, sneaky bastard-"
Xelloss shifted against the ceiling as frozen hands cradled his face. "No. He's all mine." Xelloss turned to face Lafitte, his eyes glassy and soulless. "What's wrong? Did you want him?" Fingers stroked the back of the priest's thigh. "Is that why he thought you were so vital to his existence? That's funny. Well, I guess it would work..." Xelloss cocked his head. "...a surinni would make a wonderful bedtoy. I'm sure you weren't hard to train." Edge fully anticipated Lafitte's enraged lunge. Before the surinni could react, he was snared in a web of chains and clutching fingers. He writhed in the knife's grasp, unable to escape as it cemented its hold with more gripping hands and winding links.
"Pitiful little thing." A hand cupped Lafitte's chin, tapping his lip. "But very devoted. I can at least appreciate that. I understand now why Xelloss wasted his last real struggle on you."
"What?"
Xelloss smirked, Edge's smugness resonating through his voice. "Xelloss' only real struggles were his first ones. After that, I had him so bound that he could barely manage anything formidable. He apparently realized almost immediately that I would have him no matter what he did, but he never gave in to me. He managed to reach beyond my grasp only twice. Once in the beginning, to warn you away from me. And another very recently, to tell his cute dragon pet not to let you lead her in either. Well, I suppose he failed in both of his pursuits." Firia and Lafitte swung in Edge's grasp as he laughed. "But he seemed deeply concerned for the two of you. I suppose Xelloss values his bedmates that highly."
Lafitte strained against the links. These were different than anything he'd ever touched surinnar. The cold in them froze him into place, rendering him unable to jump about the plane as he pleased. He'd never found anything that could hold him completely still. Damnit! Both he and Firia were trapped by this wretched thing!
"We're not bedtoys." Firia spoke for the first time since Lafitte's losing battle had begun. "Xelloss cares for us because we care for him. It is a relationship of trust that he couldn't possibly find with any incarnt like you."
Lafitte blinked. Firia's voice, calm and quiet, stated exactly what he could not put into words. Brava, girl.
"Not a toy?" The chains holding Firia jerked her up and down, swinging her about. "I know what I'd want a pretty dragon like you for. But what Lord Dynast would do with you..." Firia dropped midair, the chains catching her just before she could smack against the floor. "...don't try to get yourself into trouble, little girl. My master would love to cut out that pretty little tongue of yours and listen to you beg with what mouth you had left. At least with me you'd be very..." A hand slid along her cheek. "...intact."
Lafitte's eyes flashed. "Don't you dare touch her, you bastard!" His struggles were so wild that Edge almost worried for a second that he might lose his catch. But the knife's grip was unbreakable, and the surinni would soon learn the futility of rebellion.
As Lafitte jerked about, Firia watched Xelloss' face. If where it looked was any indication, then Edge's attentions were focused completely on the surinni.
"Fool. But an entertaining fool. We'll see if Xelloss wants you anymore after he truly begins to serve my master. If not..." He squeezed the chains tight. "I'll keep you. Surinni are so much fun to play with. After all, if you break them it's no loss."
Firia concentrated, shutting Lafitte's screams out of her mind. Xelloss was extremely ill now, and what she was about to do...
There's no hope without trying.
Firia relaxed her mind and slid into a trance. What she was about to attempt would be risky, but not difficult. She had always known light. She was familiar with the light. She could ask anything of the light. If she beckoned, it would come to her in a heartbeat. She wanted the light to come, to gently flow, to barely touch her. With a grip of steel and nervous precision, Firia eased the light in.
Lafitte's chains loosened enough for him to relax as Edge stopped his torture in stunned amazement. They had seen a dull glow engulf Firia before she simply vanished. No fanfare, no farewell. Lafitte turned to face Edge.
"So that's what you do with pretty dragon girls! You lose them!"
* * *
Xelloss sucked warm air into his 'lungs', each breath burning his chest. The painful gasps were relentless; Xelloss couldn't stop them. He only truly breathed in fits of severe panic or worry, and he had been gulping in air like a stranded fish ever since Dynast finally left him alone.
After Dynast had dragged him into his bed, Xelloss no longer felt chills. A fever was consuming him as the knife tightened its grasp with every second. He was colder than ever before, everything he touched singing his skin with its warmth. Even the chess pieces had their own heat for Xelloss now, and they were lifeless chunks of rock.
Where was Dynast? The Lord's absence made the priest more nervous. He knew about Firia, and Xelloss didn't trust him to leave her at peace. Xelloss curled his fingers into fists, feeling the lack of his gloves ever since Dynast had taken-
A shiver consumed Xelloss' body. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself through the onslaught, his limbs shaking so hard that it hurt. Nothing he could do would stop it! Nothing would stop Dynast from doing whatever he desired to Firia. Xelloss couldn't behave for the Supreme King in the conditions he was forced into every time they talked. He wasn't even given a chance to try. The icy bastard enjoyed punishing him too much.
