Author's Notes:
~Merry Christmas, Blessed Yule, Happy Holidays~
I actually finished chapter 102. It's 3 am and I'm not proof reading so I'm so sorry for spelling/grammar errors. T.T
Behold, the super-mega-ultra-17k-word-long chapter where Davian does nothing but whisper "I fucked up" while his brother attempts to bash his face in for that very reason. Also, badass Irena is badass.
*TW*
Dark themes
Violence towards animals (I promise the dogs don't die. Cersei gets his ass kicked, but I swear he'll make a full recovery and be back to his grumpy self in no time)
Chapter 102:
Davian sat alone in the train car. He was shaking, hands clutching tightly at the jade pendant in the same way a child grips with white-knuckles the blanket shielding them from a midnight terror. It was quiet. Vacuous. The silence was deafening and consuming and he didn't think he'd ever felt so untethered and empty and alone. What was happening to him? What had he done?
"Air, fire, water, earth, I call on you," he whispered into the jade stone. His mind fuzzied and he squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to concentrate, "A-air, fire, water, earth, I call on you. Together with the spirit-"
The silence was
Maddening
An introduction. That was all it was supposed to be. Nothing was supposed to actually happen.
How many times had he done that exact ritual before? It was a mundane assignment when he was young to introduce new devotees, to guide others, and never had this happened. It takes months of practice, of exercise, of meditation to begin to utilize that kind of energy. Neophytes don't manifest, and they certainly don't summon. Even newcomers naturally gifted with Virale are hardly able to use it. Laxus was a master of Magic, not life energy. How could he have summoned a spirit? On his first try?
No... no that was... that wasn't Laxus. It couldn't have been. And if it wasn't Laxus that had summoned the spirit, then that meant... that meant...
Davian ran his thumb over the pendant, wracked with a horrified shiver.
Nothing was supposed to answer back.
Davian felt violated. One moment, he'd been sitting there before Laxus in meditation, and the next, a pressure like nothing he'd ever felt before... no, like something he'd felt before but more, more. It was warm and it was vast like something he couldn't possibly be able to dream or hallucinate with his tiny, fragile, mawkish little mind. It had possessed him, and he'd been left out in encapsulating blackness. He'd heard it all as if he'd been there in that room, the voice speaking and Laxus answering and the confusion and fear and hopelessness. He'd heard it all but it was like he was a ghost on another plane of existence, separated so completely but somehow also only just outside of reach of it all. He'd wanted to scream but everything was swallowed up in that void. Everything.
Strung out, like wool he'd been twisted and spun and pulled into a thin blue yarn, he'd slipped back in and brushed across the thing, the entity that had taken him over. It was... it was... he didn't know what it was. But somehow, some way, it knew him. It craved him. Davian felt its relief at touching him and its deep, deep sorrow. For a time that was equal parts eternity and no time at all, Davian felt like everything that had ever happened in his life had led to this. It was outstretched towards him, beckoning him to come close, to just open his hand and grasp it. He'd wanted to sob for joy because it was so beautiful, so right. This was the freedom and acceptance and love he'd been chasing after his whole life, this was everything he'd ever needed or wanted, and the promise of finally feeling complete and safe was right there if only he could reach out a hand back and-
...suddenly, he'd been hurled back into his body.
And now... now it was so, so quiet. Eerily quiet. Gapingly quiet. Like being left out to float in the ocean, unable to breathe but also unable to die. All around was just anxiety and the sound of his heart beating so hellishly loud.
The train car rocked and Davian yelped, squeezing the pendant tighter and taking in a shuddering breath. He felt like he was in a sensory deprivation chamber. His mind was spinning, his thoughts loud, loud. Why was everything so quiet? Why did he feel so empty and alone? What was missing that had been there before? It had always been there, since before he could remember... no, since the day he'd stood in the chamber. Ever since the day Davian had declared that he could be, he would be, the thing that Father had wanted him to be even though he didn't understand what that meant. It had been there gnawing at his insides, guiding his path, pushing him onward in a direction he didn't comprehend, towards a future he unwittingly agreed to and then began running from... and now it was gone. It was gone.
Davian was alone.
And it was terrifying.
He swallowed the tightness that was welling up into his throat and pressed his forehead to his knuckles.
"Element of air, element of fire, el-element of water, element of earth, I call on you. With, with these elements together under spirit, I cast a circle of protection above, below, with... within..."
He'd left Laxus with the jade hagstone for protection from whatever they had summoned. At least it would keep it at bay if only for a short time. If harm was meant to him by a spirit, any spirit, the jade would turn murky and eventually crack in two. It was a ridiculous little trinket, he knew, especially when he had no idea what it was that he had summoned. For all he knew, Laxus could be dying. Energies attaching themselves to strong souls in order to leech off of them was far from unheard of. They often preyed on those desperate and looking for answers, making deals with mortals in exchange for a price far steeper than initially disclosed...
Davian opened his eyes to stare at the ground. The incessant clicking and clacking of the train's wheels against the tracks was twisting and distorting into a deranged white noise. He felt like he could hardly breathe.
It didn't feel like a sinister entity, did it? Nor did it have all the red flags of a trickster spirit in disguise. It didn't part with forbidden knowledge, didn't offer a pact with which to trick Laxus or himself. It didn't demand prayers or offerings in exchange for power, money, or even that which Laxus did desire after he'd made it known. It was a situation that could easily have been taken advantage of, but it didn't. But what else could it be? Only something woefully strong could have possessed Davian, of all people. He was experienced, it wasn't like he'd just left himself completely open and unguarded. Nothing should have touched them. Nothing should have been able to possess him; certainly nothing that wasn't invited...
The screaming of the brakes halted anything else he could have thought. The noise echoed along his marrow, strengthening the hollow feeling inside of him. He winced when the voice overhead called the stop, and Davian's hands shook as he gathered his things. When he finally swung open the door to the saltbox house, he felt numb all over. Neither dog greeted him at the door, and he stood in the foyer staring down the untouched darkness of the place. He could hear Irena's voice from where it floated from the kitchen alongside the scent of something ambrosial and earthy. He could hear Serrill; the low, tired hum of his voice in vague response to whatever she'd said made him feel like an intruder in another's home.
He ran his eyes over the darkened rooms as he walked silently in. He wondered if he was even real anymore, standing there in the shadows quietly. He wandered aimlessly forward, looking over the lounging rooms as if he were seeing them for the first time. The heavy, ornate curtains were drawn, blocking out any sunlight that might try to pry its way through. Rameses was laying in the hall and looked at him only as he got near. His large, intelligent eyes regarded him without the suspicion he was accustomed to. On any other day, that should be good, but now it was haunting.
It snuck up on Davian that the house was alarmingly dark, to the point that he felt stifled, claustrophobic, like he was underground. Again, his hands began their shaking and he turned on a pointed heel to head to the nearest window and threw it open. Beautiful, streaming sunlight spilled like a waterfall into half of the living room, and in turn he opened the rest in that room before making his way across the hall. His nails dug into the coarse fabric of the curtains like he was clinging to them to stay in this reality, to keep him lashed down and moored.
"Davian?" Irena's voice came from behind him confused and light-hearted, but he didn't even turn to regard her. He was single-minded in his task, "I didn't even hear the door. Did you just get back?"
"Just." his reply was mumbled as he crossed over into the hall again and made his way to the dining room.
"How was your... trip?"
Concern deepened her voice as he violently ripped the curtain away. His nails gripped to the windowpane. Had it always been jammed? When was the last time he'd opened the windows? Had he ever?
"Is something the matter?" she flinched back when he tore it open. He could smell the sea and it made him pause for just a moment. He realized he was out of breath.
"Has it always been so dark in here?" his voice was quaking as he spoke and he didn't dare glance at her as he turned again, this time for the great room.
"I, um... you don't like it?" she asked gently, "You always seemed more comfortable with them shut."
"Like it? Why would I like it? Is drowning. Dón en noise?"
"Noise?" Irena asked as he, again, forced open another window.
"Yes, the noise! It's like a funeral parlor in here!" he snapped.
"What's the matter?" Serrill was standing in the doorway, blocking his way out. A rag was in his hand and his prosthetic was off, like maybe he was interrupted in maintaining it. He gave Davian a quick once-over before his brow furrowed.
"It's too dark... and quiet," she replied slowly, exchanging a look with the blonde that made Davian's blood turn suddenly hot.
"Irena said you liked them shut? Because you didn't have to be so... so..."
"So what?" Davian asked pointedly, eyeing first Serrill and then Irena. His nose itched from the smell of oil.
Irena's smile got a little tighter, "So you can be yourself, love. So you don't have to hide. Wasn't that why you liked them shut? So you could walk around your own home without having to be forced to look so... well... human?"
Davian stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. He glanced at the open window and the view of their closest neighbors, far enough away that surely they couldn't see them. But now that he was looking out at the vast field of cut grass just before the tree line, he felt incredibly exposed. In the stark shadows beneath the mature trees, and the slight haze in their depths, the shadows were all too sinister. His hands began to shake again, so much so that the pendant he'd clutched so tightly to in one hand slipped between his fingers to the ground. He murmured a curse and picked it up.
"You're right... yes, of course..."
He immediately drew the curtains again.
"Davian," Irena frowned.
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry," he muttered pushing past them to make his way back through the house, "You're right I-I don't... what was I thinking...?"
"Davian, what's wrong?"
"I'm closing the windows," he muttered beneath his breath, cringing into the shadows each time he blotted out the light. He stepped over Cersei's paws who just gazed up at him with mild disinterest, Cersei, who always growled when he came too close.
"Davian! Would you stop for just a moment?"
"No, I'm... you're right, I prefer them shut I don't... it shouldn't bother me."
"Davian!"
He felt her hand on his arm, stopping him, and he snapped back his arm in response. She was slightly breathless, having followed him all through the house. He froze as he watched Irena shake her hand, her lips pursed. She'd painted her nails bright red.
"I'm sor-"
"No, no, I'm sorry. I know you don't like to be touched casually but you need to sit down a moment." she said gently, withdrawing as soon as she was sure he had been quieted, "How about I make you some tea, hm? You're shaking, love."
