Nearing the end of this arc. But this story still has more to come. . .Enjoy. . .
She looked at the razor and then at the reflection in the mirror. Belfeiro hovered behind her with his arms crossed and his eyes dark.
"Do as I have instructed and your training will be complete," he said.
Arielle had faithfully done all he asked in the past month and a half. From causing pain to herself, to inflicting regular beating against the servants. She had been against the latter action but in the end his master told her she had no choice. She still had no memory of her time with him prior to her stay with The Kurgan and the Hartmanns, but this man had been so adamant about her true identity that she had to believe him. She lifted the razor but let it drop again.
The man behind her stared on in patience, "Go on," he coaxed her. "This will signal the end of all your training and lessons. No more unless you deem to do so. This will let others know your status. This is it."
The woman looked at her own reflection and saw her wide brown eyes staring back. In them was a mix of cold hard passion to end one man's life, in there somewhere she tried to find innocence, but she couldn't Somehow, somewhere, in the past month and a half she had transformed into a trained killer with one objective on her mind.
Over the course of her master's stay she had been put through brutal training methods that left her with mental, as well as a few physical, scars. Through burning coals and beating, from his personal man servant. She recalled him all whispering in her ear that what he was doing was for the best. In one aspect of it all she was happy he never forced himself onto her, she did not and would not want him.
During this time she had had constant feeling swim through her mind and heart that didn't belong to her. Ones of dark love and longing, she didn't know who they came from or where or why she felt them. All she knew was that she just did and part of her wanted to know who. The other part of her was a new part, a callous woman who only knew that she wanted to have blood on her hands.
Two people had come to her mind, two parts of herself. The hard woman who didn't believe in hope anymore and the one who held out that this too was a lie and that The Kurgan was truth. Of course after all the sword training, endless hours that she and Moritz had spent while Belfeiro watched from his comfortable chair placed in the courtyard. Even when her delicate hands bled from the work and her limbs were turned to mush after the countless beatings of Moritz's sword against hers. The dumb mute had nearly chopped off limb and head more than once, it was by sheer willpower to live that she managed to dodge him and run away for her life. After hiding behind her master he would sneer in disgust.
"You coward," he would growl.
He raised his favorite short staff of oak wood and brought the gnarled handle down on her shoulders and back. As she screamed and then bit her tongue to stop the noise, he added to the bruises that already covered her from the fist fights he had her engage in with the much stronger Moritz. He stopped when she cowered at his feet, nearly kissing them.
"How do you expect to beat The Kurgan if you can't even beat Moritz?!" He screamed. "He's mute and slow for God's sake! A blind man could beat him you weakling! You weak cow!" For good measure he brought his boot under her and into her stomach.
She gagged at the force and flipped over on her side gasping for breath. Seething with fury Belfeiro turned and snapped his fingers, Moritz grabbed the woman and chained her up in her usual spot in the courtyard spread eagle. He left her with doing anything more. She would be left to her pain and anyone who tried to help her would be beat if Belfeiro caught them. Mel braved the beating and would sneak to her mistress to give her water or discreetly tend to her wounds.
When night fell Belfeiro would come to her and light the pit that was before her. He would lean in close to her ear and whisper things that she had no choice but to believe. Poisonous words of hate towards the man who had been harboring her for as long as she could remember. He spouted stories of her "past" and her new mission.
She came to believe him. What other choice did she have? If she fought him he beat her, if she gave in he was kind.
After accepting his words he would smile and let her loose. Afterwards he showed her to her room where a hot bath and meal were waiting for her. She would eat the food and bathe and then sleep in her bed, only to be roughly woken in the morning for another round of endless training.
She came to truly believe him.
She even came to be able to beat Moritz.
The day came when she was forced to fight him until her arms gave ou. She fought with all her training and also with her reserved desperation. The whole time she seemed to hold her own quite well when suddenly she got an inch of the upper hand. She screamed as she knocked his sword out of his hands and got him down on hie knees. The poor man, used and without any direction that was not provided for him by his Italian master, felt no pain and so grabbed the blade of her sword as it rested before his neck. Blood dripped down his forearms, off his elbows and made small wine red circles on the cobblestones beneath him.
"Bravo!" Belefeiro descended the stairs from where he had been watching with the intensity of a hunting hawk, and the sound of his clapping hands resounded off the stones of the courtyard. "Bravo indeed." He came up behind her as he usually did. "Now kill him."
The only surprise she showed was the widening of her eyes. With only a split second of hesitation to recognize that her master did, indeed, want his man servant dead she yanked her sword out of the man's grasp and then merciless lopped off the poor soul's head. His dead eyes looked at her from the ground, she stared back with a hard eyes, without remorse. She had been issued an order and she carried it out, that was all that mattered.
Now she stood here with her second to last order, the silver razor glistened in her hands. She looked away from herself and back into the eyes of her master.
"Yes my pet." He cooed softly, gently.
The Kurgan was in his cabin on board his own ship. They were in route back to the coast of Saxonia. Suddenly he shot up from his sleep and let out a guttural yell that was also somewhat of a growl. A cold feeling ripped through his core and he knew it was Belfeiro's doing. He went out to the railings and looked out towards the direction where the shore would be in view once the sun came up.
Normally, since the Prize had been won and any Immortals who had human counterparts had already had their destinies made and could live on, Immortals who appeared from any other source into the Highlander world were subject to death. Their futures were unknown. As The Kurgan explained to his mate early on he could in fact kill other Immortals.
His blue eyes darkened to a jet black; someone was going to pay with their lives. And it wasn't going to be his people. Belfeiro's time on earth was coming to an end.
What did Arielle do? O_O I want to hear your ideas. . .