GoldenCat/CautionaryTale
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Cautionary Tale
Somewhere within a soul, there is a pool.
Pehaps not her soul, but she feels it is familiar.
At least, the concept.
It is within a room within a castle of hard, ancient stones, that keep the pool contained, shallow. Vorpal feels it on her skin, the water. Knowing what it is made of, ice-cold tears. She is tied up to it, hands behind her back, neck and legs shackled to the bottom of the pool. The chains go within her flesh, locking inside her bones... she could appreciate the aesthetics if the hard metal did not chill her flesh. The tears numb her body... only her face and the peak of her bosom not submerged.
The room is so dark, she can not see very far... except for close to the water, as the tears seem to generate its own light... it is a large, dark room.... but she knows where it ends. For there is a figure at the end of it, a figure she knows well.
The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears.
She is but a shadow in the darkness, but her eyes seem to... shine.
There are no servants there. Not even ghosts. Not even soulsteel.
Nothing that can hear them.
She does not look at Vorpal with Amusement.
She is serious.
She is not happy.
She is not like the Pale Angel had ever seen her.
Vorpal: Ugh.
Although the tears chill her body like ice from the furthest North, she does not attempt to rise up from the pool. Although the chains hurt her insides, she does not attempt to struggle free. Such deeds are folly when Deathlords are involved - that much she learnt from the previous session with her mistress.
This is it, then. The call she has been both dreading and expecting. The Lover has been suspiciously silent with her for a long time. Now is the time to learn why.
How did it go again? she muses, calling for the detached, disinterested part of her Ghost-Blooded nature to soothe over the first tendrils of fear seething in her heart. When a Deathknight angers her Deathlord, she will be the last one to hear about it.
Vorpal raises her head slightly to look at the Lover's silhouette. Her mistress is beautiful, she knows. Beautiful like that other deathknight. One is almost comparable with the other.
"I have displeased you", she states. Her voice seems oddly subdued to her ears, barely rising over the echoing drip of cold tears.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: She moves, without a reply. There is ceremony to her movements. Something like a funeral.
Her eyes are downcast, until she begins climbing the three steps up, standing on the edge of the pool. Looking at the Pale Angel... her face... strange. Too serious... too... emotional, even.
"Yes, you have." She says finally, her voice echoing throughout the room, and into Vorpal's heart. "You make me wish to ask you if you decided to 'assure the boy's loyalty' with your thighs now, or if you really thought I would be happy." She sits down, one of her legs going in the pool of tears, drenching the lower of her robe. "But I am not in the mood, to tell you the truth."
She looks at the Pale Angel with... something indiscernible in her eyes. Pity? Sorrow? Anger? Hate? Disappointment? Pehaps her own essence clouds it, but all Vorpal can see, is that it is not happyness. "Is there something you wish to tell me, my Pale Angel?"
Vorpal: "Tell you that I might love the boy?" Vorpal asks, and although it terrifies her to admit it so directly, she forces her voice to be calm, her tone matter-of-fact.
When caught in the spider's web, there is no point trying to evade any longer. No matter where you dodge or how you run, you will always brush one or two of the web's gleaming strands. The spider will sense the tremors - it will know how you move, where you move, what you attempt to hide from it. And since it knows where you are headed, it can lay down all sorts of traps in your way.
So, the only thing to do in the spider's web is to take the battle directly to the spider, to not dodge anywhere, to not give it a chance to set up its traps. A hazardous course, maybe, but it is better to meet some foes face-to-face.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: She keeps her blank, misty look at Vorpal, filled with blurred emotions, invisible under her veils. She reaches down, touching the water... her hand so lifelike, spreading a further cold in the tears of the pool, feeling it... then turns to Vorpal, eyes on her own. "Is that what you wish to tell me?"
Vorpal: Damn.
Vorpal knows an error when she stumbles across it. That wasn't what the Lover is looking for. The spider had set a trap right before its jaws, and in her hurry to meet the beast, she had walked right into it.
She shivers in the cold despite herself - the Lover's touch is freezing the pool ever further. It should not be possible for even tears to be this cold without turning solid.
Time to dance right in front of the spider's fangs, then. "The Bishop has sent two full Circles of Abyssals to this war", she reports. "As per your orders, we have so far slain three."
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: "I see. You have done your job well." That seems to not faze her much either. She returns her gaze to the water, as if she was writing words on it...
"So, you do not wish to tell me of the boy?"
Vorpal: And again, a full turn in the Lover's intentions. The spider is making her run around in circles.
