Conscience Sanguine

san·guine • /ˈsaNGɡwən/ • adjective • optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation. • of or having the constitution associated with the predominance of blood

[conscience-sanguine]

MOM, WHY.

And then the raid team went on hiatus.

[conscience-sanguine]

Cutting Ties

Well, that was easy enough.  It’s been several weeks and she doesn’t seem to be any the wiser -- not as if he used it to communicate with her leisurely anyway -- though she does continue to wear the counterfeit thing I replaced it with, despite the silence.  In case he ever needs her, I suppose.  That’s a call that will never come.

Or perhaps she hasn’t noticed, busy as she’s been kept.

The original has been carefully encased in an enchanted lockbox and tossed into the lake next to Thelsamar.  Couldn’t have him tracking it back to me.  I thought of leaving it around a Pterrodax’s neck, in the hopes it might share with him the song of its people, but it was attuned to her, after all.  I doubt anything or anyone could use it to communicate with him - not without trouble I’m unwilling to go through just to amuse myself.  Surely there’s easier entertainment to be had, and I have more important things to do.

Some days, it feels as if I will only ever have more important things to do.  Progress is so painfully confined and immobile.  Solitude, however, reaches off into an immeasurable insanity of space while simultaneously dancing around me like some Winter Veil clownwhore.

[conscience-sanguine]

Through A Mirror Darkly

And then “like” became “care for” - or caring was to be inferred all along.  But there was a void where the feeling of it should be, both from him and within her.  She breezed past the words from his lips as if they were anything else, not speaking her feelings or thoughts in return.

Outsiders though both may be, she is not meant for him, nor he for her.  Desperation, sadness, loneliness... these are not the basis of great loves.  If a link is to be created, a chain, a tie - as loathsome as my Narcissus would find such a thing - if one is to be formed, it should be a good one.  It should be worthy.

She needs passion, drive, fire.  She needs an equal.

He needs a flower to nurture and protect.  Someone who can blush and stammer in his tragically broken but awesome presence.  Pretty as he thinks her, she is not delicate.  She is not timid.  She is not cute.  She is not innocent.  She does not blush.  And she is absolutely not meant to be put in a vase and admired from a stoic distance, surviving off of the emotional equivalent of watching paint dry or ingesting a bowl of shredded paper. 

I may never understand what she is to him, but I suspect he has blindly shoved her into a mold of what he wanted, let his vision laze until what was before him was a warm and gorgeous blur... and this is why he treats her as he does, not truly seeing her.  This is why he asked no questions, for he already knew her... this version he had created for himself, with only a few cherry picked pieces of her puzzle.

He wouldn’t be the first and he will not be the last.

But I also suspect he is the sort who craves a tether, would die for that tether, and thus his caring for her is... dangerous.

And something I will not allow.

[conscience-sanguine]

Room Temperature

Like.  “I like you.”

Like.

How old is he?

What meaning does like hold coming from someone who doesn’t appear to dislike much?  So tranquil.  So afraid.  The last time like carried any weight was in adolescence, where expressing interest in someone else could be the end of the world.  Like was and is still so... safe.  Stale.  Lifeless.

I like the color red.  I like this book in particular.  I like summertime.  I like bunnies and rainbows.  These are things to like.  These things are not people.

Why not, “I admire you?”

Adore.

Desire.

Crave.

Unless he truly did just mean like, which, again... is not a huge revelation.  And she probably shouldn’t flatter herself that he’d meant anything different.  And because he has no curiosity about her, it would make sense he has no passion for her.  She is not being devoured or explored like a good book.  She is not a page-turner.  There is no passion in like.  There is barely any interest in like.

Oh, but she is beautiful.

And her heart -- not that he knows, or even cares to know, what is in it at all -- is something unknown yet familiar to him.  And this... this was a startling revelation - to me, at least.  I thought it suggested more proof for my theory, and lent weight to the prophecy of the San’layn he found, but perhaps it was nothing more than the desperate rambling of a repressed, broken soul trying to keep his host from walking away.

She is warm, isn’t she?  And caring.  And giving.  It probably helps that she is pretty.  These things make her worth holding onto, even if she’s not worth knowing.

[conscience-sanguine]

The Abyss

Nymaré’s heart was unlike any he’d ever known, yet its beat was familiar, like the notes to a song he couldn’t name.  Was that how he described it?

