Sorry again about my tardiness. I had a long fieldtrip, as well as major assignments to keep me busy until the end of the semester. At least I'm finding some time to sneak 'fic writing into my schedules.
Back to Cel's PoV, now. I seriously wonder why I have all these self-imposed rules, sometimes…
Disclaimer: Blizzard owns Diablo, but I must admit that Hell would be an exceedingly interesting place to visit. I mean, all that MAGMA!! 8D
Chapter 31
The Burden of Living
I was swimming in an endless sea. Swirls of black and silver were drawn across the surface, marbled together with a careless, ethereal hand. Something between water and thick steam filled this abyss…
It was blissful.
I was slipping through infinite space, over eternal time. All was dim, cool, and fluid. I thought then… I was in limbo, somewhere between life and death, an intermediary realm of empty nothing filled with homogeneous aether.
Then came colours, shapes, and they ripped me from the idyllic dark. Sickening, searing, spasmodic pulses. I was hovering away; towards life or death, I could not be sure.
Memories stabbed through the cloudy membrane of unconsciousness with merciless force, throttling my being, forcing my mind to re-establish its physical existence.
I lived.
The notion consolidated, and I knew I had to fight. Being alive was one thing, waking up was something else entirely. I had done this before, but I had never fought this hard, and it had never been this painful.
The rest of my body started to reconnect with my brain. It hurt like crazy, but at least the aches came from all over my body; everything seems to be there. I was relieved.
The foggy black chasm in which I sought refuge had turned into a world of fire – dry, hot, brightly ablaze. From time to time, I slid back into the cool void, but then the fire grew brighter, the shapes grew more defined, and I was leaving the limbo behind.
There was no sound that I could distinguish, but it felt noisy all the time – things ringing and buzzing and shrieking constantly, so much, so unwavering, that they all blend into the background, a swarm of ugly colours, like coarse grains of sand.
"Is she still not awake yet?" A voice that I was sure that I should recognise, but I could not...
"It'll take time. She's fighting hard; there's a good chance that she'll come round." This one I had never heard before. This voice was smooth, deep and dark. The accent, however… the accent was familiar, and it sent a nice, cool surge that washed over my burning self.
I wanted to say something, to signal something, to respond… to let them know that I was here, to tell them to wait for me. Just before I thought I might be able to get there somehow, I was pulled into the dark again.
This time, I floated. I drifted in-between the void and the fire, and when I tried to remember the first voice, I could feel my brain working.
It belonged to a woman. She was one under whom I serve…Her aura was like indigo smoke, but also crimson blood…
Smoke and blood, I can smell a lot of it here…
Oread. That was it.
The recall of the name sent a bolt of lightning through my head, and I remembered –
We fought Mephisto. He killed Natalya. Nyhl made her body explode. Oread tried to get Mephisto before he got to me, but she failed. I failed.
I could not die here.
The lightning soared through my body; I felt my arms and legs jolt and spasm, then my back arched.
I opened my mouth and tried to scream. To my surprise, it came out. I actually heard it. Having succeeded in that, I tried my eyes. They would not open. But I was hearing, and smelling, and feeling. Heavy footsteps, the smell of herbs and potions in a background of sulfuric smog, and soft bedding material beneath me. There was only a thin sheet of linen on top of me, but I could feel the light gauze of bandages on various parts of my body. My head felt bloated and swollen and heavy.
Hands planted onto my shoulders, slender but roughened. The palms pressed hard, but the fingers gripped gently.
"Shh… calm down, you're safe, you'll be all right soon." It was the smooth, accented voice. The soothing surge washed over me again, and the tension in my body eased a little, although I could still feel my fingers tingling and twitching.
"Come on, swallow." One of the hands switched from my shoulder to my upper neck, and the other hand disappeared. A moment later, something wet touched my lips and tongue. I realised I was still gasping and screaming. Forcing myself to stop, I swallowed the liquid desperately, savouring the way it trickled down my parched throat and coated it in a trail of soft, cold bitterness.
I followed the trail back into the dark of unconsciousness, though it felt but an instant before I resurfaced into reality again, this time bypassing the fiery transition.
