Lost Love And The Lover
A very rough story (written in three hours after midnight) with Kestrel from Heaven Sent Hawk and the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears. Author: Fallstavia.
Warning: Sexually explicit.
Kestrel decided that the inside of the Fortress of Crimson Ice was even more disturbing than the outside had been. Not that a towering fortress of red ice, surrounding by the wailing half-corporeal forms of dead ghosts, wasn't scary. It was. But the interior of the Fortress had other sights she really didn't want to see.
Like the room she'd just passed, for example. A man was dipping his member in a bowl of something smoking before every thrust into a writhing woman. Neither looked like they were enjoying it much but both looked equally determined to be about their business. What kind of sick games did a Deathlord play, anyway?
She was going to find out. After all, the hundred war ghosts and Nemissaries escorting her in would see to it.
More scenes of depravity lay about in every direction. After a few more, she learned to just keep her eyes on the back of that Nemissary's armor, the one in front of her. The dented, worn steel looked dirty but at least it wouldn't give her nightmares.
After a long walk, seeming to take hours in this never-ending maze of crystalline corridors and rooms full of sin, Kestrel was brought into a vast audience chamber. She'd never been in one but she knew a throne room when she saw it. Sure enough, a massive throne of red ice was the only decoration.
Great walls soared up to a ceiling hundreds of feet above her. The room could easily hold the hundred who'd captured her, and more. At the far end, a short dais leading to that throne broke up what was otherwise a surprisingly empty, even ascetic chamber.
The woman who reclined in the throne was not overly ascetic. She had the build of an Immaculate Monk, that much was true, the same sharp lines of a rigidly trained body. That was as far as it went, though. A veil hung from her face, matching in hue the thick robes of deep blue and green that gave her a regal air, even as they failed to entirely cover what little cleavage she had.
Before such dark majesty, Kestrel felt more than a little self-conscious. Her traveler's clothes were worn, consisting of a thick coat and shirt, heavy wool breeches, boots thinned from too much walking and her green cloak that had seen too many bad storms. Her straight black hair had once been regulation cut but now hung past her waist from ten years of growth and it was more than a little tangled from the desperate flight before her capture. Not the best presentation to a Deathlord, she thought.
"So, you found her after all." The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears looked...rather bored, Kestrel thought. Her face had a slight smile on it, but the kind of smile she'd seen on any number of important people back on the Blessed Isle. The kind of smile that came from smiling falsely too much for too long.
"So you did," Kestrel said and she tried a winning smile. When you were in enemy territory, about to be interrogated and likely tortured, she'd been trained to simply shut up and say nothing. Her time since her army days, however, had instilled a willingness to try other alternatives. If the Deathlord was going to kill her or twist her soul or whatever, Luna bedamned if she was going to cower. The Goddess had taught her better than that.
"You all may go," the Lover said, with a slight wave of her hand. She still looked bored but at least she was looking at her as the troops left. Kestrel didn't like it when people didn't take her seriously, even if it might have been an advantage to exploit.
"I don't suppose there's much point in trying to take you alone," Kestrel said as the last war Ghost left. "I mean, you're a Deathlord. You could probably kill me where I'm standing, right?"
"You're not what I expected from a Lunar," the Lover remarked. The first sign of a true smile widened those graceful lips. "What's your name?"
"Which one?" Kestrel replied.
"And I thought all Lunar prided themselves on their barbarian names," the Lover said teasingly. She was definitely being nicer than Kestrel had expected. This was a good thing for the moment but it probably meant the Deathlord was up to something even more evil than torture.
"Well, the Silver Pact named me Heaven Sent Falcon. Between us, I think it's kind of dumb. So I go by Kestrel Orada Sesus, my birth name. Call me Kestrel."
"You're Realm-born?" the Deathlord inquired, arching an eyebrow elegantly. "Strange for a Lunar. Isn't the usual ordering family name first?"
"Oh, it is but it seems to confuse people in the far North," Kestrel said, shrugging as if to say 'what can you expect'? "I just found it easier to go with my name first. Most of the time, it's just Kestrel anyway since no one cares who my family is."
"I see." The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears rose from her throne with slow grace and spread the hems of her robes slightly, revealing a little more skin than she had before. Not what Kestrel had been expecting from a Deathlord. Time to get to the point.
"So, am I being collected or something?" Kestrel asked, grimacing at the Lover's reputation and what that probably meant.
"If I think you're worth it," the Lover said. "If you please me enough, I might even let you go. Does that please you?"
