Sunlight shone through the tree's canopies in a light that can only be described as nostalgic. The forest here, frozen, in a time loop created by Magister's years ago. There is no shred of ill-omen weather, a lack of imperfection evident in all aspects of life within Eversong Forest. Birds chirp with a preconceived notion, a song that only a trained ear over the years could understand. Leaves the same shade for as long as memory could serve, there would be no other way.
Gold and crimson, gaudy in every sense of the word, coated every surface. The colors of the Sin’Dorei, the glory of a culture that had been revived once more. Illivia walked now, a denizen of the great city of Silvermoon, as perfect as the environment she had been reared into. Leather had been afforded to her, tailored, fit to a willowy form that knew no pain, yet. Despite being a prime candidate for this house, hand picked, there was a sense of danger that lingered in the back of her mind.
Her magister primly walked down floating steps to meet her at the bottom, in which a manicured hand rose to idly hold at a lithe shoulder at the bottom for support. She was unblemished, a machine bred for war, a sword that waited patiently in the scabbard. Their eyes met, in which an all too familiar face breathed her birth name.
A flash of light, and Illivia is somewhere else, a later time, a more inopportune hour. The same city, one of fortune and light, now cast in what likely should read as twilight. Gold had been replaced by ebon, tight leather that shrouded her from head to toe. Crimson stained her hands, tendrils of blood that flowed from wounds. The blood was not her own.
But the body count was, and the number must have been in the thousands. Akin to the Dead Scar, corpses litter the section of the city that had been fondly dubbed as Murder Row. Piles of the dead lay in heaps, scattered from one ugly section of the city to the next. Her attention snags on the wisp of a fond memory.. a hunched figure that picked its way through the carnage.
Spiderly limbs carried her through whatever space was afforded, blood sloshed against leather as she moved. The climb to safety was arduous, and that pesky shadow remained close in her peripheral vision. A lone wagon was the harbor, in which she finally came to find refuge, alone. Illivia perched on the edge, and withdrew a flask from her belt to find peace.
There was no rest for the wicked, nor the damned.
A flicker of memory was ill afforded, and senses could catch her scent far before the mind provided the rest of her entity. Smoke and herbs, leather and salt. Next, crimson locks, eyes that burned like a thousand splendid suns, and the taste of her hatred stung thin lips.
Her commander pulled back from the kiss, a dry laugh the flourish to something she knew once. She was so close to remembering, to waking up. Back then, it was as rare as a weather pattern to hear her amusement, now? Impossible.
“Nightwind.” Came the whisper in her ear, “Finish it.”
Crimson spilled onto her hands, a fresh layer of paint as she cut sinew open, the last breath of life leaving her beloved lips. This was better than the alternative, let her be holy. Free her. Now she tasted salt, rivulets of water that stained high cheekbones.
Another flicker, another woman with her leash, the lock to her perpetual collar. Loyalty passed from one to the next, all with an unhindered loyalty. She was the knife that found each mark, the lover that would give her life time and time again for whatever was demanded.
There was nothing else, there couldn’t be.
“Do you even know what love is?”
A laugh rang out, maybe her own, at the inquiry. Sand mixed with blood, a disgusting mix of grime on her previously pristine boots. The privateer looked towards her inquisitor, elongated ears, a buzz-cut, and an equally awful decision. They were free, finally, at last. No longer alone, bound by trauma and the death of nothing other than a lecher. Booze soured her tongue and her thoughts.
“I know loyalty, is that not the same? No one could ever separate us, Leth. I promise, you have my sword, my heart, my blade.” A familiar pledge, Nightwind promised yet another time to uphold the vow that an assassin knew all too well.
And yet she had failed, she was alone now, was she not?
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