I finally figured that there were bandages around my eyes and head, which was why I could not open my eyes. My thoughts were wavering less now, and I had some control over my breathing. I tried to move my fingers, and they obeyed. This was going well, so far.
I tried to turn my head, but a wave of pain mixed with nausea overtook me. Bile rose up into my throat and I gagged on it.
"Hmm?" A new voice expressed calm intrigue. Someone leaned closer – I could feel the soft breathing on my nose – then the fine swish of fabric, followed by a small thump onto the floor, and rapid, soft footsteps heading away from me.
"Mama, she's awake!" The high-pitched voice of an infant girl, her accent already apparent – the same as that of the strange woman with the soothing voice.
I anticipated the heavy footfalls of the owner of that voice, but instead, it was Oread's voice that reached my ears, full of painfully-blatant anxiety. "Celadon!"
I started to call back to her, but just ended up gurgling tonelessly. I tried to reach her with my arm, but the strength in it was not enough.
My master's fingers brushed over my bangs, sweeping them from my forehead. Her hand was quivering, too. "Are you feeling okay? Thank goodness you're awake… we thought you mightn't wake up…" She spoke quickly, her voice full of emotions, much more than what I was comfortable with… and most of it was fear and panic.
"Oread," a much calmer, quieter voice – Nyhl's. "Settle down a bit; you're scaring her."
My master's hand left my head as she stepped back once, twice. The woman with the cool voice came by – I recognised her footsteps – and poured water slowly into my mouth. I swallowed several times, then she took the water away.
"Can you speak?" She started to unravel the bandages around my eyes. "Tell me your name, age, who you're travelling with, anything."
I swallowed one last time before I forced the air through my voice box. "Celadon…" My voice sounded loud and shrill; I adjusted it a little. "… Of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye, a Rogue of Westmarch. I'm… um…" I tried to remember how much time had passed since my birthday in Lut Gholein, but it just made my head ache dully. "Seventeen… and I serve under my master, Oread."
"Do you remember how you got here? What happened before you passed out?" The voice continued to question, as a hand passed a cold, wet cloth over my eyes.
"Uh… Mephisto." I winced a little as my face registered just how cold the cloth was. "He rammed into me with his head. I… hit my head as I fell back."
"She's got a terrible concussion, but her memory seems to be all together." The voice diagnosed with professional certainty. "Can you move your fingers? Toes?" I obeyed her. Moving my fingers were easy, but my legs cramped as I tried to flex my toes, and it took some time and effort before they budged. "She'll be fine with moving about, just needs to take some time out."
She wiped over my eyes again, this time with what felt like a dry piece of gauze. "Now, can you open your eyes?"
My eyes felt swollen, my lashes stuck together with dried tears. I forced them open, and the first rays of frosty-white light made me eyes ache. I winced and snapped them close again.
"They've still got good response to bright light, at least." From behind my eyelids, the light source was taken out of my field of vision. "Celadon, look at me. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three?" I squinted, trying to focus. "… Four?"
The woman sighed. "You should get better soon. If your eyesight's come back even just a little, it's likely to recover, in time. You're still young, and there's a good chance you'll be able to heal more or less completely. Just give your brain some time to heal." She placed a piece of gauze over my eyes and wrapped fresh bandages over them again, then held a cup to my lips. "Drink it, you need to sleep."
"You too, Nyhl." Oread's voice, unexpectedly tender as I swallowed the concoction, feeling my body drift off. "You shouldn't be out of bed yet."
There was something strange about the way she addressed the Necromancer, but I was quickly succumbing to the sedative effects of the potion, and before I could put my finger on it, I was sound asleep.
I woke up a third time after what I felt was a long, dreamless rest. The bandages had been removed, and I opened my eyes to a blurry, but steady world.
"Oh, Celadon!" Oread leaned over me. Even with this vision, I could recognise her dual-toned eyes. Her voice was controlled, but there was the glee of relief in it that made me smile. "You've been sleeping for so long… it must have been about three weeks, all in all. You were just totally comatose for the first two. Are you feeling ill? Should I go get Jamella?"