For a moment, her eyes flicker down to the water, to follow the patterns the Lover's fingers trace there. Something about the sight makes her nervous. What are you doing? her heart seems to ask. What?
Quickly, she looks back up again, at the Lover's veiled face. "That the boy is in love with an Abyssal?"
Perhaps the Lover would appreciate the irony of that. It would be so like her.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: And indeed.... she chuckles. She chuckles, stopping her motions in the water... and chanderliers with burning candles appear over the walls, and everything become clearer.
She smiles.
"That is not how I imagined you would say it."
Vorpal: She had apparently managed to solve the first tangle in the spider's web. Either that, or she had just stepped into the worst of the spider's traps.
With spiders, it is so difficult to know.
"Would you prefer the term... 'head over the heels'?" she hazards a quip, but does not respond to the Lover's smile.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: "I would, actually. If it is true, it is... certainly ironic." A wave of her hand, and there were chandeliers all around the heart-shaped pool, their flames reflected on the water... blue flames, ghost-pyre flames. Crowning Vorpal, an army of light on the water keeping her in place and as a queen all at once. "He is all yours, you would say?"
Vorpal: For a heartbeat, there is a pang of anger in her soul, at the thought of how Alex had looked at that other deathknight with lust-filled eyes. How his heart had swayed like a willow in the wind of her breath then, how his body had reacted to the inhuman beauty of her every curve --
"He is", she responds, calmly. "Mine."
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: And finally... she smiles. She smiles as the looks at the Pale Angel, but it is not the smile Vorpal would wish it to be. It is content, but it is not a manipulator proud of her work. It is content, and yet, warm to an extent it should not be. "... this pleases me, my Pale Angel. This pleases me." She holds her hand to the golden plate on her chest, trailing her hand down... until the point it stops and the leather begins. She touches it, and there is blood coating her fingertips. "I wonder, however, what you will do with him. How you will handle him. He is your first, and I know your heart is not so chilled."
Vorpal: No.
For some reason, the pleased smile on the Lover's lips ignites her terror blazing anew. There is something... blood-freezing, hope-curdling in that smile, a sinister intention she very much fears will come to reality within a next few moments.
No.
It is unconscious from her, but her hands, numbed by the freezing pool, gently test against the bonds that hold her arms under the surface.
"He is mine", she repeats and puts forth a great effort to keep her voice from trembling. "I can do whatever I wish with him."
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: The smile continues, only heightened by this. It is like the Deathlord is doing all she can not to giggle. But then she stops... and sighs. She takes one of the chandeliers, looking at the flame... and then at the Pale Angel, through the flame. Pleased with her Deathknight, but there is... something more. Something else. "Tell me, what do you know of a Solar named Sati?"
"The lady Crimson Blood on Virgin Snow, the Nemesis of Ice, the Daughter of Destruction?"
Vorpal: A shock after another, an endless series of underhanded blows to keep her off balance.
Vorpal has difficulties at keeping her mien straight with this particular blow.
How.... how in blazes do you know about that?
"They say she was chaotic", she responds after a moment, and then, she falls silent. If the Lover knows about the Daughter of Destruction, then she must also know where the soul of that woman is now residing.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: "She was. Among other things..." She trails off, her eyes dead-set on the Pale Angel. She seems to look through Vorpal, look through her and see so much... her eyes lost in dreams for a moment. Then she focuses on the flame again, and through the flame, on the Pale Angel. Her voice shifts for a moment, the way it never had before. "Do you know how she died?"
Vorpal: Thu-thump.
Thu --
And after that, silence. It feels as if her heart has suddenly chosen to stop in her chest, refusing to beat for another time. A new wave of chill washes over her being, one that cuts deepers than even the pool's freezing cold.
...a sensation of betrayal, a bottomless abyss of futile rage as the woman she loves reveals her heart to be rotten to the core...
But no. That was another memory, not the one of Sati's own death.
...the great hawk screeches in agony as the crystal blade cuts through its flesh, the power of the shout sending the snowy caps of the surrounding mountain range explode into air...
That was not it, either. There was much death in Sati's memories, but it was always the death of someone else. For the Daughter of Destruction, life had promised only loneliness.
"...no", she finally admits. "I don't."
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: "It is a tale of love. It is a tale of sorrow. It is a tale of betrayal. It is the tale of a foolish romantic." The chandelier moves, and it is above Vorpal. Above her chest, her right chest. The Lover holds it there, and a single droplet of wax comes down, heat stinging her breast, so different than the cold that was numbing her body... an eletric feeling that pushes her on the opposite direction the water does. Then another. Then another."It is a cautionary tale."