"Sure. Don't get me wrong, I...dig the design but this Fortress is so not me." Kestrel smiled sarcastically, straightened her cloak and combed the black length of her hair with her fingers.
"You were a soldier, weren't you?" the Lover said, taking a step forward. One by one, she set her feet before her and drew closer, those beautifully woven robes rustling about her. They were the only sound in the room, besides Kestrel's heart which, at the moment, sounded to her like it was beating even louder.
"Good eye," Kestrel said, not afraid to pay her torturer a compliment. "I was a sergeant, a scout-archer in the Cerulean Legion, the 14th, 11th Dragon, 2nd Wing, 2nd Talon, 5th Scale, 1st Fang under General Tepet Arada back in the Icewalker campaigns...what, 10 years ago now or so?"
"14," the Lover said, still stepping relentlessly forward across the throne room.
"Huh. 14?" Kestrel pondered that, trying to take her mind off the oncoming Deathlord. "I didn't think I'd lost track of time that badly. I guess I'm 42 then, not 38 like I thought. Go figure. That's the North for you, the Pact and all."
"You're young, yet you gave my men quite a chase I hear," the Lover said. "You almost made it out of my Vale of Mists and Shadows entirely, Kestrel. That's not a feat easily managed. A good thing I had Quiet and Stillness of Negation's Repose to flank you or you would have gotten away...and we would not be having this most delightful conversation."
Still the Lover came, now only a dozen feet away. Kestrel seriously considered running anyway, even though it was suicide. After all, she'd been Exalted because of her refusal to die from those three lucky arrows the Icewalkers had fired blindly at her, after she'd put a shaft right through their chieftain's eye during a war celebration. Then again, maybe she'd see what the woman had in mind for her. Maybe she'd get a chance to give the Deathlord a few scars for her troubles, if it came to it.
"Yeah, that Abyssal was good, I'll give her that. Anathema or not, she's the only non-Lunar to have caught me in years. Broke my bow too, damnit."
The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears reached arm's length...and still she came. Kestrel got ready to flash Moonsilver Scimitar claws and disembowel her but the Lover wasn't reaching for that sword at her side. Instead, the veil parted all on its own as the Lover slid her arms around her and kissed her softly.
It was a frightening experience on several levels. For one, the Lover was cold, really, really cold. For two...Kestrel didn't like women. Oh, she'd had a tumble with a cousin when she'd been 15 but that was it. Oh yeah, and the fact that she was being kissed by a Deathlord was the final nail in lust's coffin.
All at once, the Lover's eyes opened wide and she jerked back, as if burned.
"You okay?" Kestrel said, rubbing her own chilled lips. Getting feeling back might take a minute, she thought. "If you don't mind the joke, you look like you've seen a ghost."
"No, you're..." the Deathlord said, then paused in shock. If Kestrel didn't know any better, she'd have said the Lover looked scared. "You can't be..."
When you didn't know what to say to a weird Deathlord, you just didn't say anything. This wasn't submitting, not by any means. But a Changing Moon had to be flexible, adaptable to any situation. She remembered Arada's speeches about fine fighting tactics, too. She wasn't going to overreach a tenuous social position by blindly guessing her way through it.
"You're Sharvanin," the Lover said at last. "...I remember you."
Kestrel's eyes went wide. She'd never heard the name spoken aloud but, the instant the Lover uttered it, it resonated inside her with a feeling of rightness. Her memories of her First Age self were dim and few, for he had lived until only a few decades ago, dying out in the Wyld. But now she knew what her name had been. She'd been Sharvanin.
"How do you know that?" Kestrel asked, once her brain woke to the fact that the Deathlord had been the one to say it.
"How could I...you don't...," the Lover stopped and pressed a slender hand to her forehead, as if pained. A moment passed and she spoke very softly from behind her upraised hand. "Do you remember...his wife?"
"Ya'moire," Kestrel said, the name springing to her lips unbidden. At once, she saw an elaborate bedroom, rich and opulent by any standard with just enough room for a dozen or so on its expansive mattress. Sharvanin knelt on the bed and bared his teeth as he thrust into his wife's ass.
His teeth weren't showing because of the need to keep from coming, though. It was because of the other man beneath her, also penetrating her. It was because of the two other women on either side, each one tending to a breast. It was because the third woman, unable to find anywhere else to put her mouth, was kissing his wife with obvious enjoyment. It was because Ya'moire was enjoying this, because she wanted this, demanded this...and he didn't.