"I'm just trying to close the windows." To his own ears he sounded dumb. What was he even doing?
"Why don't we leave the one open, just for now?" she said slowly, "And we can sit down and talk about the windows, and the curtains, too, if you'd like, while we stabilize your blood sugar a bit. How have you been eating? I know you like to skip meals when you're on the road..."
For the life of him, Davian couldn't understand what she was saying to him. Why in this lifetime or any other would he want to talk about windows and curtains? It was fixed now. The curtains were closed and it was dark again, suffocatingly so. Serrill was standing next to Rameses like he didn't know if he should still be there but obviously concerned. Davian felt like something of a freak show on display, a rooster with its feathers all ruffled while the chickens gawked. He wanted to curl up and find someplace to hide...
"Davian, are you hearing me?" Irena's hands were on her hips, a deep frown set to her features, "I'm asking you if you're hungry."
Davian snapped at her, "I'm not hungry, Irena!"
Something in his chest dropped deep down into his gut and he felt like the air had been punched from his lungs.
"I'm not... hungry..."
Davian wasn't hungry, not even slightly. The pang of emptiness that he was accustomed to was gone. Slowly, Davian glanced at his watch. He realized he had never reset his alarm when leaving Laxus's house and so he'd missed taking his sedative by hours, near a day, and yet his scales weren't fighting to break through his skin, his nails were still hastily trimmed.
What had he done?
The corner of his lip twitched and he found himself rather amused. A laugh bubbled up from somewhere and spilled out of him. It was the oddest sensation because he also felt like he was going to cry or maybe tear out his hair. He wasn't hungry!
"Davian, you're scaring me..." Rameses had come up next to Irena on sensing her unease, sitting squarely between them as if Davian might move to hurt her, "Tell me what's going on."
"I'm not... I'm not hungry..." he chuckled one more time, wiping his eyes as he fought to stop his head from spinning. He cleared his throat but soon fell into another fit of giggles because it was just hilarious, "Can you be-believe it?! When, when, was the last time...? I thought I was going crazy before but this!"
"This isn't funny, Davian! Tell us what's going on!"
He stopped short. Looking at Irena now, he realized she looked both concerned and frightened. And Serrill, too, had taken a few steps closer, his arm raised just so in case he were to need to do something quickly. Rameses cut the tension with a whine, upset that his master was upset but not completely willing to attack. The silence came crashing back into the room like water in a ruptured vessel, and again Davian's throat was thick with it.
"Something's wrong with me," he said it calmly but his hands started to shake again, "Something's missing. I don't... I don't know. I don't know how I don't know because it's so... big. It's always been there and now it's gone."
"Ok... ok..." Irena said gently, "When did you notice it was gone?"
"Did you leave it at Laxus's?" Serrill offered, and at Davian's blank stare he fumbled out, "It's a thing, isn't it?"
"I'm not hungry anymore..."
Saying it out loud made him want to cry. It was relief and it was grief. He could hardly grasp what it was and was damned to find the words to describe it. Davian suddenly felt like he needed to prove something to himself. Vaguely, he heard Irena and Serrill both say something to him but he couldn't quite make it out and no longer had the energy to try. He felt so vacant, so hollow, he was starting to wonder if he was even real at all. What had he felt all his life? Why was he without it? Who was he? What had he done?
He walked up the stairs and to the master bedroom. His eyes trained to the full-length mirror and he saw his reflection in it. As soon as he was before it he stopped and stared, eyes following the rigid angles of him as he presented himself. Before he really knew what he was doing, he unfastened his cloak and let it drop to the ground. Then, he began working with shivering fingers down the buttons of his coat before pulling it free for it to follow suit. He could just see his scars peak from beneath he short sleeves of his undershirt.
He could feel their eyes, or well, mostly it was Irena's. He glanced at her reflection behind him, at the worry etched into her face. Serrill was standing past her in the doorway, looking rather directionless but still compelled by concern or just the urge to help. Rameses stuck close to Irena's side, looking for guidance in all the strangeness.
Davian could hear his heart getting louder, pushing the emptiness around inside him. It was gut-wrenching and awful. Was this normal? Was this what normal felt like? He looked down at his hands, at how human they looked. He ran his eyes over them as if he were seeing them for the very first time. He winced as he thought about his nails growing long, longer. True to their master's calling, black bloomed beneath the tan skin and he could feel the pull as his nails turned into sharp black talons. Blue tipped his fingers and began to climb up his knuckles, turning his hands opalescent as the scales shimmered forward to claim his wrists. He watched them as they tamely obeyed. He didn't have to fight to make the changes stop, he wasn't overcome with need and aggression and bloodlust. It was just empty, vacuous, and quiet. So, so quiet.
"You know, usually when this happens, I get the urge to tear something apart. I have to fight, I have to concentrate not to be violent. The elders called it l'lamád de oró thino: the call of the wrathful god. I have felt it almost all of my life... I don't feel it now..."
As if on cue, he heard the deep, defensive growl of Cersei rumbling down the hall. For an instant, Davian felt relief wash over him. Cersei, that damned, grudge-holding dog, could without fail sense the violence in him. If he reacted, then there must be some portion of Davian that wasn't this completely new, ghostly creature. But when Davian turned to find the maned monster, he wasn't glaring into the room at them. No, he was standing with ears erect and hackles raised at the top of the stairs, glaring down into the house. Rameses let out a quieter growl that turned into a bearing of teeth, hunching down to take post between Irena and the threat downstairs.
"Cer-"
Davian brought up his hand sharply and Irena froze. Serrill positioned himself protectively just inside the door, his fingers once again twitching as he watched Cersei closely. The dog didn't move, didn't advance, just continued to growl and lick his teeth in angry anticipation.
The dread that seeped sharply through Davian's veins was worse than the pain of a heart attack. He had only seen the dogs act this way one other time, and the prospect of what could be downstairs made his blood turn to ice. With a shaking hand, he gripped at the hilt of his blade and forced his feet to move. In near complete silence, Davian stole himself to the doorway adjacent to Serrill. He took in a quiet gasp and slowly flicked out his tongue. He was immediately assaulted with the smell of the dogs, of sweat, of trepidation, and then, lingering there just where he could barely taste it, was the sickening scent of underground.
Davian first looked at Serrill, and then Irena. Something sane shifted into place, the Major in him ingrained enough to bark a command, "Serrill, guard Irena."
"What? No!" Irena hissed, reaching out as if to grab Davian by the arm but stopping short, "I am not the damsel in distress, here, Davian."
"I do not know what is down there," he stated sharply, gaining him one of her striking glares, "Whoever it is most likely will not mean me harm. I cannot guarantee anything in regards to you. Do you understand?"
Serrill nodded for her, "Understood."
"Serrill!" Irena hissed, seething.
Why was the house so dark? He could have sworn he'd never lived like this. Still, he stood by the snarling Cersei in what felt like twilight. It should have been a good thing. Someone unfamiliar with his home should have trouble where he had none, but Davian was certain whatever was down there could see just as well as he in the dark. He began the long decent to the base of the stairs. His pulse hammered in the back of his skull and he could smell his own panic where it slipped from his pores, marking the air around him like the bleeding light of a distress beacon. There really was little point in hiding. They could probably feel his approach like the low din of insects as one nears a nest...
He stood on the last step, eyes flashing around the foyer. The curtains were immobile. Nothing moved down here except the dust that refused to settle from his earlier rampage. It made the fine hair on his neck stand on end.
He should have felt it, too, the malign nighing of something predatorial making his mind buzz. Why hadn't he sensed that alignment, the innate pull of gravity as two objects breach the boundaries of one another before they fall back into space? It should have had his teeth sharp and his thoughts fragmenting into impulse and the need to fill some aching emptiness in himself, but it was as it had been for the last twenty hours... quiet.
Davian's breathing was entirely too loud. His ears strained to catch any hint of what was down there with him. For a moment he doubted his judgement. Maybe it was far more incidental than what he feared. This was the culmination of months of blackouts that got worse, fears that preyed on his waking moments and a lack of sleep from waking nightmares. He was overreacting and there just happened to be a normal, human intruder right when he was starting to think he'd done something irreconcilable, something unatonable. Coincidence and a touch of panic, that's all this was.
Even that hope, despite its frailness, struck the fortitude from him when it was dashed. He stepped off that landing and turned to face the corridor that led deeper into the place he called home. The shadow on the other side of the french doors that opened to the great room was not that of a man. The yellow eye that glinted back at him wasn't either.
Davian's heart jumped up into his throat and his hand gripped tighter his saber as a familiar voice slithered up his spine, "Orthinos."
"Orotrushit," Davian whispered, and regarded him as coldly as he could muster, "What are you doing here?"
Davian could tell Orotrushit was holding himself back, refusing to take a step forward. His tail thrashed from side to side despite how firmly he held himself still. It was a wonder to Davian. Orotrushit was never one to be cautious on his approach. He had a glamour nearly on par with that of fullblooded chameleons, and his adeptness with Virale was a rival to his own. More than that, though, was his eye. Hidden now, Davian knew the kind of power it possessed, and even more lethal was his brother's ability to use it. Never in his life had he ever seen his brother pause as he did now, unsure, not waltzing forward as if nothing in this lifetime or the next could touch him, because it couldn't truly unless he wanted it to. Not really. Even Laxus's lightning, a power he'd seen in person, was rendered nonexistant only because Orortrushit wished it. So why then did he stand still on the other side of the french doors with fingers splayed like he was about to rush forward or run away?
The significance of it all rang as a hollow wood at the hunt's call. It shocked his system and made him feel like he was moving entirely too slow in a world far larger and faster and he. The words twisted and curled in his head like vipers rising to the sound of a lute. What had he done?
"You just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?" Orotrushit hissed, his tongue flashing out and in again. His rage made his voice twist into a mix of a hiss and a snarl. Davian felt his brother's attack like a rush of heat clamoring across his skin before he was slammed bodily into the wall.