"It is one I think you deserve to hear."
"Do you wish to hear it?"
Vorpal: She flinches when the first droplet hits her skin, heat searing through numbness like a knife. She bites back a gasp - it wouldn't do to let the Lover see her weakness.
Shivering, she stares at the lone glob of wax cooling on her breast. That wax is bright red, the mark it burns to her skin fainter pink, like blood being drained into the endless whiteness of North.
Like a drop of crimson blood on virgin snow.
Soon, the drop of wax is followed by another, and then another. Like the life of a hot-blooded woman being slowly spilled into the frozen field of ice, one drop at a time.
"Yes", she responds, her eyes transfixed on the hot wax burning her breast. "I would."
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: "Very well, then...." She keeps the candle, and the droplets falling... like Vorpal's heart was bleeding. She looks away from the Pale Angel, and appears to take something in the water, the Lover. her blood-coated fingertips drawing words in it... which soon disappear. “Once upon a time, in the North, there was a woman with hair like ice, wielding a blade made of the Heart of Air. She was fury, she was anger, she was loneliness. They used to say her heart was a fickle thing made only for war and fire. But that was not true. Some said she was fickle due to the way she tended to act when intoxicated – flirty and dangerous. But that was not true either, as those fights never took more than buildings, those flirts never led anywhere. In truth, she was a lonely, romantic soul. Four she loved, each in their own way.”
“The first was the Sun. He came when her life was at its most lonely, laying with her blood coloring the ice of the Edge of the World. The sun took her from the snow, gave her her monicker, gave her warmth... and promised that she would not be alone anymore.” She looked for reactions on Vorpal, for a moment. And as she said so, the Lover touched her breastplate. Her breastplate of Orichalcum, so worn by countless ages with it...
“The second was her Soulmate, Hadel. The Gray Owl. He came to her after the sun’s promise, and gave her shelter. He was the one to tame her wild ways, as much as he could, that is. He was a cold, distant figure, a Half Moon always engaged in strategies and books... but she was deeply devoted to him. On a level past passion, past friendship, she trusted him with her life.”
The Lover sighs, as if remembering something. Her mien darkens, and a droplet falls on the follow between Vorpal’s breasts. “But the life of a Chosen is long. And especially for those in the Circle of Aurora, it was full of... emotion. They were some the greatest lights of their time, but their conflicts... then, came the Third. It was a woman whose soulmate was even stronger than Sati herself. And yet, Sati ended up protecting her, many times... curious about her work during those endeavors.”
“The woman taught Sati much about the world, and Sati protected her as fiercely as she could. They ended up falling in love. It was... different from the devotion. It was something warm, fragile – something that could break if you held it too hard. She felt the same love for her soulmate, Sati knew, and she envied it. She pursued it, wanting all she could out of Myria. She followed Myria to the Underworld... and saw all Myria wished. Her great plans... she wanted to end it, suffering, death, she wanted the world to make sense again. Unfortunately, the price for it was the world itself.”
“There was a war, not the first fought by the Aurora, but the only one within it. Its greatest lights were on Myria’s side. Hadel, a great friend of Myria himself, chose not to interfere. Sati stood against her Love on that war, out of devotion for the Sun, for what she knew was Right. And she won. They crushed the darkness of her love, and she was left to cry.”
Vorpal: ...you're wrong, Lover.
So far, Vorpal has listened to the story intently, attempting to absorb every scrap of information she can learn despite her gruesome position. Now, however, she discovers a flaw in a puzzle piece.
It had not been devotion to the Sun that had driven Sati to such a deed. This Vorpal knows for a fact, and the knowledge that she has learned something that her mistress has not gives her a certain grim satisfaction. It is a solid proof that even the Deathlords can be wrong.
She closes her eyes, ignoring the suffocating presence of her chains, paying no heed to the burning drops of red wax that are slowly dripping down her cleavage.
Go on, my mistress.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: “Then, came the fourth. And this one had, once again, something new. Sati’s Heart was like a flower – every person she loved, she loved in a different way, a single petal in her heart. With them, she had life, without them, she was nothing. She put all of her being on those loves, on those that were hers’, on those she belonged to.” She lover took out the candle, then, and held her hand to what bled within her breastplate again. She walked into the pool, kneeling beside the Pale Angel. With a blood-stained hand, she begun to write on the albino’s skin.