It went on for hours, then a full three days. The women collapsed and had to be replaced several times, as was a bit of a habit by this point. Se'ville, his wife's Eclipse Circle Mate, had no problems with staying power and both men lasted the entire marathon session until Ya'moire had finally had enough...this time.
Sharvanin collapsed as his wife rose from their marital bed, flush with sexual languor, to wipe off the fluids of a dozen other people as she shooed the rest of her bedmates out. Ya'morie donned the Resplendent Robes of Office, emblazoned with her Zenith Caste mark, and belted them on while he watched her with that peculiar mix of adoration for his true love and hatred for the life she had imposed on him. Last, she slipped on the Ring of the Deliberative, as befit her station as Head and Hierophant of the entire Solar rule of Creation.
"You look a little peaked, my love," she smiled as she dabbed at a missed spot of sweat on her skin. "Perhaps you should go visit Ladainya for a little while, keep her company while you recover. As often as I send Kyvath out, I'm sure she'd enjoy having you. There's plenty here to keep me entertained while you're gone."
"Ya'moire...what ever happened to husband and wife being...just us? I want to be enough for you. Tell me if there's ever any hope of me doing that for you." Kestrel knew as Sharvanin spoke those words that he'd at last uttered what he'd always wanted to say, for more years than she could conceive of.
"Oh, my love...don't you want me to be happy? You make me happy so very much but a woman needs to relax after the demands of state. Speaking of which, I'd best be going, I have an insurrection I need to have put down in the East. I think Kyvath will do the job nicely, don't you? He was so efficient dealing with Marserla last month, I hear they're still pulling the bodies from the burnt remains of their walls."
"Do you ever miss...when it was just the two of us?"
"Oh honey," Ya'moire said, and she seemed more radiant, more regal than ever before as she looked upon him. "It will always be the two of us. Promise."
If only her scent didn't betray her. If only he didn't know that she could never be satisfied with one person anymore, that her appetites were growing more excessive with every year...if only he didn't know that she loved Se'ville almost as much as the Eclipse loved her.
Which betrayal would be enough? Was there ever going to be escape from this hell? No, Sharvanin thought grimly as he watched his wife leave, because he already knew that he would be waiting for her to return. Waiting to once again try to satisfy her impossible needs, waiting once again for hate to overcome love and let it all end at last...
"Please, don't speak that name," the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears said, and ironically tears glimmered in her eyes. Kestrel's eyes left the past, the face of Ya'moire fresh on her mind, and she saw at once the striking resemblance. The soft, seductive blonde curves of Ya'moire had been replaced by this thinner yet just as seductive Deathlord.
All at once, the horrifying truth descending on Kestrel and she fell backwards, fell onto the ground, and tried desperately to keep from hyperventilating. The mysterious Deathlords, the enigmatic Necromancer-Kings of the Underworld...no one knew where they came from or where they drew their power. No one knew how they could be so strong.
But now Kestrel knew.
"How could you...still be alive?" Kestrel asked incredulously. "I thought all the Solar died during the Usurpation."
"They did," the Lover said sadly. Her hand dashed across her eyes and, where her teardrops fell, a plea of torment echoed through the room for a brief second. Kestrel shook her head and ignored it. "I did."
"You're really her?" Kestrel said, and wonder touched her voice despite herself.
"As you are him...all of him, aren't you?" The Lover knelt down next to her, folding her robes beneath her knees in a fashion that was almost reverent. A thin hand sank biting cold into Kestrel's leg where it touched but she endured it for the look on the Deathlord's face. "You really are. Soul and Anima reborn together. Sharvanin...I'm so sorry..."
"Me too," Kestrel said, and she couldn't help the tears that came to her own eyes. "I had nothing to do with it, you know."
"No, I know," the Lover said, bowing her head and allowing the veil to conceal her. "Several of my betrayers still live, in fact. The Void will deliver them into my hand or to eventual Oblivion anyway. In the end, my revenge will be complete whether it's by me or not."
"Do you really believe that?" Kestrel asked softly.
"I do," the Lover said. When she looked up, her eyes shone with white silent screams. It was a look nothing living could make. And Kestrel knew for a certainty that, dead or not, Ya'moire had not improved whatsoever in the years since the Usurpation. "And you will too."
"No, I don't think so," Kestrel said, shaking her head.
"But you will, Kestrel," the Lover said urgently. "I would see you by my side again, us joined as we once were so many years ago. I have seen such sights, my wife, such things I would show you." The absolute conviction in the Deathlord's manner caused sweat to break out across Kestrel's forehead.