Davian cried out, grasping at his brother's hands in an attempt to break his grip. Long black claws ripped into his collar. Davian thrust his arm forward and twisted with all of his might, using his body weight to force Orotrushit's own hands off of him so he could break free. In the next instant, he dashed away only to be slammed into by the corded muscle of his brother's tail. He tumbled from the foyer and slammed onto the floor of the hallway. He barely managed to push himself to his feet before a long-clawed strike marred the rug where his face had just been.
"Are you happy now, brother?" Orotrushit spat the word like it was a curse as he lunged again. Davian dodged back from his reach and unsheathed his sword. The ring of his saber was like the echoing shrill of a scream in the darkened hall as he backed up slowly. Orotrushit didn't seem put off by it in the slightest.
"I don't know... what you're talking about..." Davian huffed, eyes wide as he tried to keep some sort of ground between them.
"You don't know... really?" he mocked cruelly. His lip curled to reveal rows of sharp teeth, "You know, the silence alone is enough to drive you mad. And if not the silence, the paranoia that accompanies becomes louder than a sirocco. A fitting punishment for those who go against Father's wishes. Who'd have thought you'd bring it on yourself?"
"I fail to see why you're upset," Davian brandished his weapon to be a threat, but his brother had already backed him into the great room, his tail thrashing about him and knocking one of the tables to its side, "Weren't you the one who said I never face the consequences of my actions?"
"Well," he responded darkly, his good eye flashing, "if it's punishment you want, allow me to give it to you."
Davian brought his sword around as his brother lunged forward, a strike that should have connected except that the world slipped in that same moment. Orotrushit's glamour was not as strong as the pureblood's, no, but it was still frighteningly good and he had amounted years of baleful practice. The next thing Davian knew was that glass was shattering. He could feel it just as much as he could hear it. The shards, dozens of pinpricks burying into his flesh, cut into his shoulders, the back of his neck, and sliced across his cheek. The force of the blow sent him through the patio doors and tumbling across the terrace until he collided with the rail. The air was knocked from him in a cut off cry and he gasped as he fell onto his hands and knees. His head was ringing and he couldn't tell if it was from dizziness, from shock, or from that goddammed silence.
"Prepare for the equinox. That was all that was asked of me. And now, you do this!"
"I didn't do anything," Davian wheezed, "I-I didn't..."
The orange light from the sunset glinted off of Orotrushit's bare arms. He was without his modern clothes, wearing instead his hip cloth and under shoulder cape, the bright colored ribbons of which snapped as a cool wind breezed through the shattered doorway. He must have stopped in the middle of something terribly important, Davian realized, to track him down.
"Nothing? Of course, it would be nothing to you. Spoiled creature, you've never had to be responsible for anything."
"That's not true," he hissed back, a weak warning to keep Orotrushit away. His brother merely glared at him derisively.
"No? Who took over the temple when you left? Who grew the flock when the Favorite Son stopped answering prayers?" he snarled, his voice dropping deeper, becoming venomous, sinister, "Who kept your secret from Father for all these years, hm?"
Davian froze, his heart missing its beat as his veins turned to ice, "You... I don't know what you..."
"Don't lie to me, Orthinos. I see it. I see everything." the ground shook when he spoke and a sultry wind kicked up, whipping his brother's cape around him to snap like a snake. Davian could see the glow of gold breaking from behind the patch over his brother's eye, the power contained there leaking as he stared hard into Davian's chest, "You never completed the Rite of the Body, Orthinos. You think Father couldn't see into the heart of you? You think It didn't see your weakness? Who do you think directed Its attention elsewhere? Who cleans up all your little messes when you just can't get things quite right?"
Davian recoiled from his brother's approach but found himself with nowhere to go but back into the railing. He could barely grasp the reality around him. Underneath the pull of his brother's power, of the glamour that shivered and waved around them, the silence pulsed like a living thing. Somehow, nearly drowning out everything else was that gaping emptiness.
"Snipping loose ends. Causing accidents. Keeping that nose of yours from places they don't belong. Fixing your heart when you botch one of my rituals, like the bumbling child you are..." the wind was gusting now, dragging up something warm and dry and completely divorced from the sea breeze this place was so accustomed to. Yellowed leaves broke from their branches and scrambled by like the grasping fingers of a desperate man being dragged by an undertow, "And just like everything else, I'll fix this too. Even if I have to drag you screaming back to Z'musterí de Z'K'iino y Z'Lujo myself."
The world was falling apart. Colors moved and writhed where they weren't supposed to and gold was bleeding from everywhere. His brother split apart again and this time Davian couldn't track his movement. He braced himself, dread clawing its way up his throat as pain spidered through his being. He heard the sound of the banister crunching beneath his spine like the dried limb of a tree crushed beneath the weight of a storm. Stars exploded behind his eyes and quite suddenly, he was aware of nothing at all.
It was difficult to tell time underground, and to children time is quite the slippery creature. Hard to keep track of, to grasp between such tiny, clumsy fingers, and all of this quite especially so when under duress, as I'm sure you can imagine. This was probably why the mere seconds Davian had stood there at the threshold felt like an eternity of his eyes dodging to the walls and corners and shadows. If he were being honest, he'd sort have thought he'd be struck dead upon passing down those smooth stone steps, though he hardly had it in him to marvel at the fact that he'd made it down into the cool, damp corridor. He shook with each step inwards, unable to stop the twisting terror in his gut as he tried to both keep his eyes down and scour for a sign of his mother.
Everything was doused in the ethereal blue light of the sacred pyres, the red stone marred from the everlasting flames that produced no smoke, nor odor. There were rooms down here, rooms that were brimming with ancient, rarely-witnessed and horrifying things. He sobbed as he passed them and breathed into his shivering palms apologies for his trespassing. He was so, tragically young, and although the sight of death wasn't unknown to him it was the first time he had born witness to the slouched postures, the look of kin that had simply fallen asleep while reciting their prayers. Here was housed those beings ascended to a far greater plane of existence than this, their sacrifice forever preserved and never forgotten; the Aurincarae of past ages stood as eternal guardians to the Golden Chamber, relics of a time long past, who'd given their lives to continue the cycle on. They sat as a lotus, with wrists crossed and fingers forever curled as if to give blessing. Their skin and scales were pulled tight and dry. Death-mask-less, they stared forever blindly into the passage he walked through. Eternal feathers littered their pedestals and the ground around them, shimmering vibrant blues in the firelight as if they'd just been plucked.
He tried not to look, to keep his head down and eyes squinted almost shut, but he could feel them as he passed. It resonated deep places in his chest and made his teeth feel too big for his mouth, too big and sharp, like those needle-tip, yellowed ivories that protruded from shriveled and sand-dried lips.
"Mother..." he whined and his voice mocked his sniveling back to him.
His tears ran freely down his face now, filling the empty stones with his whispered sobs as he wondered why his mother would go to such a place, why Father would take her here.
Davian froze, terror striking through his blood, because he heard a noise. It should have been a comfort, a dash of soothing water to the bubbling mass his stomach and chest had become, but it so very much wasn't. The noise hadn't come ahead of him, but to the side of him, from an open doorway. It wasn't a footstep, it wasn't a hiss nor a growl, not the condemnation that he was sure would come from Father when It found him here in the forbidden place. It was a breath, or, more accurately, a wheeze, the noise of something dying.
Davian, quaking with fear, turned his head slowly to gaze into a chamber far larger than the others. Placed at the feet of the holy relic were bowls stacked upon bowls of offering and incense. Davian took a trembling step towards it, eyes locked to the face shrouded in shadow that the sacred light couldn't quite touch. He told himself that it was dead, it could not hurt him, couldn't move. Always the logical one, his wheels spun to rationalize the noise as just the echoes of his sobs against the stone walls. Surely, surely, it wasn't the relic.
He'd almost convinced himself he was right, almost, until he watched as something in those sunken eyes glinted the light of the sacred flames back to him. Mummies don't have eyes. They just have sockets, possibly eyelids mostly closed as if the person wearing them were just looking at their lap. Of course, it wasn't this knowledge that made him scream, per se. It was the glittering of gold there in the sliver of darkness between those nearly closed and cracked eyelids that reflected the sacred blue pyres, the glittering of gold that suddenly turned and stared straight at him.
Irena had always been a dreadfully intelligent woman, perceptive, and keen with an unfortunate inclination towards impulse. She was a woman who knew what she wanted, a woman who upon coming to such a conclusion got what she wanted, and after, a woman who faced the consequences of her actions in a way that she thought has graceful, pragmatic, but others perceived as actually quite spiteful. Everyone who had the pleasure of meeting her could tell immediately that she was a force to be reckoned with. Was it magic that made her this way? Mysticism? Or some strange thing in her genetic code that made her a hurricane to obstacles in her wake? Well, no. Irena was simply a woman. A woman who was the culmination of all her years, dumped once too many times into the pit and left to claw her own way out. She had grown resilient, yes, but also compassionate. You could say she was both unflinchingly stubborn and infuriatingly determined. She'd been through a lot, after all.
Enter, Davian Bishop.
Or who Irena had thought was Davian Bishop at the time of their first meeting.
From the very beginning, he had checked all sorts of boxes in Irena's mind that screamed bad. If it wasn't enough that he had reduced her boyfriend – a large and angry man who was known for his temper and lack of hesitance to remind all of his women about how no one would miss them if they went missing – into a crumpled heap of quivering mess at her feet with only a touch of his hand; he was also a Rune Knight, which to her meant he was part of a group of people who tended to either look down upon or take considerable advantage of women like her. Even worse, he spun his sentences at her like a web to catch her in, using complicated speech and misplaced adjectives that, at the time, sounded very much like a small man trying very hard to cast a large shadow. And on top of all this, he was trembling, just slightly, with barely strapped rage.
To say she believed she had just unwittingly jumped from the frying pan and straight into the fire would be an understatement. Even now if you asked her, she couldn't tell you why she walked with him out of that alley. She couldn't tell you why she'd kept pace with him all the way to his house. It could have been shock, or that she was used to not having a choice at that point in her life, or even that Davian had used that talent of his that she still didn't know much about. No matter the reason, she'd done it. She walked with him home. She'd stood in that home, and realized how bad her situation really was as she did it. She didn't know what kind of half-assed façade this was, but it was as easy to see through as a pane of glass. She actually would have felt better if she'd found a secret drawer stuffed with drug paraphernalia but no, just a neglected house, bare and pristine as the day it had been rented, and a man with glasses that somehow always seemed to hide his eyes no matter the light they were in. Everything was equal parts sterile and dusty, like a museum, and she was a butterfly pinned to the wall.
