Why hello everyone! Long time no see!

I've got a research project to get on with this year, for which I am hell-bent upon getting good marks. I don't know whether that means less time for 'fic-writing, or more inappropriate musergy-surges for the love of untimely irony. We'll see.

Thank you to all those who have been reading this 'fic diligently, despite my not-so-diligent updates. Thanks to you who have added me to alerts and favourites over this time, too. You guys are awesome. Special mentions to SoulCry for the thoughtful review!

And as always, much thanks to Emmelyn Cindy Mah, who's put up with me for another year, with or without spazzage.

Yay for multi-meaning chapter names.

Disclaimer: Diablo isn't mine, nor are its sequels. Even my mind isn't my own, but is at its own command, apparently. Doesn't stop my skull from physically containing it though. For now.


Chapter 35

Break


Some time after the wedding, there was a period back then, when I simply did not know how to feel. There was the Lord of Terror, sealed just somewhere beneath the brittle ground on which we stood. Every time a jet of steam spurted from a geyser in the land beyond the Fortress, it felt as if the very earth was groaning and struggling in its containment of such a creature.

On the other hand, here in the Fortress were us. Two families. One was a family of three with an infant girl, the other was a pair of newlyweds. Was it the doomsday atmosphere, I wonder? Were they just trying to savour every little moment they had? Here within the walls it was too quiet, too inactive, too ignorant about it all, as it seemed.

And then there was me.

I had not felt that alone since… forever, I think. Before Oread picked me out of the line of Rogue scouts, I had my sisters, everyone who were of the Sisterhood. After that, aside from my master herself, there were always other people. There was Jerhyn in Lut Gholein, and Falcon, and Leaf… by the time we got to Kurast, we had lost Falcon, but there was Natalya, and I had grown close to Leaf, not only as her caretaker, but she was also my friend, and something of a ward, a little sister to me.

Now she was gone, they all were; and as much as I liked both of my current companions in battle, they had been bound together, and there would forever be something that I could not and should not intervene.

I spent my days training, a lot of the times by myself. Strangely, I did not mind doing that alone too much. It felt like ages since I had trained this way, when I practised and honed my skills with such relative… leisure, for the need of a better word. Since leaving Westmarch our journey had been a bit of a hasty blur to me, now that I thought about it, being ushered from one place to another by some form of urgency every time.

That is not to say, of course, that such leisureliness was in the least bit justified. We were putting it off, the final battle with the Lord of Terror. I knew it, and I knew that the others knew it, too. We put it off for something like well over two months. There were three small invasions which we held off without too much trouble.

Tyrael returned twice, and said significantly less than he did before. His eyes, though… the anxiety in them was apparent, however calm his expressions were otherwise. Sometimes his gaze even grew accusatory.

One morning, I was lingering just outside of the Fortress' walls, doing some… target practise. It felt mundane, looking at this unchanging landscape, taking down the monsters approaching from afar, all the while knowing that there are just thousands more where those came from.

What are you doing, Celadon?

I turned around, startled but not entirely surprised, to see Tyrael perched upon a sharply-jutting rock that extended from the steep slope leading up to the Fortress.

"Practising my sights." I replied aloud, releasing the taut bowstring as my eyes remained on the Archangel, though my Inner Sight saw the monster fall. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you all to do something, I suppose." His tone was mild, and somewhat sad. "Are you waiting, too?"

"You already know the answer to that, don't you, Archangel?" I faced him squarely, waiting for his eyes to meet my own, so that I could be sure he saw the emotions through my expressions. "Why are you waiting, anyway?"

He exhaled, his eyes slightly narrowed as he peered into the distance, towards the Chaos Sanctuary. "Would you prefer it if I'd brought it straight up, instead? Sure, that'd be taken right in."

Archangel or not, in this eight-year-old physique, for that moment, he just seemed like any other insolent boy. "Why do you bother, then? You should know already, there's this thing a lot of humans are afraid of; a little something called death. You're asking us to face up to someone even you can't kill, and you're immortal."

"I've already told you, it's a little something else called freewill I'm betting on." There was a little smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, or that was what I thought I saw. "Besides, I'm only a spiritual existence. Diablo is both physical and spiritual, likewise his minions, but also likewise for humans." He continued in that calm, almost aloof tone. "And pardon me for losing my lieutenant, as well as most if not all of my divine army. Because unlike what you may think, I can't be in two places at once, and I can't fight Diablo when I'm busy trying to hold the seals in place."

I felt a little sorry for him then. "Well…" I cleared my throat, trying to move away from this guilt-inciting conversation. "You… come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure now; you are immortal, right?"

He looked down at himself, lifted his hand to inspect the palm, then the back of it. "This body's mortal, isn't it?"

