MY ONE-SHOTS
Summary: Beorn hates Tiffany, and Tiffany goes crazy. Like, literally.
Chapter eleven: Nightmare's Embrace
Author's Notes:
This is in honor of one of Anet's recent April Fools jokes. It's based off of the 'update/patch' that declares that ranger pets that are commanded to attack members of their own species turn hostile and attack the ranger instead.
It's based off of the Tassof Series.
This is more than just an April Fools joke - it is what would honestly happen if Beorn left Tiffany. Consider it an insight into the personality of Tiffany (not Beorn, since he would never do this, but you know).
Okay, here's the story now:
Beorn sends hurt, anger, confusion, and, above all, revulsion, to Tiffany. The confused ranger sends back enquiry, and Beorn explodes in rage, revoking all ties he has to her. Anger, no, fury, erupts inside the bond. That is common - that happens whenver Tiffany is hurt and Beorn goes all out on whatever attacked her. What is not normal is the target - Tiffany herself.
Tiffany falls to the ground, tears spilling down her cheeks as she feels Beorn's utter rejection of her - she can feel in her bones that it is true, that he means it, and it hurts worse than any physical harm he could have done to her.
After a minute, Beorn turns and leaves her - he walks away, far away, cold fury and utter hatred of her pulsing through the bond until he gets so far away that the bond breaks, Beorn's end going silent. But that is even worse - it reminds her of when she thought he was dead, and now he is more dead to her than he ever was then.
Tiffany curls up in the grass and cries her heart out. She still knows, vaguely, which direction Beorn is, but that is all. She cries until she has no more tears, and then lets the darkness claim her.
The next morning, she can still feel Beorn - the link is there, but he is still out of range, and she is a hollow shell of what she had been. She doesn't return home. She aches to go to Beorn, but she can't stand feeling that hatred. So she wanders around mindlessly, dwelling on the happenstance that had taken her companion from her.
She wanders for a day, and sleeps on the grass a second time that night. She is found by Inquest in her helpless state and experimented on, but Tiffany couldn't care less for physical harm right now, and she barely notices the agony induced by the cruel experiments.
She is eventually rescued - she barely notices who it is - but she is but a shell of her former self. She is the picture of a long-term stay in prison, despite only having stayed at the Inquest facility a week or two. Maybe. She didn't keep track of time, and didn't ask her rescuers.
She had been taken to Metrica Province, too, it seems, and once she is released she wanders aimlessly until the Nightmare Court captures her. The new leader of the Nightmare Court, upon hearing who she is (Warmaster of the Vigil, one of those who killed Faolain and Cadeyrn, a friend of Caithe and Trahearne, etc, etc,) calls her into his throne room and speaks to her. There she reveals her current weakness and ultimate vulnerability now that Beorn has left and she really doesn't care about anything anymore, and he easily convinces her to join the Court.
Tiffany honestly doesn't see the point, given that she isn't a sylvari, but at least she can lose herself in misery here, surrounded by other miserable people.
Once - just once - she feels Beorn again, and for a moment, joy overtakes her as she feels no negative emotion. But then he realizes she is there, he returns the cold hatred that had simmered below the surface for long before leaving again. Tiffany becomes cold and chilly to everyone and speaks to nobody except when she must.
Zhaitan finally manages to overtake Lion's Arch, and starts sending Risen incursions to Tyria. One day, the link dies out of Tiffany's mind entirely, putting an end to her hopes and dreams that Beorn would come back and forgive her. It had been the only thing holding her to sanity. Without it, all her hopes and dreams of killing Elder Dragons and stopping all the death fade out of memory, all her goals seem meaningless and she forgets them, and she comes to love the misery and suffering of the Nightmare Court as a way to escape. In savage glee, she tortures the innocents, never remembering that they have hopes and dreams and loves and a reason to live.
The Nightmare Court are allowed more and more free range over the Caledon forest as the sylvari become occupied fighting the force of Risen pushing outward from Lion's Arch.
Tiffany is a loner among the Nightmare Court for not being sylvari, but this is all the better for her; she delights in misery, and misery she gets. Nobody who saw her now would ever link the cruel shell she is now with the bright, cheery, hopeful and kind soul that had been. Her face is shadowed and her face creased with lines of anger and grief, and she looks like an odd mix of sylvari and human, dressed as she is in the carefully shaped plant matter that is common to sylvari. Nobody would recognize her.
Not even her own sister. Fiona finds her one day when she is ranging abroad, and locks in fierce battle with the odd ranger, never knowing this is her lost sister. Tiffany doesn't remember she had a sister, and doesn't care.
But eventually, Fiona notices. Nothing about her personaliy or appearance indicates that this is Tiffany, but the fact that she is a human dressed as a sylvari, that she knows exactly how Fiona fights, rings bells for the mesmer, but that is all. Noting the absence of Beorn at her side, Fiona concludes that this can't be Tiffany, and the uncertainty that had touched the fight leaves.
The fight is never won - Tiffany is called away by some officer of the Court, and Fiona is left sending illusions at a puff of blue. But the mesmer never forgets the odd human dressed as a sylvari. Tiffany had always spoken of wanting to be part sylvari, but Fiona knows Tiffany is sensible and would never have done something as silly as dressing like one to fit in. Besides, Beorn wasn't there, so Fiona knows it wasn't Tiffany. But if she ever does see Tiffany again, she'll tell her sister about the odd Nightmare Courtier she fought, and they might both get a few laughs out of it.
Fiona never finds out the truth.
Author's Notes:
Yep. Quite something, isn't it.