It was still hard to tell whether Davian believed he was good at hiding himself or if she was just that perceptive (after all, no one else seemed to notice what she did). Truly, from the moment she'd stood in his home for the first time, Irena had known immediately he was... different... and not in the comforting, quirky sort of way that invited one to feel disarmed or even charmed, if somewhat hagridden. Irena knew she would survive this, whatever this was, and would be better for it. She knew how to work a man, even an egregiously off-putting one. He had saved her from a bad man in an alley, after all, and Irena was a very good actress. She let him think that she truly believed all this strangeness was just a man lacking a feminine touch, none of this unnerved her in the slightest. Davian Bishop, to his credit, spared no expense in giving her what she needed to get back on her feet. It was a strange kind of charity, not motivated by a need to do something right but by (probably misplaced) guilt. Irena was surprised to find she didn't care where the good will came from so long as it was there.
You might assume from their very first steps into a life together, their relationship had been a tenuous thing, delicate, and built on nothing short of a mountain of lies and a respectful sort of fear that one might give a lion when in close proximity, kept safe by only a handful of iron bars and the wherewithal not to get within arm's reach of mighty claws and bone-crushing teeth; but that wasn't really true. They gravitated towards each other, even if unknowingly. She caught him off guard, and he gave her distance to figure out who she was now that she was just Irena and not Irena-the-dancer, girlfriend-to-a-violent-asshole-and-forced-to-pay-debts-that-weren't-hers. She silently coached him on being normal, and all the while pretending she wasn't seeing more and more past his poorly crafted façade, something obviously only still in place because no one cared to look too long at it. There was a lot of honesty here, just not the bare-bones sort, the first-date-introductions sort, the really-getting-to-know-one's-life-story sort. There was resolve, and a strange kindness that wasn't well understood. But more importantly than anything else, there were good intentions.
As it turns out, love is an unpredictable thing that can turn up anywhere under the right conditions, or even the wrong ones. For Irena, it was a solid thing to grasp hold of and wield like a knife. It was a thing that didn't make her question her intuition, a thing that strengthens and builds up, not a thing that gaslights or derogates. And, at that time, it was something that didn't mention the more concerning things, like uneaten food, untouched niceties, or unslept-in beds. It wasn't something that would mention a lack of mirrors in Davian's room, or how when she caught him near one, something with bright yellow eyes would stare over at her from it. It was something that didn't mention nights she'd awake to the sound of him stirring, the sound of him talking to a person she couldn't see. And it would never mention how he'd come in afterwards, how she'd hear the sound of him as something sharp and dangerous on the tile floors, and how she'd lay awake until the sound of him tearing through the kitchen would finally end.
To be abundantly clear, Irena wasn't scared of Davian. Never, not even once. He just wasn't a scary man. He never hurt her and contrary to past relationships, he never pretended he would. There were no days when he threatened her with his might, never implied he'd lash out, no arguments where he'd yell in her face daring her to touch him so he'd have a reason to lay his hands on her, and no fists broke through walls with clear intent that she was the one he'd prefer to hit. Despite the strangeness, the clear inhumanness of him, she felt completely safe. For the first time in her life she felt like she didn't owe anyone anything. She was independent. She was happy. One day, he called her Dearheart. She laughed and called him Darling. After so long, things had become lighthearted and quaint, and as delusory as the Bolton Strid.
She'd always known he wasn't human, she just didn't know what kind of inhuman he was. It had been the blood and, she thinks, the worry that had brought it finally bubbling over. One can only hold in one's nature for so long, and she'd always been under the impression that relationships hit their critical point every four years. Even the best trained animals will revert to instinct when under the control of blind fear. Once Davian lost control he was unable to stop it. She had noticed that he hadn't yet learned how to snap himself back to reality. He kept himself so desperately in check for a reason, she figured. To say she didn't expect that night to happen one day would have been a lie.
She'd definitely gone into shock because she hadn't felt the pain. And then she'd awoken in a hospital bed, devoid of everything except for the racing of her heart whenever she thought of Davian Bishop, a fear she knew she'd never had before.
But damn her if she ever gave up on something she cared about, and if there was one thing that wouldn't change no matter what Davian and his manipulative touch could do, it was that she cared for him. And as stated before, she was a dreadfully intelligent woman. And when you get just the right amount of intelligence, determination, and resolution in the right place, you get something quite fearsome.
Fearsome would have been the choice word to use when Irena came down the stairs of the saltbox house upon hearing the crash and the shattering of glass. If given a moment of pause, she might have felt bad for how she'd knocked Serrill out of her way. (The man only had one arm, how was he expected to catch himself?) She tore through the house like Artemis with her dogs at her heels. She stood in the doorway just as something with wicked claws and blinding speed leapt over the splintered remains of the banister to where Davian lay, his eyes rolled back in his head. She wielded her whip with pinpoint precision and a vicious crack sounded just as the thing before her raised its hand.
He looked stunned for a second, eyeing her whip as it held back his hand from where he was going to bring it down. A low, rumbling hiss lifted from his parted mouth and his eyes snapped towards her. Golden-hued blood swelled from where the lash had cut into his wrist and slipped down his arm.
"I think it's time for you to leave," Irena's voice was firm and even, her icy eyes piercing straight into Orotrushit as she held her whip taught. Cersei and Rameses were at her sides, both with lips pulled back in wide snarls that dribbled drool onto the wood. Cersei's mane was flared, hackles standing at attention as he awaited the command to attack.
"You and your pets... Orthinos..." he snarled, twisting his wrist and gripping onto the whip.
Something hot in Irena's chest twitched. She'd heard that word before in that exact same voice. She didn't react, only twisted her lips in anger that she kept firmly in check.
"These dogs are trained to kill on my signal. This is your only warning. Leave now. You're not welcome here."
Orotrushit narrowed his eyes like he was trying to figure something out before recognition sparked there. The corner of his frown twitched and twisted into something all-around horrible. Irena's heart started pounding in her ears.
"You... should be dead." His golden eye rolled back to look at Davian who was still unresponsive. Contempt bled from his voice as he spoke as if Irena wasn't even there, "You can't do a thing right, can you? Even when it's all laid out perfectly. Somehow you still sully it up."
Irena felt the whip go slack. In one instant, Orotrushit had been over Davian and in the next he was gone. The dogs rushed forward, barking and snarling. With a flash of a feathered tail, Rameses was sent sprawling to the ground howling in anguish. But where he wasn't successful, Cersei was. His maw clamped around the lizard-man's wrist and he whipped his head to drag him to the ground only to find the thing that he'd latched onto was stronger than he seemed. Black claws forced into teeth and tore the dog from him. Orotrushit thew the beast into its companion, and both scrambled over each other to try and make sense of what just happened. Gold eyes settled on Irena and she gritted her teeth.
"Why are you here?" she demanded, mind flying to try and make sense of what was happening in front of her.
"Dear girl, I think you should be more worried about yourself."
Irena's world warped. She felt dizzy, and she planted her feet firmly to the ground to keep from losing her balance. She could feel the slack of the whip racing towards her and she knew the thing attached to the other end was coming. On instinct, she swung. Her fist made contact and immediately pain flashed through her hand alongside the sound like the cracking of a bird's ribs. Orotrushit's eyes were wide, his lips open in a grin like the crescent moon in blistering August, not a thing disturbed on him aside from his hair which looked a bit disheveled. She glared straight into him with enough ice to freeze boiling water in an instant.
"Break your knuckles?" he asked slowly, a smug intonation to his words. Her hand was shaking, her fist still set firmly into his jaw. She refused to flinch against the pain. "Such a pity."
Irena realized finally where she'd heard his voice before. The memory bubbled to the surface screaming run, hide, that this was the thing that had first driven a wedge between her and Davian. She'd heard him call her pet when the razor had broken her skin that winter evening. The innocent brush that had turned lethal was started by him. This knowledge did nothing to comfort her, only change her perspective. She realized she couldn't match him physically, and that fact was as plain as the throbbing pain crippling her hand. If not might, she'd have to find another way, and when it was clear he could run far faster than her, her options quickly started dwindling. As if sensing her wheels spinning, his mouth split open, showing his teeth and his black tongue with a hiss.
"You don't scare me," she said plainly. The question on her lips was rigid when she asked, "What do you want?"
"At the moment, I want you dead," he grinned.
"What does that do for you?" she retreated a step but he was close to her all the same, stepping in tandem to keep her from gaining any sort of advantage, displaying the bloodlust on his fingertips to keep her in line.
He laughed, "Does it matter?"
"You want Davian?" she asked, mimicking his light tone and twisting it into something nasty, "You think you'll get him if I'm gone? Are you really that naive? He left me, because he thought it would keep me safe. What do you think he'll do if he thinks he failed?"
She could smell his breath, the sourness of it making her throat close. She'd been intimidated like this before; she wouldn't be fazed by cheap tactics. When Orotrushit's eye darted to Davian and back to her, she knew she had him.
"I guess it doesn't matter what you are, men are still men. You don't think ahead at all. What's the plan? Kill his woman so he comes to you?" she curled her lip in disgust and the thing in front of her narrowed its eye. Trying to get as much distance between them as possible, she took another step back, crunching on glass in the process, "What happens if he doesn't? What makes him go to you?"
"What else will he have, hm? Aside from his longsuffering family, his Father, who desperately wants him home? Not to punish him, but to raise him to a place of high status. Who would he ever turn to instead?"
"I bet Keirin would be happy to be his shoulder to cry on," she stated, chancing a glance to her dogs where they waited for her command and taking yet another step back, "You can read the man like a book. He's got a bit of a crush, I think. He could turn to Laxus, too. They're friends, you know, talk a lot. And if you think his fellow Rune Knights will just sit around after hearing about his loss, you'd be really underestimating uniform solidarity. He's not the skittish little loner he used to be. People care for him now. I bet he'd even have some of his inmates feeling for him after the way he changed around the prison..."