I felt my eyes widen in surprised realisation. "So… you can die?"

"I don't know if I'd call it dying, as you do for physical beings." He shrugged. "But… to date, I've gotten rather large portions of my spiritual being torn out of me, and what remained doesn't like its current state much, which is why I prefer to hold it in this body as a physical container. I suppose if the rest gets destroyed, you can call it death. After all, that seems to be what's happened to my lieutenant." He looks over himself again, with a sort of placid curiosity. "And I think… if this breaks, then things would be messy, too."

I bit my bottom lip while considering that thought. I do not think that I had my mind really wrapped around that concept, at the time, but what I knew for sure was that… either way, Tyrael was not going to hold up the defences much longer.

The boy hopped down from his perch. "I need to be off." he said plainly, his words hanging in the sulfuric air, before he took off towards the Chaos Sanctuary once more in his fragile form of divinity.


"Honestly, how much longer are you planning to idle around here?" I brought it right up to Oread's face that very evening. I was getting tired of this, myself; the fact that Tyrael brought it up with me… he probably knew that I was going to act upon what he told me, and for all the gods knew he could have said what he did so I could handle the dirty work, but it was the least of my cares; it was enough of a reason for me to say something.

Oread pulled me aside, further into the tent, and almost forcefully sat me down upon the edge of her bed, before crossing her arms, standing over me and facing me squarely. "You didn't have to keep giving us those looks and snide comments all through dinner, now, did you?"

I sucked in a breath, the air hissing through my teeth, though I managed to hold that for a moment, and then let it out slowly. "We're not meant to stay here and not do anything. Either we go back or we move on, but we can't just sit here and watch the days go by like this."

"Look, Celadon…" She sighed deeply, brushing the long strands of silvery-wheaten hair off of her face. "What are the chances that we can slay Diablo, really? Tyrael can't do it, Naiad couldn't do it, and so many others who'd come before us couldn't do it."

I regarded my master; she looked different, somehow… different to the last time I had really looked at her closely. Her posture, her expressions, her eyes… she had lost some of the fight that I remembered seeing in her.

My eyes narrowed and my brows tightened. "Why you brought me out here in the first place… why you're here, why I'm here now… you've forgotten, huh?"

Her eyes flared, then. She slapped me across the face, hard enough to make bright spots flash into my vision, but I heard her; I had struck a nerve, a rather precise hit, evidently.

"Don't you dare to even suggest that, Celadon!" She was yelling, her voice breaking from the instantaneous strain on her throat. "Just that I'd gotten married, and— don't you dare!"

I kept my eyes averted from her face, my jaws clenched tight as I fought back my welling emotions, the heated feeling on my face that only seemed to burn more fiercely as I did so.

The sound of the heavy curtain that served as the tent's entrance being flung open, and a gasp from Oread, followed by her husband's soothing voice. "Take it easy, Oread, c'mon."

I looked up; Nyhl was embracing Oread from the back, his arms folded about her abdomen, and his cheek against the side of her head. My master was visibly sedated, but before I could steal a closer look, Nyhl gave me a sharp glance, and nodded towards the curtain. I crept out quickly without another word.

I sat alone in the dark in my own quarters – there were rearrangements, of course, and now the couple shared a tent while I had one to myself – for a good hour before he approached me. Nyhl asked if I was awake; I grunted a reply. He came in, tentatively, lit the lamp, and simply stood there in front of me. I did not look up, but he seemed to be in no hurry to leave, neither. Knowing that his patience would most likely outlast mine, I finally broke the silence after a good few minutes.

"How much did you hear?"

"All of it, as far as I know?" He shrugged; his tone was mild but demanding, in such a way that only he could manage. "You don't like the way things are going; you're blaming this, at least in part, on our recent marriage, aren't you?"

I sighed; it was just like him to point it out so blatantly and precisely. "I don't want to do it, but—"

"It's hard not to. I understand." He finished my sentence for me. "I see your point. Really."

He joined me on the floor as he sat down, clasped his hands together as he lowered his eyes, as though in contemplation. "Truth be told, if you're thinking we're trying to drag this out, you're not far off the mark." He glanced up at me to try and meet my eyes. "You understand that, right?"

I lifted my gaze to glare at him. "That's why I thought you two getting married in the first place, here and then, was a weird idea."

"So what is it that you want us to do about it, Celadon?" His eyes were not angry, but rather, a touch resentful and despaired. "Break it off and head towards Diablo for better or worse?"

I could have hated him for putting it that way.

"We haven't been wasting our days just exchanging words, you realise." His voice grew harder, now. "We're trying our best to prepare for the worst, too, as you have. We know why we're here; we know what we're in for. We haven't forgotten."