I assumed "Jamella" was the smooth-voiced lady healer. "Not too bad." The sound from my throat was rough and gruff. "I just want a drink. Where is this? What h–" My voice failed; I swallowed and tried again, "What happened?"
I heard water being poured into a cup from one side of my head; I did not turn to confirm it. My head still felt heavy, but the pressure from the inside had subsided significantly since my last waking.
"We defeated Mephisto, eventually." My master held the cup against my lips. I lifted one arm and closed a hand around it, but it shook badly under the cup's weight. Oread moved her hand so that it was over mine, and tipped the blessed liquid into my mouth. "A portal appeared as Mephisto sorta… burned out, and now we're here."
"Where?"
She chuckled twice, with a strange mixture of fear and anticipation that gave me the creeps. "We're not in the realm of the humans anymore; this is Hell. We're at the Pandemonium Fortress."
"This is where you said you wanted to go, right?" I pushed the half-empty cup of water away when I had had enough to drink. Oread set it back down onto the bedside table with a soft, wooden tup. "You said so; I remember… it was some time after Falcon passed away, wasn't it?"
"I dunno," she replied quickly and offhandedly. "But you're right, I'm here. We've defeated Mephisto, one of the three demon lords. One down, two to go."
"I thought you're only after one." I closed my eyes; it was one less sense for my brain. "Baal… no-one even knows anything about him. I thought you only fought Mephisto to get to Diablo."
Oread sighed, and I felt one side of my bed sink a bit as she sat down on the edge of it. "I wanted to kill Diablo because, well..." A brief pause. "Naiad died here."
… It was so obvious; I wondered why I had not understood it before.
Oread was not out for fame or honour, nor was she so noble as to rid the world of evil for the sake of humanity. She came here, seeking closure, seeking peace of her own mind.
But perhaps behind the glorious purposes that gilded the legends of heroes through the ages, there was always a selfish reason that drove them on, fuelled them to the end.
For these heroes, those little reasons meant the world to them.
I was spending more and more time being awake, and my vision returned little by little. Two weeks after I first regained full consciousness, Jamella said I could walk about a bit.
Jamella, the mother of the family of three, the only humans who inhabited this forsaken place and call it home. She should be no older than perhaps mid- to late-twenties, but her movements carried with the weariness of one who has seen the horrors of a lifetime.
I did not see her much; she had not spoken to me, save for giving me instructions of what to and what not to do – mostly the latter – if I wanted to recover. Even then, she usually sent her daughter to deliver the message.
Her daughter was sweeter than any child I had met. She had her parents' dark brown skin, her rich ebon hair coiled into tight ringlets that bounced upon her shoulders when she laughed. Aged only two, little Kande already knew how to compose herself. She was generally quiet, and obedient to her parents. Maybe she sensed that her mother was under a lot of stress, having to care for three battle-worn newcomers, one of them being me.
I had heard her play with her father Halbu, a dark-skinned, big-boned man with short, tightly-curled hair that was prematurely grey. But in front of her mother, Kande just watched silently and intently, gazing lovingly and longingly at her with deep sea-green eyes, the same shade as her father's.
I seriously wondered how this family could stay sane in this place. The Pandemonium Fortress itself was bearable, albeit a little dull, with every permanent structure constructed from a smooth, grainless stone of dark grey, and every source of light provided by lamps with frosted glass panes and an unseen, oddly-colourless light source. The design reminded me a little of the Rogue Monastery, but with all the sculptures, statues, and carved relief patterns removed. What little potential familiarity here was diminished by the dryness of the air, which was always still and cool.
What would really drive one crazy, however, was outside of this unchanging, regular fortress that was the epitome of order. Outside of this was chaos – standing at the gates, barricades made of burnt iron and spiky rocks that separated the last of humanity and the forefront of monstrosity, my eyes took in fiery rivers of slowly-creeping magma, fumaroles like giant blisters in the ground spurting thick yellowish-grey smoke, geysers that ejected not steaming water but bubbling blood.
Amongst these were more distinct shapes, like ruins of ancient places of worship that now took on alien forms of broken hands reaching out to the heavens, which the gods had abandoned.
And the sky… the sky was a pool of nightmares, full of storms and shadows and sanguineous souls.