"How interesting," he hissed, "how interesting that a pet would advocate for its own capture, to be used as leverage to force my brother's hand."
"It keeps me alive, doesn't it?" she heard the sound of metal and hoped her words covered it, desperately hoped the golden eye would stay trained on her.
"It does," he conceded, "And I suppose you would have a purpose, but only until you die during the Rite of the Body."
"That's fine. I get exactly what I need." she smiled at him sweetly.
"And what's that?" he simpered.
"Time," she said, dropping her whip, "To run away."
Irena ran towards him. She felt the magic activate in the air around her as Keirin yelled out his spell. The clothing on Orotrushit turned rigid as stone, trapping him in place so she could sprint by and leap from the broken spot on the banister. But she misjudged the jump, hitting the splintered wood with her thigh as she leapt. It felt like fire was slipping up her skin and she fell hard on her hands and knees in the grass, feeling immediately the bite of shattered glass in her palms and the debilitating shock of landing on her broken had, still she threw herself back to her feet, leaving a slick of blood behind her. She was sprinting through the field towards the woods, shouting her dogs' names and feeling their approach pounding at her heels. Rameses shot before her, and Cersei stayed close at her side as she rushed into the foliage to the sound of her singing adrenaline and Serrill screaming.
With terror clawing up his throat, Davian ran as fast as his terribly short and clumsy legs could carry him. He ran the wrong way, deeper into the Golden Chamber. He sprinted loudly down the hall of motifs, the bowing figures, no longer caring to be quiet and respectful. All he knew, was that he was terrified, and he was alone, and he desperately wanted his mother. More than anything, anything, for someone to save him from what was down here. He could feel the dead thing in the recesses behind him, its eyes glaring, long, black talons reaching for him to drag him back to the pedestal.
That's when he saw the light, the beauty of it reflecting off polished metals so fine they were like glass. He saw the illustrious shine of revered feathers. Something turned as he entered the chamber, its eyes bringing with it the terribleness of being seen by it. It was horrible and beautiful. So radiant that it was like staring directly into the sun, and as horrid as a murderer's dream. Davian felt his eyes burning but he couldn't look away. Somehow, he knew it was a sin, that he was bearing witness to something he never should have seen. This child, young as he was, gawked with streaking tears down his brown cheeks, his stomach feeling like the best thing it could possibly do was show its content at the feet of this thing. It reached out a hand, and as it did, Davian heard Father's voice.
"Kneel, and pray."
The command gripped him like a vice and he dropped to the ground. There were many positions of prayer and Davian knew them all, but of all the symbols of praise and joy and exultation, he chose none of them. Instead, he fell to his knees, laying his palms flattened on the pristine stone floors, burying his face into his knuckles. He sobbed and the tears scalded his eyes as if they were on fire. The prayer wasn't a magnanimous litany. On his knees he trembled as he begged for forgiveness, to be spared from the sin he had committed, for grace, for mercy, for things he didn't fully understand. He'd trespassed. He'd broken the solemn silence of this righteous place and he wanted spared the punishment for it, pleaded to please forgive him this.
He'd read these words, he'd practiced them, but he'd never understood why they'd be used... but he did now. Now, he felt the stare of something that at one time was both the warm embrace of his mother as well as the teeth of a moray eel, this monster of terrible cacophony that could make a man weep with its rhapsodic song. One part the beauty of sneaking to the meadow to feel at last the warmth of golden sunshine on his skin while also being the wicked claw that pulled his brother's eye from its socket and held his own blood as it dripped down his face. Repulsion and enrapture. Of course he didn't understand these things. He was a child. Of course he didn't recognize the thing standing before him for what it was. He was only a child whose eyes were burning from staring too long into the sun, and now he wanted to claw them out.
When he was done with his apologies he lay with his face buried and his knees pressed to his chest so tightly he could hardly breathe for how much he tried to be small. The presence of the thing over him was drowning him in a way he'd never known, sinking deep into his stomach a sensation he'd never felt before. The sound of Father's voice rang like the chime of a church bell off every golden surface of the chamber.
"What do you search for, Orthinos? My heir."
"M-mother... She's here..." he sobbed, "...i-it burns..."
It felt like the air was alive. Davian could hear voices whispering all around him, muttering things he didn't know. They spoke of rituals and blood and eternity. He heard the shuffle of innumerable amounts of feet ever closer, pressing in around him, and overwhelming as if the roof above were caving in on his head.
"Yaretzi..." It spoke her name and Davian sobbed harder, trying so hard to listen, to not be afraid. He could feel the tension in the air, the unspoken severity. He felt something gaping inside of him, and it was terrible, "She served you well. She led you down the path of your birthright, a path which you accepted, a path which must be now started."
"Yes... Father."
Davian was confused. He didn't understand why Father was speaking of such things.
"Your mother was good, wasn't she? She taught you the value of prayer."
Davian whined.
"Do you know your prayers, Orthinos? Do you know the sacrificial prayer?"
Davian began shaking, his chest burned, "Y-yes, Father, but-"
"Recite it." Its words echoed throughout his bones with finality and Davian felt nauseous.
"But... why?"
"Because I require it."
Davian clenched his teeth. Why? Why did It require it? Davian knew that prayer. He knew only the council could use it, only during the rituals that Davian wasn't allowed to see because he was too young...
"But Father, I-"
"Do you question me?" The harshness of the question felt like a lash cracking against his soul.
Panic rose into Davian's voice, "No! Never!"
"Then do as I say and pray."
"I just want to find Mother! Please!"
The murmuring of voices around him suddenly grew angry, buzzing the air like a hornet's nest. Worship and eternity twisted into violence, calls for retribution, for blood, made Davian's heart clench. He heard footsteps, dozens, hundreds, all shuffling near and he was sure whatever was in this room was ready to tear him apart.
"Again you defy my command."
If Davian thought he felt the ceiling was falling in on him before, now he was sure of it. The harsh oppression of Father's wrath was like the blanketing weight of an avalanche suffocating him. The gaping part of him grew until he felt it eating the marrow of his bones. It was painful. Terror clawed with icy hands through every piece of him and he covered his head with his arms and begged for forgiveness, for mercy as the voices turned into wailing, reaching out at him with demand. He begged Father to save him, to spare him, and then just as suddenly as it had all come crashing into him, it stopped.
Silence descended so thickly it felt like snow and muffled the sound his sobs where he cowered on the ground. He heard Father's longsuffering sigh.
"Open your eyes, Orthinos."
He did as he was told immediately, blinking fervently through the haze of his tears into the cold, blue light of the sacred pyres. His eyes fought to focus, to the point his head hurt. He was able to make out a large, square stone. An altar. And on it, laying as if simply asleep and surrounded by plumes of burning incense, canisters of wine, and fruits in bowls, his mother. She was staring at the ceiling, the look on her face distant as if she couldn't actually see it. Davian choked on his relief, forgetting the place and time and everything around him. He went to stand only to have a massive hand clamp onto his shoulder and drive him back to his knees on the cold floor. He couldn't move and the gaping feeling in him yawned black and needy.
"Tell me, child, why do we sacrifice?"
"B-Because... because he gave his blood to bring us to life."
"Yesss... and what is the most sacred sacrifice we can make?"
"I don't understand..."
"You will soon, Orthinos. Now, pray."
Davian prayed. He prayed loudly, as if the words were a shield he could surround himself with and stave off the sounds of things moving around him. He buried his face back into his arms and prayed:
"I implore Oros, serpent god, plumed with feathers, from the fire of rebirth, come from the heavens,
You are the feathered serpent of uncountable lives, the sun, the moon, the day, the night, the spring, the winter; they all travel to their destined ends at your side,
You alone, who made our flesh, god of the cycle, of creation from destruction, are worthy of this sacrifice,
Who would attempt to challenge your divine will, master of the infinite..."
But even as he tried, the things that moved around him spoke. Davian didn't see them, but he could feel them, as ravenous and clamoring as the growing pit inside of him. There were countless of them, whispering and screaming all in the same voice:
"Our Father, who is strong and supports us, supports the temple and the rock it is carved from
You are the Aurincarae, the profit most high, In your presence reason grows dizzy, thou art the interior and exterior of the soul
At the pleading lamentations of our sacrifices, accept our offerings this night, bless their flesh with your hungry bite,
Who would attempt to challenge your divine will, master of the infinite..."
Davian's words didn't matter. They were inconsequential when spewed from a terrified child who didn't understand their meaning, their intent. The horde of unseen things was so loud around him, sweeping his prayer away and replacing it with their own, binding tight strings to his bones as if wiring a skeleton. Gold light filled the room but he refused to lift his head to see it. Davian could feel the might of power surging around him, chaotic and loud, pulsing the ground below and the ceiling above. Hot wind filled the place and he squeezed his eyes closed once more as blue light fought to take over to gold, then overtaken once more by gold, and he felt like he was drowning in beautiful, burning sunlight.
W̶e̴ ̸a̸r̵e̵ ̷f̶o̵r̸e̴v̷e̴r̷.̶
̵W̸e̶ ̴e̴m̷b̶o̵d̸y̶ ̵p̶e̵r̷f̴e̷c̶t̶i̸o̸n̶.̶
̶W̵e̵ ̷h̵a̷v̷e̴ ̸b̶e̴e̵n̶ ̷l̴i̵g̸h̸t̸.̵
̴W̴e̴ ̷h̴a̶v̷e̸ ̵c̵o̸m̵e̷ ̸f̸r̵o̵m̴ ̴s̸h̴i̸n̸i̸n̶g̷ ̸s̵t̵a̸r̶s̴.̷
̴W̴e̶ ̸a̶r̸e̷ ̶i̴n̴c̶o̶n̸c̵e̴i̴v̷a̵b̵l̷y̴ ̵l̷a̸r̸g̶e̴.̸
I̴n̸t̷o̵ ̷t̵h̷e̵ ̶s̶h̵a̴d̵o̴w̸ ̶w̵i̷t̵h̷ ̷t̶e̶e̵t̸h̷ ̵b̴a̷r̸e̵d̴
He screamed even as he heard Father's voice echo in his mind that he had nothing to fear. The hand that had held him down lifted but he was no less being forced into the ground. A roar split his mind as something massive appeared and he didn't dare look up.