I perked up at those words. It was a relief, really, to know that they did still feel the doom, that they still recognise the constant death that held sway over us all.

Then again… was it even right to be relieved about feeling that way? This inhuman place… makes us all a little less human, perhaps.


I apologised to Oread the coming morning for saying what I did, and she apologised to me for lashing out. On the outside, we both shrugged it off, regarded the incident as irrelevant with all these other troubles going on, and pragmatically called the issue settled.

On the inside, we both knew that no-one forgives or forgets that easily.

Still, we were once again practising together, my companions and me. Upon the plains whose very names were "Despair", we stood between the Fortress of the Light and the Sanctuary of the Dark, taking down target after target… yes; by then those were not monsters, not enemies, merely targets.

The real enemies were further off.

Oread and I still did not speak to one another much, save the occasional comments when a good hit was landed.

"Nice." She said simply as my arrow soared through the air with very minimal yaw, landing into the throat of a winged monster, and exploding into flames upon impact.

"Thanks." I replied, then watched on as she took three arrows from her quiver, nocked one while holding the other two between the last three fingers of her right hand. She let out a clear shout, and released the bowstring, before nocking another one, letting that fly, and then doing the same to the last arrow. The arrows, fired in quick succession, was encased in a smoky envelop of her indigo mana as they sought out their victims.

After watching three monsters separated by yards in distance fall almost simultaneously, she let out a soft sigh, and looks towards her husband, an impish grin playing upon her lips.

He returned the look. "I can do that, too."

"Oh, yes?" Oread raised a brow sceptically. "I don't see you wielding a bow, and honestly don't think you can aim that well."

Nyhl shrugged, tossed his hair over his shoulder, and sheathed his long sword. He flexed both his hands, closed his eyes momentarily, and extended his left arm.

In an instant, tendrils of sickly, pale blue-green rose off his arm, and an energetic, denser mass of the same shade formed in his hand. It shot off in a gust of wind, a glowing, horned skull with jaws agape, and what looked like tentacles trailing behind it. He repeated the same actions with his right hand, and another spirit – or whatever it was – soared off into the distance. With the lack of other nearby victims, both proceeded to feed on the same demon, one that crawled on four legs… by the time it fell, the four legs were ripped from the body and flung apart in a thick puddle of brownish blood.

Nyhl flicked both his wrists, and the spirits winked out.

"You're a sick, sick man, you know that?" Oread smiled, in spite of her words.

Nyhl beamed brightly in return. "That's why you married me."

He then drew his dagger, and turned to run towards another approaching four-legged humanoid, the blade of his dagger glowing dimly greenish.

Oread snorted, and before her husband could land a strike, she intercepted the monster with an arrow that chilled upon impact – the monster opened its mouth to cry out, but its voice caught as its movements slowed. Another arrow and it stopped altogether, its blood frozen solid within their vessels. I saw the whites of its gaping eyes redden, tiny bumps and bruises rose out of its hairless skin, as the crystallising blood and fluids ruptured what used to contain them, and spread out just beneath the skin, before they were completely frozen.

What I saw now was a corpse in suspended animation, and I could not help but wince at the sight. Surely, as soon as it thawed, it would end up as no more than a puddle of bloody pulp.

Nyhl marvelled at the corpse for a moment, quirked a tiny grin, and reached out to place his hand upon it. His mana focused, but before the familiar pulse and the accompanying explosion, Oread drew her bow, hard, and there came a sharp twang.

Her arrow first cracked the cadaver, then the body crumbled, each piece of frozen meat and bones hitting the ground and shattering further, the smaller pieces starting to melt and disintegrate into a mushy mess promptly.

Nyhl's face fell as he turned to his wife. "Well, that was unhelpful."

"And covering everyone in bits of body parts is helpful?" Oread cocked her head.

"No in that sense, but you'd better not—"

"Wait, what was that?" I cut the two off from their endearing exchange of sarcasm. There was a sickening pulse of energy from the Chaos Sanctuary. I jerked my eyes towards it, but all I caught was a glimpse of white light winking out.

"Was that Tyrael?" Oread inquired; I did not offer her a response, however. Slinging my bow upon my shoulder, I took off towards the Fortress. Tyrael would return there, if he could; and if he could not, we were not about to linger about this place now.

We scrambled up to the top of the stairs leading to the refuge of the Pandemonium Fortress just as Tyrael reappeared in the centre of the Fortress' courtyard. He was in his spiritual, angelic form, though the bright white aura that usually enclosed him was dimmed almost to the point of being absent. His wings, the radiating streams of white energy, seemed to be disintegrating, as bits of it dropped off like flakes, and faded into nothing as it drifted through the air.