Her heart was familiar.

Time, for Ysabell, froze in that moment... doors opening in every direction - into the future, the past, in this timeline and countless others - all lines converging in the spot where it all began for her: the cave.  Visions of it in one iteration or another, every timeline threatened to be inextricably tied to it.  Not visions, realities.  Unable to tell reality from memory, she found herself uncharacteristically and irrevocably swallowed up by fear -- someone else’s fear.

Her wan form crumpled slowly toward the floor, dim eyes wide but blind to the present, the room before her melting away to some place dark, damp, and saturated with pain and blood, her own blood.

Daggers.

The heat of his face buried against her skin, unable to control himself, unable to help himself, drinking in the scent of fresh wounds with shameless, intoxicated abandon.  Never free of him.

The blood had drained from her limbs, leaving her cold and paralyzed, her chest crushed mercilessly from the inside until sensation erupted red hot against her cheek, breaking the fallen elf from the clutches of the past.

Elerwyn crouched before Ysabell, the stubby remnants of her ripped off wings flittering in fear of what retaliation would follow for striking her mistress in an attempt to rouse her.

The retaliation was swift and brutal.

Ysabell’s misplaced anger emerged in a defiant shriek and a sudden eruption of flame that launched the cowering succubus across the room, her body crashing against the wall with an unforgiving crack, leaving the floor to catch her motionless form.

She wanted to scream into the emptiness before her and never stop screaming.  For the past, the present, the future.  For this timeline and all others.  Until this moment or all others ceased to be.  And she wondered, briefly, if there would ever be anything large enough - any amount of time or space great enough - to hold this rage.

Somewhere across Azeroth, Nymaré felt something inside of herself clench up with a sudden swelling of emotion she didn’t understand.  Against its onslaught, her throat tightened, her eyes burning as they held back an urgent need to cry, to purge herself of this feeling, making it difficult to concentrate on the moment.  Had he felt that shift within her?  She didn’t understand his powers well enough to know.  Had his words had this effect on her?  In stunned silence, she played those words over in her head, trying to make sense of them as she coolly maintained her composure.

“What...?”

[conscience-sanguine]

Of Feeding, Flattery, and Fate

“Do not flatter yourself too much, Farstrider.” 

What a presumptuous tool.  She was barely half alive and still encased in blood-encrusted clothing.  At what point could he have possibly thought she was attempting to be anything other than very painfully sincere when asking if she had made him uncomfortable after he’d looked away from her like a bashful child at her very realistic assessment of what she needed in addition to rest: to not be covered in dried up gore.

I do believe she mentioned at the Enclave that she was far from shy.  Over these past few years, I’ve watched her work.  She is not lying.  Any attempt to seduce him would not be as weak and random as that.

And yet, that is how he took it.  How?

I suppose through the lens of an over-inflated ego, or monumentally wishful thinking, he could take such innocent words at such an anti-romantic moment and twist them into her flattering herself that her ghoulish, crusty form potentially taking a much needed bath was somehow too irresistible to conceive of without blushing.

Nothing in what she was expressing - the need for a bath or her concern for having made him uncomfortable - could have had anything to do with flattery or seduction.  And with those words, it was as if the wind had been sucked out of the room.

I must have laughed for a good 10 minutes straight.

Regardless, telling her not to flatter herself means she likely won’t after that.  The seed is planted.  Every last word she utters, every subtle gesture she makes in his presence, will be scrutinized to ensure she does not come across as flattering herself in any way in regard to him.

Such hilarious symbolism, then, that she had him remove her heart.

Which means, in turn, that I will not need to step in and derail anything -- he has unwittingly taken care of that all on his own.  This is the second time now that he has presumed too much... the price she must pay, I fear, for being too nice to him.

He has also helped finish convincing me, with that little blurb, that she is no more than a prop to him; a morsel for his ego to feed off of, proving himself a vampire in more than just the physical sense.  She listens.  She inquires.  She shows interest and concern for his thoughts and feelings.  She reassures him.  And he drinks it all in.

“I am within my comfort zone when I am with you.”

One might draw from that that she is a sanctuary as well.

Precious.

But what does he do for her in return?  What interest in who she is has he shown?  How does he improve her life?

He protects her from me, I suppose.  Or he believes he does.  Or that was his intent.  He actually sat there for countless hours, fully armored, waiting for another attack while she slept, when she was never in any real danger to begin with.