̷T̶h̸a̸t̵ ̶w̴h̴i̷c̵h̴ ̷i̸s̶ ̷a̵b̸o̷v̵e̵
̵S̷h̷a̵l̶l̷ ̵r̴e̶f̸l̶e̵c̴t̴
I̴n̸t̷o̵ ̷t̵h̷e̵ ̶s̶h̵a̴d̵o̴w̸ ̶w̵i̷t̵h̷ ̷t̶e̶e̵t̸h̷ ̵b̴a̷r̸e̵d̴
̶W̷e̴ ̸a̵r̶e̷ ̷i̵m̸p̸e̵r̸c̸e̷p̶t̵i̶b̶l̴y̷ ̶s̵m̵a̶l̸l̶.̵
̷W̴e̷ ̸w̶i̷l̵l̸ ̷r̷e̶t̷u̸r̶n̷ ̶t̴o̷ ̴b̵l̴a̵c̷k̴ ̵h̵o̶l̵e̶s̶.̴
̴W̸e̶ ̸w̴i̸l̷l̸ ̴b̴e̵ ̵d̸a̴r̶k̵.̶
̷W̸e̷ ̴a̸r̶e̴ ̵O̷r̸o̵s̷.̴
̷W̷e̷ ̵a̴r̶e̶ ̴e̶t̶e̴r̷n̵a̶l̵
I̴n̸t̷o̵ ̷t̵h̷e̵ ̶s̶h̵a̴d̵o̴w̸ ̶w̵i̷t̵h̷ ̷t̶e̶e̵t̸h̷ ̵b̴a̷r̸e̵d̴
The only screaming Davian heard was his own. That was one memory that stuck with him. That, and despite those chanting voices, the shifting and shambling of things he didn't wish to see, he heard clearly every crunch of bone, every gasp, every wet snap. They seared into his memory in a way that haunted his nightmares far into adulthood.
It felt like hours that he was there sobbing before silence and darkness fell. The sacred pyres were back to their pale, weak cerulean. Father's shifting, smokelike glamour raised him from the ground and escorted him from the Golden Chamber. With each step they took from that place, Davian felt something dark growing. The council members were all lined up on the steps leading to the entrance, staring with their long, unreadable faces at him. Father spoke and they bowed reverently, praising the Favorite Son, praising the ritual, the sacrifice, the Aurincarae. While they voiced their admiration, Davian looked at his hands and realized they were covered in blood. His hands were covered in blood, and he was so, so hungry. Father looked down on him and smiled.
Irena ran as fast as her legs could carry her. This wasn't the gait of someone fleeing for their life from a killer in the woods like some half-baked horror protagonist. Irena knew how to run with her dogs. She followed the white flash of Rameses's tail against the waning light of the sun in the wood. Cersei stayed tight to her side, senses peeled for danger so she could focus solely on her blind sprint. She knew what she was running from was far faster than she, so she knew she had to think of something before he caught up. But she was injured, and blood was running down her leg. She didn't have much in the way of survival instincts, but she knew she needed to hide the scent of her blood. She watched Rameses leap over a creek, not even a creek really, just some runoff from the recent rain, and she fell to her knees in it, digging a handful of mud to smear onto her stinging thigh, slathering it down her leg wherever she thought the blood would have run. Ruefully, she cursed herself for not wearing a dress. Getting mud to soak through pants took a dreadfully long amount of time.
She was up on her feet again but Cersei didn't follow. His hackles were raised as he peered into the woods, an angry snarl ripping from his mouth.
"Cersei," she hissed, from the other side of the runoff, "Cersei, come."
He didn't move, feet poised in the ground he stood strong and solid, ears erect and eyes forward.
"To me, Cersei!"
Rameses whined. He moved between her and Cersei, but instead of bringing Cersei in line he shoved her bodily backward, herding her away. He dug his nose into her leg, pushing her back as Cersei's snarl turned into ear-shattering barks. Her heart dropped into her stomach when her eyes focused on a glint in the darkness. Cersei lunged and she turned on her heel, ignoring the sound of his attack.
It was far too few strides before she heard him howl in pain and she gritted her teeth against the throbbing pain in her chest. She realized that if she kept running, she was going to get herself caught. She was far too loud and easy to follow, bumbling through the woods like a child.
"Rameses!" she barked and the dog heeled to her command immediately, eyes turning to her even as they ran, "Run out!"
The dog took off before her into the woods, loudly tromping through fallen leaves and branches. She didn't have time to look for a hiding place, so she did the first thing that came to mind and jumped to a low-hanging branch. She pushed herself to move up as quickly as possible, thankful that the leaves hadn't fallen enough yet that she couldn't be hidden. She focused on slowing her breathing, on trying to listen. It didn't take long. After only a couple of moments she saw the flash of something below, although it was too dark and too fast for her to make out details. She watched the blur of it disappear into the encroaching forest and sent a silent plea to the trees that Rameses would run fast enough to keep him confused.
She dropped from the tree and immediately began running in the opposite direction of the chameleon. She ran blindly, unsure of where she was going or what to do next. The woods were rapidly darkening, the cool humidity summoning mist that began to pool in the low places where she ran. She stopped short, gasping for breath. In a vain attempt to gage where she was and how to get back to the saltbox house, she turned in a circle. But she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going when she'd followed Rameses out here. Maybe if it were daytime she'd be able to find a direction but now...
Irena let out an exasperated hiss and picked a direction. She refused to let the thoughts of being lost sink in. She just had to keep moving, to keep running. That, at least, would lessen her chances of getting caught...
A hot breeze sprang up around her, catching her off guard and making her stop in her tracks. Her lungs were screaming in her chest now, but it wasn't enough to drown out the sounds of something lurking in the darkness around her. A feeling like panic made her freeze in place. Something instinctual and atavistic welled up into her chest and made her hair stand on end.
Something was wrong, terribly wrong.
She could feel eyes on her but when she looked around she didn't see anything. She took a step back, and then another, as if somehow turning around would allow some monster to leap out from the darkness and catch her.
She stumbled when suddenly the trees gave way around her. Panicked, she whirled around and she herself in a clearing. The grass was higher than her knees, and looked almost navy in color now that the sun was well hidden behind the trees and sinking further into the horizon. Her stomach clenched in her gut when she saw the stone and what was left of the bones of a stag littering the top of it. The skull had fallen into the tall grass. Its great antlers protruded out from the green as if to rage against the fate of wasting into the ground. Even though it had been here for over a week, no scavengers had come to pick the remaining flesh that still clung to the darkened bones, no bugs crawled lazily across its surface.
She didn't know why, but she knew she couldn't be here. She knew it. She knew it so well because she'd been here before, the night her and Keirin had found Davian sobbing and bleeding here.
"Clever."
She spun around. The man was standing there, one golden eye glowing in the darkness. There was something dreadful about the way he smiled. It looked impossible, like there were far too many teeth than should have reasonably fit into his mouth, and yet somehow they were still there.
"But not clever enough."
Irena was breathless, retreating a step as her mind spun to try and think of a what to do now. She was weaponless, dogless, and hurt. The adrenaline could only hold back the throbbing pain in her hand for so long, and now it was becoming harder and harder to concentrate as her injuries began to demand her attention. She recoiled back from him as he stepped towards her, and winced as she instinctively curled her hands into fists. Dark smears on his shirt caught her eyes. Blood was drying on his arms and fingers and she refused to wonder where it had come from.
She pulled on a small smile as she backed away from him, "I tried my best, but you're just so fast. I can't believe you caught up to me so quickly. Is Davian that fast, too?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. His tail thrashed to the side in agitation.
"I have and honest question," she kept retreating, noting how he was gaining on her quickly, "Do you have a Jacobson's organ?"
His lip curled but he didn't answer.
"The vomeronasal organ, or VNO. I mean no disrespect. It's genuine curiosity. Davian doesn't talk about these things, you know. Actually, he hasn't told me much about you at all, which-"
"Poor little pet," he sneered, "The dogs couldn't save you, and neither could the Lieutenant. Certainly not my brother..."
She stepped back again and her foot landed on something she didn't expect. She nearly rolled her ankle as she fumbled over the old stag bones. Her knees knocked into the large stone. She didn't even have time to gasp because suddenly the chameleon was before her, eyes igniting gold as he spoke.
"And no matter where you run, you cannot go where I can't find you."
She stumbled back, reaching wildly for something near to her. Her fingers curled around a bone, and she slung it with all her might just to have her arm gripped by a blue, scaled hand. Black claws dug into her arm and she sucked in a hiss as they broke skin.
"I would have excused that." His sneer vanished, replaced by something disdainful and nasty, "I would have excused that mongrel ripping into me, and your sad little attempt at running away..."
He wrenched her forward and then slammed her down onto the stone. She cracked her head so hard it made her dizzy and she had just enough time to lean up to scramble away when a hand circled around her neck and slammed her back down again. White static buzzed in front of her eyes and she blearily wondered if she'd just gotten a concussion. She scratched wildly with her good hand but her nails couldn't dig into the scales of the arm that held her. Through the rushing of her blood in her ears, she could hear him speaking.
"But you had to go and bleed and, well..." both of his eyes were glowing now. Gold was seeping out from behind his patch. She gagged as her throat was forced closed. She could feel his claws gliding across her neck, digging trenches of fire down her skin, "The smell of blood... does something to me..."
She felt his weight shift. Even as she tried to wrench herself free, to kick, to struggle, he was over her, knees digging into her thighs and trapping her down. His figure shivered. A shadow faded in and out above them, endless and looming like a great condor waiting for her to expire. The atmosphere turned oppressive and thick, a weight she couldn't shake as her restive thrashing grew weaker. The covered eye opened and she felt the humid breath of something massive falling onto her face. Her lips twitched. The stars overhead were spinning down around her. This all felt... oddly... familiar.
"I want more."