By the time Jamella and Halbu ran into the scene, with Kande in tow, Tyrael's entire figure turned transparent, collapsed into a thick, grey, foggy mass, and assumed the familiar form of the young boy. Even in human form, his colour was bad.

"Tyrael," Jamella frowned. "What happened to you?"

The Archangel – the sickly-looking boy, now – looked up, his quicksilver eyes somehow dulled. He parted his lips to speak, but instead of words came a convulsion, a weak croak, and a stream of red pouring down and splattering over his immaculate white robes.

The next instant was a mad flurry; Jamella shouting something, Halbu catching Tyrael before he plummeted head-first onto the stone floor, Kande bursting into tears, me running to calm the little girl down.

"Shit, Tyrael…" Oread ran her fingers roughly back through her hair, after dropping to her knees beside the small figure lying on the floor. "What got you?"

Jamella shook her head at Oread sharply as she laid the boy on his back, and turned his head to the side. She pressed both her hands over his solar plexus, and as her mana focused, the pool of blood under Tyrael's head stopped spreading as the streaming from his mouth eased. He blinked several times, and turned to look at each of us in turn, the left side of his face and his white-blond hair smeared crimson by his own blood.

"Don't—" Jamella turned to give the Archangel a hard stare. "—move. Stay still." Turning to Oread, she told her sternly, "Whatever got him… putting it simply, did to him the equivalent of blowing a gaping hole right through the stomach."

Oread winced, her hand moving subconsciously to her own stomach. Nyhl put his arm around her shoulder.

Jamella's lips thinned as she returned her eyes to the boy. "So… if you've got multiple organs torn out of you, what remains obviously don't work together very well."

"That's… not quite accurate." Tyrael's voice, childlike yet mature, was unexpectedly steady. Soft and weak, but steady.

Jamella shushed him curtly. "You do realise, Tyrael, that when the red liquid comes out of a body like that, it's usually a sign that whoever owns the body is going to die."

"Not any time too soon with the way you're helping, Jamella." He managed a tiny gesture of a nod. "But… pardon me for such troubles. The seals were broken, and I got rather overwhelmed."

We all turned our eyes to him, then. Jamella twitched significantly at the knowledge, making Tyrael gasp in response; but it was Nyhl who voiced our fears.

"Diablo's out?"

"Mmph." The mercury eyes narrowed a touch. "I held up against him for a while before I became preoccupied with his minions and underlings. By the end of it, all I could manage was to hit him hard enough to stun him for a moment, clear a path, and barricade him within the grounds of his own Sanctuary." He frowned, and closed his eyes. "It's not going to hold for very long."

Jamella bit hard on her lip as she sucked a breath in through her teeth. "We have to head out."

Halbu clapped his hand onto his wife's shoulder, and as she turned to him, he shook his head, a gentle smile upon his features. "No, you're staying here. You know how to work the defence enchantments, and you know how to fix him…" He looked down at Tyrael, his smile fading, then back at his wife, sea-green orbs upon those of midnight-blue. "… Well, you know how to help him hold himself together."

"Halbu…" Jamella's voice was soft. She trailed off, looked intently at him for a moment, then nodded twice – first with hesitation, then firmly, with resolution. "I want you back."

The Paladin embraced his wife and kissed her quickly on the lips. "I'll try my best." He then turned to his little daughter, hugged her too, and ruffled her tightly-coiled ringlets.

In return, Kande graced her father with two successive kisses on both his cheeks. "Don't die, Papa."

Halbu just smiled and kissed her at the top of her head.

"You're sure, sir?" I was doubtful; I had never seen Halbu in combat, or even thought of him being in combat. He seemed the family man while Jamella was the one who took care of the Fortress' safety.

Halbu looked at me, his eyes soft, his lips curved once more into a gentle smile. "I'm not just a blacksmith. I wasn't just brought here to forge things." He straightened, his smile disappearing instantly. "We both have our own duties; now I've been called to carry mine out."

I nodded firmly at Halbu's words; this time was finally here. I was not looking forward to it, by all means, but it was finally beginning, and there was finally something I can anticipate, for better or worse.

Nyhl was not as resolute about this as I felt, apparently. He took a moment, as though to ponder Halbu's suggestion and all that it entailed, then he turned to his newly-wedded wife.

Oread groaned, irritably, and scowled at him. "We've been through this—"

"I know. I thought asking once more wouldn't hurt." He frowned, clear concern written across his features.

"It wouldn't change my mind, neither." Oread's tone was solid. Steadily, she got to her feet, and nodded at Halbu, the stern ferocity seeming to begin to return to her; it returned to her stance, at the least, and the gleam in her eyes.

"Get equipped." The Paladin ordered… commanded. "We leave this Fortress in five minutes."