So, so delightfully worth it, even if Tarot didn’t fare very well.  Though, the impudent little rat deserves it for that nasty little surprise.  It will be some time while he reforms in the nether.  Finally, some silence peace.

As for her...

Actually letting him feed...

Curious, the similarities and differences between us.  My Fynne, my blood.  Her Fen, her blood.  Threads on separate looms still somehow managing to weave similar images.  I hadn’t thought it possible, though now I am beginning to wonder if some things are meant to happen. There is something to be done with this knowledge, though I know not what.

I could use his mind right now to correct mine, expand it; tell me how my understanding of time is too limited, too linear, and then reveal its secrets.

Secrets I could use to find my way back to him.

[conscience-sanguine]

Ship To Wreck

Well.  That was... something.  Was that flirting?  I think there was flirting.  Though, for someone who suggested he prefers the direct approach, his ability to be direct with her was lacking greatly, as if the inclination itself was being carried on some unseen tide; each rise and fall leaving behind a clue against her shore as to his intentions, only for it to be washed away again.  What is she supposed to do with that?

Perhaps he doesn’t know what he wants from her.  Perhaps he doesn’t know what to do about it.  Perhaps he is afraid of being hurt, or hurting her.  Perhaps he is intimidated by her.  Perhaps it was out of respect for boundaries she doesn’t actually have.  Perhaps some pitiful combination thereof.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

Such a waste of time, and supremely insulting to the both of them.

Regardless, none of these will get him far with her.  If fortune favors the bold, it is little wonder he is so alone.  He tells himself it is a choice, that he is protecting others, but it’s not.  “Choice” is how he dresses up what truly rules him: Fear.

Fear of who he is.

Fear of what he might do.

Fear of rejection for those things.

By hiding others from those things, he will never acquire the skills, the strength, to be what he could be -- to truly protect others from himself.

And what even is she to him but someone who will listen without judgment and tend his wounds?

Therapist.

Prop.

Flotsam.

Something for him to cling to in his imaginary maelstrom, terrified he’ll take her down with him.

They are both stronger than all of that, of course.  If he chooses to be weak, so be it, but he does her no honor by assuming she cannot handle however he views himself and whatever it is he might want from her.

I know better than anyone just how perceptive that girl is.  She can likely feel these truths radiating off of him.  She is bearing it, though, with a sort of sickly sweet compassion I don’t recall--

I wonder... when she is close to him as she was, mending the tears on his throat, did he dare to entertain the thought of how she might taste?

Does he think about her blood? Long for it rather than a bandage?

It would explain why he kept insisting he is a monster... all that guilt.  Guilt for what he’s done, for what he could do, and for what he wants.

But monsters do not feel guilt.  Nor remorse.  She is right, he is no monster.  Even if he gave up some of that guilt, he still would not be a monster.  No... he is nothing more than a broken little boy who became a tool to some second rate god that got itself killed, yet still makes surprise visits while he’s on unofficial dates with overly sassy farstriders.  He doesn’t have the faith he needs in himself to function as anything else.

He doesn’t have the faith he needs in himself to get what he wants.

You have to build a ship, first, before you can wreck it.

[conscience-sanguine]

Ysabell

His fingers stroked down the sides of her throat, the flames at their tips licking against it, leaving raised red marks on the flesh behind them; their form of a loving caress, one she leaned into.  Their eyes were locked on each other's in the mirror before where she sat, hair wrapped in a towel.

He leaned in next to her ear, his grin one of eagerness, of anticipation.  It was sharp and almost cruel.  The words, the breath they were spoken on dancing across her skin, sent a warm shiver through her body.

"Are you ready?"

In truth, no... no, she absolutely was not.  She did not look, nor had she ever looked, as one might expect her to look.  Even his hair reflected the fire he so cherished, a vibrant copper.  Manipulator, murderer, commander of demons, consort to flames and darkness and whatever else others felt the need to call her, for her it was the sun that was reflected on her skin and in her hair; iconic of her people.  No hint of what lay just beneath the surface.  But that was about to drastically change.

Despite not answering, she could feel him pull gently at the towel, as if unveiling a piece of art.  Inky black waves bounced free and spilled down her shoulders and back.

Vythica.  That is who she saw in her reflection, if not for the sun-kissed complexion.