Irena stopped fighting. She was blinking through the blinding light of the fluorescents. Davian was over her, eyes blown wide in terror and something else as he clutched her closely. He seemed confused, like he couldn't understand how he'd gotten here or why. Irena was breathless. For the first time, she saw his eyes plain and uncovered, naked, and brimming with horror. They sparkled like gold and it was so beautiful. It was beautiful even as she felt her blood slipping away on the linoleum floor of the bathroom. As the glow faded from behind his irises, she found herself wishing they'd come back. She was seeing him, the real him, and she couldn't understand why.
"There you are..." she whispered in awe, reaching up to brush away some of that fear from his face, "You're alright, darling... you're alright..."
Davian was brought out of his stupor by pain burning into his leg. He cried out and twisted into a ball as if making himself smaller would somehow make it stop. He forced his eyes to open, blinking through his blurry vision and his confusion. He could feel shards of glass sticking into his skin and as his eyes adjusted, he began making out the remains of the banister laying haphazardly around him. It took a startling amount of effort to turn himself over.
Where was Orotrushit?
"Dav... vian..." the voice was weak, so weak he had trouble pinpointing where it had come from at first. Davian blinked through his hazy vision and saw a figure slumped against the house and immediately he felt his stomach drop.
"Serrill... Serrill!" he called.
Dusty blonde hair shimmered in the dim light as he tilted his head back. His chest was heaving, and Davian noticed his metal arm was in pieces around him. Each breath he took was a haggard wheeze, and he winced with each shallow gasp.
"Hurry... Davian..."
Davian gritted his teeth and tried to push himself to his feet, but fatigue made his limbs heavy and his leg still burned from the symbols etching themselves into his skin. When he finally pulled himself upright, he nearly fell back over.
"What... what happened?" he gasped, limping his way over until he collapsed against the deck.
Exhausted grey eyes looked down at him, "Bastard... collapsed... my lung..."
"Don't worry I'll... I'll get you some help," Davian began, casting his eyes about like the answer would materialize before him, "Irena... where's Irena?"
Davian glanced into the house, now completely dark on the inside. He narrowed his eyes but couldn't see her.
"Irena?"
"She... ran..." Serrill huffed.
"Ran? What do you mean she ran?"
Shakily, he pointed past him and towards the wood, "I tried... to stop... him..."
The quiet sound of a drip hitting the hard wood made Davian's entire body freeze. He told himself it was inconsequential, but still, he narrowed his eyes to find the source of the sound. The jagged, splintered wood of the banister was slick and gravity had lazily pulled the liquid down to form a dark, heavy droplet.
He felt his blood turn to ice. As the smell of blood hit him, something in the pit of his stomach coiled like a spring. It wound tighter and tighter as his eyes followed the trail of broken glass, of slicked grass, towards the wood. His skin itched, the tips of his fingers ached and his palms began to sweat. His hands started to shake and his eyes centered on a space in the tree line that had been trampled through.
Suddenly, the coil in him snapped.
A red smear marred the bark of a tree. It smelled savory and fresh and warm.
"Irena!"
His eyes locked on a lump next to a tree, its breathing labored as it lay there whining with every exhale. Black fur was matted and broken and raw.
Mist clung to his feet and he felt the shift of the energy around him. The whispers of shadows peeked from behind the trees, watching him, trying to keep him away, to get him lost. His vision skewed and all he could see was red.
"Irena!"
Branches snapped at him, tearing at his clothes, trying to stop him. He could hear the warm wind calling. His blood was burning in his veins. He felt hot. He felt livid. He felt furious.
The trees broke.
Something was at his heels, something great, greater than anything. It pounded in time with his heart. It dashed away his fear, wouldn't let him second guess, hesitate, stop. His claws were outstretched, his teeth bared. Red turned in to white and streaked like a meteor shower towards the darkened masses huddled like raptors over their fallen prey. Two sets of eyes turned to him. The shadows vanished.
"Irena!"
Orotrushit went flying, hitting the ground hard and tumbling away.
"Irena!" Davian collapsed on her, scared to touch her.
For an unbearable moment he watched and he waited. An eternity funneled down into a second. He held his breath as he waited for her to take hers and his heart twisted, tore in two, shattered, as he waited. She gasped, eyes rolling open and her hands flailed. They touched him and he felt relief drowning the fear and anger boiling in his chest. Her eye was red, blooming with blood from a busted vessel, and tears were rolling free as she realized it was him. She buried her face into his chest and began to sob and Davian could feel everything. Her terror, her memories, the dread of being chased, of being powerless, of being choked to death; it all flooded through him so fiercely he thought he'd faulter. But something stronger surged the surface, something fierce and bloodthirsty and worse than any hunger he'd ever felt in his life. His eyes fell to Orotrushit as he pushed himself up to his feet.
His brother didn't even have time to open his mouth. Rage burst through Davian's being, surged like a tsunami through his veins and suddenly he was massive. He was larger than Rut, larger than the thing in the Golden Chamber, larger than Father. He towered endless as the night sky above them and the earth below and he roared. The world shook. Masses of birds panicked and took to the skies screaming. In less than a step, Davian was hurtling towards his brother whose eyes were open and yet he couldn't get away. Just as suddenly as Davian had been endless, he was throwing himself forward and burying his sword deep into his brother's body.
Davian gasped. Throbbing pain ebbed like poison through every track of wrath that had coursed through him. His strength vanished. He held the pommel of his with both hands, leaning his weight into it. Orotrushit's hands dug into the metal, halting it. He hissed as golden blood ran down the polished metal.
"You fool..." he wobbled, "you idiot. You stupid bastard of a Favorite Son! You haven't taken the Rite of the Body!"
Davian fell to a knee. Every muscle in his body was screaming. He could feel his blood running down his face, could see it, in dark, black streaks as they stained his shirt.
"You can't... withstand... the transformation..." Orotrushit faltered with him, dropping to the ground as he bled. His golden eye pierced into Davian.
"I don't... care..." Davian breathed.
"Oh, you will... you will...!"
"You don't scare me..." a chuckle bubbled up in Davian's throat, "I'm free."
"Free? You're not free..."
"I've figured it out. Why you came here," Davian sneered, leaning into the blade and forcing Orotrushit to shudder in pain, "I broke my bond to Father. That's why you're here, isn't it? Isn't it?!"
Orotrushit froze. He looked stricken. His uncovered eye widened and Davian saw fear there.
"The entity I spoke to, that possessed me... it was Oros. But only Father can speak to Oros, right? Only the Aurincarae can channel the divine!" Davian raged, forcing himself back to his feet, "Unless Oros has forsaken Father. I summoned Him and He severed my connection to Father, because I'm next in line! Oros chose me!"
He put what was left of his strength into slashing his sword. Orotrushit let out a wet scream as he was thrown to the ground. He cried out as he hit the ground, clutching at the gaping hole left in his stomach.
"And you're here... to drag me back to the temple and reforge the bond. Isn't that right? But you can't, can you? Not now. Not when I have Oros's power on my side!"
"Power is nothing if you can't wield it," Orotrushit spat, "And you can't wield it."
The world tilted and for the briefest of moments, Davian couldn't tell if it was because of his brother or because he'd lost the rest of his strength. On instinct, he dragged in a deep breath and the smell of the world around him grounded him to the here and now before Orotrushit's trick could work. But his brother was still fast. He barely got his arm up in time to stop the blade that plunged into his skin. He gritted his teeth and felt the rage from before claw its way up his chest and out of his throat. Everything in his body ached as he swung his sabre around.
"You're not a fighter, brother," Davian snarled as the wound open across his brother's chest. He staggered back, wrenching his ritual blade back with him, "Not like I am."
Orotrushit screamed and rushed him. Davian's arms felt like lead as he brought up his sword. The impact shook him down to his bones. He could feel every inch that the blade sliced through flesh until finally the guard hit solid body. Stabbing pain plunged into Davian's chest. He couldn't even scream as the serrated blade twisted, carving deep into his flesh and stripping it from bone, before being drawn back out again. Through the sound of his own pulse, he heard Irena screaming as he dropped down to his knees. Black blood oozed from his mouth and he was finding it hard to breathe.
With all his remaining strength he pulled his blade free from Orotrushit's chest. His brother screamed and fell forward, clutching his wound as a golden circle began to spin out around them. He knew he couldn't kill his brother in a way that mattered. He'd taken the Rite of Healing. In mere moments, it would be as if the sword had never tasted his blood. What surprised him, really, was the assuaging warmth that soothed his chest. The sickening feeling of muscle and tissue being forced to weave itself back together.
"I thought you despised your namesake, hm, Orthinos?" Orortrushit spluttered, hand digging into his bleeding wound. His laugh was wet and crazed, "God's Wrath... pathetic."
"Why don't you just let me die..." Davian wretched, shaking. The pain from the healing seared worse than the writing on his skin and it made him vomit black, "You want Father's right hand so badly. Take my place, then."
Orotrushit's laugh was distant, "Ohhh would that I..."
Davian collapsed into the grass, now slick and warm beneath him. Blood was all he could smell now, but he didn't see red anymore. His body felt like lead, his limbs refused to move. He stared up at the sky and focused on remaining conscious, because if he didn't, the gods knew what Orotrushit would do.
"I won't take Father's place as Aurincarae."
"What?"
"I won't go back there. I refuse to become that... thing."
"You don't have a choice," his brother sneered.
"Don't tell me I don't have a choice! I always have a choice!" Davian screamed, "I'll leave. I'll go somewhere you'll never find me, not if you search for a thousand years! You can rot down in those caves for all I care! The lot of you!"
"Is that your answer to everything? To run?" Orotrushit spat, "You made a covenant with Father. You started this and you have to finish it!"
Davian decided he'd heard enough. He struggled to his feet, staggering under his own weight that was so heavy, the lethargy that threatened to squash him back into the ground making his footsteps slow. He limped towards Irena. She was still gasping on the stone altar, bruises already rising across her neck. She reached out a trembling hand towards him.
"You're just going to walk away? You'd leave your family, your entire race, for what? A human pet that you'll watch wither and die before you've aged more than a few years? An insect compared to you-"
Davian gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. He knew he didn't have the strength in him to keep fighting. He tried to steel himself against it, to tell himself all he was doing was trying to catch him in a trap. Davian turned his back to him.
"You're more like Father than you want to believe."