Outside of the Fortress, there was Hell. And nothing else.
A few days later, Oread came to me. I had been resting in bed, feeling so bored that I thought my head actually ached from the lack of something to occupy myself with.
"How are you today?" She plonked down onto my bed, sounding very cheerful indeed. Her hair was twisted into a crude knot at the back of her head, and wisps of her silky hair were falling out of the makeshift hairstyle.
"I'm… well?" I stuttered, taken aback by her somewhat atypical behaviour. "You… seem very happy lately."
She giggled. This was the second time I had ever heard her giggle, and it was still as incongruously freaky as ever to hear it.
"You and Nyhl… there's something going on, isn't there? You've started calling him by his name, for one." I tilted my head a little, while my eyes narrowed as I prepared to gouge at her first reaction.
She stopped giggling, but the smile stayed on her lips, and some colour bloomed on her cheeks as she looked at her own hands. "Sorry I didn't come to say goodnight last night. I was with him."
"Wha–?!" I jumped, and my voice got caught in my throat. I could feel my eyes widen in horror. "You didn't –"
"It's not what you're thinking!" She retorted quickly, reddening even more and sounding a little guilty… but perhaps that was just me. "We just talked! But, well, Celadon…" She shifted her gaze onto a crease in the blanket. "You might've figured it out already, but I just… I should tell you what I think."
Her fingers fumbled with the crease, folding it flat and running a finger down its length. I waited. Finally, she sighed heavily. "I know this is inappropriate, and it probably sounds stupid, but I'm pretty sure that we… we're..."
I looked straight at her, and when she did not continue or look up for a few seconds, I laid back. "You two are in love. Well, that's obvious."
Oread's head snapped up, and I felt a grin creeping into my features.
"It's not something that can be helped, is it? If you're expecting an opinion on this… well, I don't have any rights, really, considering –"
"Considering you're in love with the Prince of Lut Gholein, is that it?"
Jamella's voice.
I finally remembered what accent she had – it was that of the Lut Gholein nobles.
The lady herself came into view, carrying some newly-laundered sheets. She set them down onto a chair. "That ring on your finger, Celadon of Westmarch, do you know its significance?"
She was coming towards me now, and I took in her features fully with my recently-recovered eyesight. Her hair was combed back into a tight braid that allowed no loose bangs, but her jaw line, the shape of her brows, the strong but refined nose…
"That ring is passed on from husband to wife, and from mother to son in the royal family. The queen passes it onto her first son, or the first male heir to the throne; he, in turn, gives it to the woman whom he would like to have as his companion to the throne – his future queen."
My mind was blank, save for the memory of when Jerhyn had slid the ring gently onto my finger.
"You can return it to me later", he had said. I had not, however, considered that as a gesture of him asking for my hand in marriage.
I would later be overjoyed at this realisation, but for the time being, shock was all there was. I looked up at Jamella, who was right beside me now, looking rather impressed. Out of the corner of my eye, Oread was gaping at me. I felt her hand touch my leg, a gesture of requesting my explanation.
I could look into Jamella's eyes, now… deep blue, as dark as a midnight sky lit only by a crescent moon.
"You're… Jerhyn's sister?" It was a redundant question; the resemblance was unmistakable. "But he said you were –"
"Dead, I know. I'm sorry," she bowed her head towards me. "It was too much for me back there. Every time I looked at my brother, the only things that came to mind were the scenes of slaughter back in the palace." She raised her head a little, and I saw a familiar darkness in her eyes. "I knew that it must be the same for him; he was old enough to remember. Better for him to think that I'm dead, than to have to deal with the multitude of deaths that my presence would conjure into his mind."
I started to say something, but the words faded away before they could be formed. Jamella knelt down beside me, smoothed my hair back gently, and then tucked it behind my ears. "But now, at least, I can delight in the knowledge that he's chosen well. You're young, but you've got amazing resilience and will. I'm counting on you to take care of Jerhyn when this is over, all right?" She ran her hand down my cheek, gave it a pat, and strode out.
We warriors of the Sanctuary were all bound to our duties, with little freedom of how to live our lives; but it appeared now that I was not even free to die.