"I'm so sorry...Ya'moire." The Deathlord flinched again at the name. "But I can't do that. You see...I'm not meant for you anymore. We might be the souls of First Age Exalts, married for centuries, but my soul passed on. Yours didn't. And now, I expect someday I will meet my Solar and he will be my husband as I was once yours. I can tell you now...my old love, that you aren't him. I can feel that."
"It doesn't matter!" the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears said with sudden heat. "You will love me. You will love Oblivion. In time, you will serve me and worship me and please me until at last the stars themselves die and all is bliss in Oblivion."
"As Sharvanin did?" Kestrel asked gently. "Do you know how he felt?"
"He loved me," the Lover said at once.
"Do you know how he really felt?"
"He loved me, I told you!" But the Deathlord turned her head away. "I know he loved me, Kestrel. I never doubted it because I knew the truth of it."
"He loved you unbelievably," Kestrel continued. "With such a passion that I hope I feel for someone, someday. But he hated what his life had become. He just wanted you, Ya'moire, just the woman he married and no one else and nothing else in his life but you two. You couldn't give it to him, could you?"
"Don't call me that," the Lover snapped. "It's not my name anymore. That name...was sacrificed an Age ago."
"You know the truth, if you'll only admit it," Kestrel said, trying not to sound like she was begging. "You know how he felt. All of it."
"I was what I was. I am what I am. I do not apologize for it." No, there was certainly no apology there, no hesitation or weakness or doubt. Kestrel ran a hand through the black mass of her hair and grimaced, trying to think of someway out of this that didn't involve her soul or something.
Nothing was coming to mind. Not one thing. She was in the hands of the dead soul of a First Age Solar and there was no way she would let her go. Kestrel felt the rising panic in her throat, felt the wild instinct to flee even if it meant her death.
"Then, I hope you're happy with the result," Kestrel said finally. "I know I can't beat you. I kind of hoped I wouldn't wind up a Solar's lapdog in this life too but I guess you take what fate throws at you, huh? Could be worse, I suppose."
"Could it?" the Lover asked unexpectedly. The two women exchanged looks and Kestrel felt the Deathlord's biting cold sapping her strength even from here. She managed an indifferent shrug but knew it lacked conviction. What the hell, she was going to end up worse than dead anyway.
"No..." the Lover said, finally breaking away from the stare. "No, it couldn't. You're right about one thing, Kestrel. You can never be enough for me. I can see already the seed of your discontent, your loathing, your obsessive hate even before it's planted. You'll never be what I need, my wife. And you'll never be happy because of it, no matter what I do to you."
The Deathlord stood and turned her back to her. Kestrel thought about it, and then decided to stand up. Whatever was going to happen, she could at least meet it with a little dignity.
"You're going to die in the end," the Lover said, her back still turned. "There's no denying fate, no changing destiny and it is written in the stars of the Underworld that all of Creation will eventually perish. You can't escape this, Kestrel."
"Maybe not," Kestrel said. "But until that day, I'd like to think life still has a bit to offer."
"You are unworthy of the Void," the Deathlord hissed. "You were not worthy of me a millennia ago and you are even less worthy of me now. Go, you deluded animal, go and rut with your Solar, go empty your head with meaningless pleasures, go surround yourself with illusion as you once could. I...never want to see you again."
Kestrel staggered back at the depthless hate in that voice, a whispery voice that promised the eventual annihilation of all hope. If Ya'moire had been a fallen Solar, this Deathlord was something far, far worse. She didn't have to be asked twice.
Kestrel ran for her life.
Alone in the Fortress of Crimson Ice, the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears settled onto her throne again. How empty it seemed now. A troupe of ghostly entertainers paraded in to amuse her and eventually they managed to. The Lover was so pleased that she gave them a place of honor and her patronage in her Fortress. Some years from now, she would no doubt remember them and call them to perform for her again and, no doubt, there would be no pain to numb and she would crush them for the lack of talent they surely possessed.
But for now, the Lover was entertained. Men and women came to please her, wine and delicious foods to sate her, beautiful music to cajole her, and in all things her plans moved forward as she bent her captive Solars further to her will with every passing day.
In time, the Lover managed to forget Kestrel and the pain of Sharvanin. In time, Oblivion once again washed those memories away and left her at peace. In time, the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears forgot why those tears had fallen. And there was no more recollection of Ya'moire's weakness, of the feelings she'd once had for her Lunar, and how it moved the dead Zenith's soul a thousand years later to spare, just once, one she had loved.