"That's enough!" Davian yelled, whirling around with anger bubbling up into his throat. It was short lived, though, as he found himself face to face with his brother, now smiling widely as if he hadn't just been on the ground moments before bleeding out.
"Well, you've made your choice then," he said flippantly, with something manic there hidden under his tongue. Davian's throat felt strangely dry, "It's a shame you'll miss the equinox. Father has big plans, you know. Hundreds of years of planning, all into one night."
"I know."
"Of course, you do. You were supposed to be there. Oh well," he sighed, reaching his hand forward slowly so as not to make Davian flinch back. He gently lifted his blood sodden shirt, eyes running over his own handiwork smugly, "Do you want to know what you're missing? Although you might not like it."
Davian clenched his jaw.
"We're going to rip out his heart... the Dragon Slayer, Gajeel. But maybe you already realized that."
"Why?" Davian demanded.
"Can't say. It's between him and Father. A life required, a life promised... a life for a life... it's... personal." He sighed, sidestepping Davian and lazily walking towards the stone. Irena shrank back from him and he paid her no attention, "Those sacred things we love so much."
"Laxus will stop you," he stated with far more confidence than he actually had.
"Maybe... but from what I can see, he'll be dead before then."
"What?" Davian hissed, "How? Why? What does he have to do with-"
"Depends on who you ask," he explained calmly, "The woman with pink hair and reptilian eyes will blame what's in his body. Gajeel will blame you and, well, at least you'll be long gone by then. He'll come right to Father after the wizard's death. That will make things easier... so it really does work out for the best."
"You know what's killing him."
"You don't?" he mocked, hopping up onto the altar next to Irena. She slipped away from him, but she couldn't quite find it in herself to stand, "It's a bit obvious, isn't it?
The malice in Orotrushit's tone had returned. The golden blood which had soaked his shirt was fading into a nightmarish red. His hands and arms were smeared with it. He looked deranged, his visible eye wide and pupil narrowed to a frenzied slit. He stared at Davian, goading him to continue asking questions.
"What are you talking about?"
He rolled his eyes towards Irena, a toothy grin pulling at his lips, "You mentioned that Orthinos doesn't talk about us, hm, pet? Did he tell you how we ended up underground?"
Irena's eyes flashed to Davian and he seethed, "You're addressing me, brother."
Orotrushit didn't even look at him, "Here I thought you loved the poor thing, but you didn't even warn her about me. Now look, her hand is broken..."
He reached out a hand towards her and Davian slammed his own on the stone, "Tell me what's killing him, Orotrushit."
His brother shot him a nasty look but continued as if he hadn't said a word, "A long, long time ago, we lived in this land. Some of your largest cities are built on the bones of our ancestors. We fought hard to keep the Wizards from taking it, but they had help from places we didn't..."
He flipped over his wrist, extending his hand and waiting expectantly for Irena. She hesitated before cornering her resolve and reaching forward. The same black talons that had been digging into her neck earlier, took hold of her wrist gently as if the slightest mismovement would ruin her hand even more. A wicked, toothy grin spready slowly across his face.
"Very good... Before Its ascension, Father used to be mortal. It took a physical form to fight back the wizards... That is, until the day a dragon came down from the mountains to fight It. Do you know much about dragons, pet?" Orotrushit's eyes flickered over to Davian's, "The kind of raw power they possess, greater than any Magic any man could try to hold. They were almost their own sort of gods. Untamable. Limitless... Which is why, just like most things, mankind sought to tame them. Remove their conscious, their sentience, their soul, everything that ties them to this world... whittle them down to their most potent, their most base, their most controllable..."
Davian didn't break his brother's gaze. In his periphery, Irena shuddered but didn't make a sound as the bones in her hand snapped back into place.
"But in a time before the dragons took pity on mages and taught them Dragon Slaying magics, how would one accomplish such a thing?" he turned his eyes back to Irena, "So, Father ascended, leaving behind Its mortal form to grow closer to Oros... It came back with a ritual to bind the dragon to a crystal."
"You want his lacrima?" Davian growled.
Orotrushit turned over Irena's hand, inspecting his handiwork.
"Father has taken a shine to him. The man is powerful in more ways than one. So much energy, Virale, magic, in one body... it might be enough, even, to pull an entity from another plain of existence to this one..."
"It doesn't need to kill him for that," Davian spat.
"Perhaps not. Perhaps there are other ways to get the lacrima."
"There are other ways to make a physical body."
At that, Orotrushit's smile vanished. His sudden stillness was unsettling. He leaned onto his knee, rolling his one eye slowly, raking his gaze up Davian's figure before resting it at his eyes. His voice was flat, betraying nothing.
"Mm... what a shame then that he has to die. If only there was a way to sever the covenant he has with Father... that might save his life. At the very least, it would leave Father to search for other ways to get the power from the lacrima."
"How do we break the bond?" Irena demanded, "Tell us."
Davian's stomach dropped.
Orotrushit feigned surprise, blinking a couple times before letting out a laugh, "There's not a way to break a covenant. Father could just choose not to collect, although I think we know that's not possible. Of course, a substitution could be made..."
"A life for a life," Davian whispered.
Orotrushit's grin was wicked, "How kind of you to volunteer."
"Wait... no..." Irena gasped, looking up to Davian, "No... Davian-!"
"Oh dear... seems she may disagree with the idea," his brother's grin was all sharp teeth, and his eye began to glow, "Why don't I leave you alone to discuss?"
Davian couldn't help it, his lips pulled back into a contorted snarl.
"The next full moon is in two weeks. Bring Laxus to Z'musterí de Z'K'iino y Z'Lujo, and I will do my part to sever the ties he has to Father. With any luck, Father won't have consumed every bit of his Virale by then," Orotrushit hummed, rising to his feet.
"Luck." Davian hissed and his brother's lips curled smugly.
"And if you don't bring him, I suppose I'll just tell Father you've run, and before the end of autumn, both Dragon Slayers will be dead. A small price for your freedom, if you ask me. Father will be devastated, of course, but... well... what's a few more decades to something everlasting?"
He stepped backwards, his eyes glowing with brilliant intensity. Davian could feel the energy warp around them as time and space threatened to tear apart.
"Two weeks until the last full moon before the equinox. How the year has flown..." he hummed, settling his gaze on them as he stepped back into the shroud. His gaze grew distant and his hidden eye burned brightly under its patch. The look on his face was as hungry as the winter, "I'll look forward to seeing you."
With that, he vanished as if he'd never been in the clearing to start with. When the silence descended, it was a little less maddening. In place of the panic Davian had felt before, the hot feeling of rage boiled up his spine and he clenched his teeth and fists at the unfairness of it all.
"Davian... you can't..."
"I can't let him die, Irena."
"So what? You'll die instead, will you? How does that solve anything?" she yelled at him.
"They don't want to kill me! They want to use me!" he really shouldn't have yelled at her the way he did. It wasn't her that he was mad it. He was mad at the world, at his family, at being born. He took a deep breath to try and keep some semblance of calm before continuing, "Probably to hurt a lot of people... I just don't know why."
He dropped down to his knees and dug his claws into the grass. For once in his life, he felt safer with them out than without them. Gently, Irena slid from her place on the altar and walked over to him. He didn't miss her wince as she sank down to her knees before him. That sat like that for a moment, Irena placing a hand on top of his. He could feel her warmth and her worry mixing together in her touch, and tried to ignore it and just appreciate the comfort of her hand on his. When Irena did look at him, it was with that resolve that she never seemed short on supply of.
"Alright. Ok. We'll go."
"We?" he scoffed.
"I'm going to go with you."
He physically hissed, baring his teeth, "One afternoon, in your next reincarnation."
"You need someone on your side,"
"I don't need anything you can give me!" he snapped at her, "You don't understand what we're dealing with, Irena! Orotrushit sees the future, he-he can manipulate reality, and when there's a change he didn't expect, then he'll have a contingency. There's not a thing he does that isn't on purpose and doesn't benefit him. It's naïve to say I'm walking into a trap, a thinly veiled threat, even. He's got this all planned out and I'm just the dumb sheep that needs prodded back into line!"
"All the more reason you can't go alone," she insisted, unflinchingly.
"All the more reason I must!"
"You idiot, that's what he wants!" she shouted. Davian blinked at her, not understanding. She took her hands and slapped them on both sides of his face, stunning him, and keeping his face close so that he had to look at her, "He tried to kill me, Davian. And he didn't do it for fun, or because I was an easy target, but so you wouldn't have anyone to turn to and go running back home. Davian, when I met you, you were alone. Remember? You forced everyone to stay at a distance. You tried so hard to be so off-putting that no one would even look at you. Now, people care about you and if you have someone else, they can't get to you. You shouldn't be leaving your friends behind and taking things all on your own, Davian... you shouldn't be leaving me."
She choked. Her eyes were beginning to swell with tears but she stubbornly brushed them away.
"D-Darling... Darling I-"
She held up a hand to silence him. Her eyes turned soft and pleading, "Is there anyone that knows about this that you can turn to? Someone who is as against this Father as you are? Or your brother? Someone who hates them, like you? Someone whose bond was broken, like you said yours was?"
Davian was at a loss, turning her request around in his mind but coming up empty, "I mean... it's a punishment. Being disconnected from Father, it's like being exiled..."
"Alright. Who has he exiled, then?"
"You don't understand. Father doesn't just let Its children go. It breaks the connection and then It passes judgement. Death, Irena. No one gets away..."
She huffed, agitated, "Well is there anyone he hasn't had the time to pass judgement on yet?"
Davian sucked in a taxed breath and furrowed his brow, then he slowly shook his head, "No. Absolutely not."
"What do you mean, absolutely not? Literally, anyone would be better than no one."
"Not true, not in the slightest. Father doesn't pass judgement unless you've committed an egregious offense. Betrayed us somehow... Exposed our kind to unwanted attention."
"Good. Great! Perfect, even! What did they do?"
Davian sighed, balling his fists into the grass as he spoke, "He hunted and ate human children."
Author's Notes:
Poor Serrill is still sitting on the broken porch with his collapsed lung, you know, chilling, waiting for someone to get him to a hospital.