The cold bitter fire in his chest was consuming Xelloss. What could he do? He couldn't prostrate himself before Dynast knowing that his actions were not only in vain, but could be twisted to harm himself even more. Doing nothing was just as dangerous - if Dynast declared Xelloss was in debt to him, then Firia would feel the payment! What to do?! What to do?!
Xelloss clutched a bishop he'd claimed from Dynast - was that 500 years ago? - between his fingers. This was quite different from Xelloss' men. His pieces were simple miniatures carved from tourminilated quartz, the artisan too bewitched with the beauty of thousands of tiny black arrows piercing white flesh to marr it with any kind of detail. Dynast's army contrasted this simplicity, and the clergyman that Xelloss was currently strangling stood as a fine example of its allies' superb craftsmanship. The artist must have molded the pure, flawless quartz with his fingers to achieve such graceful curves in rigid stone. Details were picked out so finely that his hands surely were steadier than the bedrock itself. This carving was a perfect manipulation of medium and tool to create something far superior to the mere gravel that formed-
Xelloss winced, relaxing his death-grip on the man. In his anger he'd squeezed so hard that the piece had cut him in self-defense. He stared at the quartz carving. A priest made entirely of ice - a shaft of cold pain bit through him - standing in an obedient posture stared soullessly back with a face of perfect docility.
It was with a sobered expression that Xelloss finally realized the knife in him was beginning to truly work. A part of him was entirely frozen, inaccessible to him. It had been nulled so completely that he had been unaware of its passing.
His power of denial was dead. Without it he could only stand the torture and tactics for so long until he either gave himself to Dynast or was led to him by the knife's reins. Facing cold reality with no defenses against it...this was Xelloss' death sentence.
Xelloss felt grief well up and almost consume him, but his stubborn will refused to make his passing that easy on him. It wasn't fair. Faced with certain death followed by rebirth into a life of oblivion, Xelloss still couldn't make himself stop caring. Worry for Firia and thoughts of Zelas plagued him so much that he suspected he might just die of anxiety.
A faint noise slowly caught Xelloss' attentions, and he glanced at the chessboard. It was the sound of rock sliding against weak fibers. He had been scratching into the board with his captured bishop for the past five minutes. His previous thoughts completely forgotten, Xelloss cracked a smile as he realized how infuriated Dynast would be at this. He had etched a sizeable crater into the playing field - perhaps one of the pawns has a cannon - piercing thick layers of varnish to scour at the fine dark mahogany underneath.
He is going to be so angry... Xelloss could only laugh. He'd be beaten within an inch of his sensibilities, but why worry about trivial things like that? Xelloss just wanted to see the expression on Dynast's face when he realized that his chessboard had a foxhole.
Lifting it away from his holey altar, Xelloss began scratching the bishop into the table's surface. His thirst for contrition wasn't that great, but he was finding the habit relaxing in a way that only calculated destruction could be. His nerves were being soothed for the first time in days. Xelloss set the bishop to carving tiny spirals in his little corner, penance for being Dynast's ideal servant. As Dynast would probably say of Xelloss, the bishop made a fine instrument when it simply allowed itself to be wielded.
That's it.
Xelloss didn't allow his hand to slow its pace, didn't let his therapy pause in his moment of hope. His mind raced at the potential and factors that the weeks ahead could contain, making fast and excited calculations at a frantic speed. He had to keep himself calm. He had to look as normal as ever to Dynast. He couldn't give himself away now, now that he had a plan.
There was no room for dignity now. Dynast would get anything he wanted - respect, humility, flattery...Xelloss grimaced. He would have to be a good boy for a long time. He hoped he could get used to Dynast's touch on a daily basis, because he expected that would be one of the compromises involved in his scheme. He could do it, though. He had hope now, and that would allow him to do overcome Dynast's manipulations and taunts. Firia wouldn't feel Dynast's frosty gaze upon her if he could help it. He clutched the chesspiece in his palm.
You're the perfect role model, you know. I wonder if I'll make a good bishop.
Xelloss' gaze traced the room for a long time. Marble and ivory, intricate reliefs and ornate scaffolding. It was a grand game room, but cold and white and deathly pale. It had scared Xelloss slightly when he had first come to play many centuries ago. Now it terrified him.
I'll have to be a very, very good boy. Xelloss looked up, feeling the pressure change. Was Dynast back alr-
Dynast overturned the table in an angry zeal to show Xelloss his appreciation of the priest's carving skills. He found himself on the floor, trapped under the chair as Dynast wound his fingers around Xelloss' wrists.
"You're going to remember this lesson in etiquette, my boy."
"Y-yes sir..." Xelloss closed his eyes as Dynast knocked away the chair and straddled him. The Supreme King used his knuckles as a teaching aid, too intent on instructing his student to notice the faint scritching as Xelloss carved blind spirals into the floor.