“The man was Bastian – the Eclipse of their Circle, on of their greatest. He was one of Myria’s greatest friends, and her ultimate creation was in his flesh. He had left her as the war drew to a close, choosing ‘light’ after all. Many times, he had gotten close to her.. but when she gave in, she gave in by herself. With him, she knew passion. ”
The Lover chuckled, the structure of her writing beggining to take shape... around Vorpal’s legs, now to her navel... “Enough passion to break a room, to break a building in lovemaking, to inflame her heart, to make her not think of anything else. He became everything, he flooded every one of her senses in every possible way. He used her on every possible way, she used him on every possible way, and they loved it. He taught her more than any of the others together. She became a figure of parties, she became a social being, like him.”
“It was, without a doubt, the happiest time of her life.”
Vorpal: The touch of the Lover's hands is unpleasant. Where-ever her fingers brush, painting their bloody glyphs, a sudden rush of heat follows.
Bastian.
To hear someone else talk about him like that is... uncomfortable. She feels her body responding to a mere memory of him, feels her breath grow shallower, feels her heart beginning to beat once again, hotly and desperately. It is a sensation that washes over the need she has for that... other Deathknight like a forest fire does to a candle flame.
It builds up inside her and makes her body itch. She squirms, chains jangling, unable to find a way to release the pressure. She arches her back, thrusting out her chest, and despite the freezing cold of the pool of tears, she feels how the first drops of sweat begin to trickle down her breasts.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: “But the fact one she had loved, she helped to kill, had never gone from her. She she her tears, but continued to live... until the day everything came down. The day that she woke up to assassins on her bedchambers. The day she saw her ice-children cut down by burning blades. The day she called for her soulmate, facing the enemies that poured on her fortress... and heard not a word from him. Only saw that all the chambers were open, that each and every one of her enemies knew how to maneuver within her home, in ways only her husband could have told them. She cried, when she realised she had been betrayed.”
Vorpal: And with the mention of the betrayal, comes anger. It seethes out from the corners of her mind, rushes in to taint the flame in her centre, feeds on lust to grow ever stronger. Her chest rises and falls, no longer with passion, but with fury. The volcanic rage that the Daughter of Destruction had been so famous for.
Her fists clench, her arms tense. The chains creak, but hold.
Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears: The paint came up, past her navel, no to her bust... Sati’s tale, painted on Pale Angel as if her flesh was a mural, reaching her peak just as Vorpal herself thrust it up. “She ran, her blood spilling on the snow, armies on her trail. She called out for Bastian, then. He had marked her as Myria had marked him, and they could talk, anywhere. She called out for him. He, who could traverse Creation in an instant like a falcon of quicksilver and come to her, he, who could hide them in places none would ever find them.”
“But he chose not to.”
“And she could hear his mind as he could hear hers’... she knew he was opening Creation, opening it to other Realms... where someone that should not be alive, was. Tahira. He was going to her... and leaving Sati to die in the snow. Sati’s heart broke, then.”
“With the slivers she still had, she cried out, she plead for the sun... and knew he ignored her. She was just alone, bleeding, on the snow. That was the world she fought to save from Myria – those were the people she gave her heart to. Ultimately, they betrayed her. Ultimately, they left her to die. She tore her heart, my Pale Angel. She tore her heart out, crushed it in her hands, and swore to make them pay. The Yozis know no fury like a woman scorned.”
“But she died, she died as enemies poured over her form, buried in their corpses.”
The Lover got up, stepping out of the pool, looking at the Pale Angel with a face full of... emotion.
“You make sure they are yours’. You make sure you rule over them.”
“You make sure your heart is safe.”
“Or they will trample it. They will crush it.”
“And you... you will be what is left.”
She sheds a single tear, in an umoving face...
“And that should not happen with her twice.”
Vorpal: Her rage has nowhere to go. The chains are too strong for her, and she cannot break free. Her anger burns her insides out, turning her internal organs into ash, tearing her heart into pieces. And yet, she does not feel pain when she collapses back into the pool, her face submerging under salty tears, her hair floating like phantom seaweed around her head.
Was.. that it?
The idea is so absurd that she could almost laugh at it, if she still had lungs to do so with.
We -- I -- saved them all, and they turned against us in the end, just like that.
Betrayed by Myria, by Bastian, by the Dragon-Blooded... Betrayed. Again, again, again.
The last thing she remembers as the chamber darkens around her is a vague sensation of pity.
Poor Sati.
Sympathy.
Poor, poor Sati.
Disappointment.
I didn't know you were that weak.
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