Something in her chest tightened, a sensation she'd all but forgotten, not having felt an ache like that in so long for her lost sister.  For one passing moment of pure and utter nonsense, she felt compelled to reach out to her, speak to her.  And then it all passed.  Perhaps more quickly than it should have.

"Well, that's something," her companion mused with a characteristic smirk.

"You're next," she reminded, her fingers combing through the dark, glossy locks.  It all served a purpose.  Infiltrating the black dragonflight wouldn't be easy, but it did just get a little easier.  He had even picked out a name, one paying tribute to Neltharion himself.  She, however, was lacking one sufficiently cliché with all their obsession with darkness, dubiousness, and different shades of black - ebon, onyx, sable.

Sable.  Like her hair.

"Ysabell," she muttered, absorbed in observing the way the candlelight danced off of and disappeared into the blackness she had coiled around her fingers.  Her companion chuckled darkly in appreciation of the wordplay.

"Ee-sah-bel?" He repeated the name as she had spoken it, as if questioning the pronunciation.  "Not Isabel?"

She couldn't help but grimace in response, finding that iteration surprisingly revolting.  To her, Isabel was soft.  It was the name of some simple, helpless creature locked in some tower somewhere, waiting to be rescued.  She was not these things.  It certainly wasn't the name of an agent of the black dragonflight, either.

"Do I look like an Isabel?" she countered coyly as she faced herself in the mirror once more.  This time, she didn't see Vythica looking back at her, but herself fully: manipulator, murderer, commander of demons, consort to flames and darkness that she was.  There was nothing soft there.  Nothing simple.  Nothing helpless.

"Not now, not ever... Ysabell."

"By the sun!" Ysabell hissed loudly, a sudden sharp, burning pain down her wrist startling her from long distant memories.  She could feel the near scalding heat of her own blood coating and warming her night-cooled skin.

Nymaré had disappeared within Ravenholdt Manor some time ago.  Their security was such that even she couldn't eavesdrop as she'd grown accustomed to.  And so she'd settled in a safe ways away, waiting for her to emerge again... assuming Veldis would allow her to leave at all.

Without thinking, in the dark Ysabell reached for her necklace and yanked it free of her neck, quick to snap the emerald "gem" from its setting and pop it into her mouth.  Almost instantly, the wound sealed up again.

And then something in her chest tightened.  He knows.

[conscience-sanguine]

To Bestride The Narrow World

My my, she is being unusually social.  I’m having trouble keeping up.  I’m also curious what that means, given the timing of it all.  She has to feel them closing in on her, as I do.  Perhaps she believes they will be less likely to come for her if she’s with others.  Perhaps she’s hoping to find allies.

Titillating that she should run into my former captor at the cultural fair, of all places.  Poor thing lost his place because of me?  He accused me of being clever and dangerous.  I am honored.  Though, for the moment, I think I may only be as dangerous as I am clever.  Even if it is serving a purpose, life is slightly less enjoyable in this state.  I could follow her lead and seek out allies.

Or seek out her allies.

Though, so far, those seem only to be the blood sucker, possibly his friends -- I cannot believe she ran into him again -- and perhaps Veldis himself.  I will happily return the compliment and consider him clever and dangerous.  As amusing as it might be to approach him as someone else, I am nowhere near ready should that go poorly.  And the Psuedo’Layn might be able to sniff out that I’m not as I appear.  Oh, what fun it would be to toy with that one.

I’m curious if either of them know what she’s done, though; if the shadowblade would have let her go so easily if he knew, if the blood mongrel would utter passive words on self-forgiveness to her, or if that half-kaldorei grandpa would have sided so much against those nasty rumors which follow her around.

There may yet be hope for her.

I’d almost forgotten what she was like.  It has been well over a lifetime since those memories were... misplaced.  But she is bright.  Helpful.  Warm.  Genuine.  Engaging with her questions.  It has been a pleasure to witness her disarm others with such innocence.

What she is destined to become, however, is written in the Constellas.

[conscience-sanguine]

Icarus

As Nymaré disappeared around the corner and out of the Court of the Sun, Ysabell released her sight from that of the eye of kilrogg she had summoned to casually observe her without the tipsy Farstrider’s blood-sucking companion for the evening picking up on her heartbeat and giving away the game.

A San’layn?  Really now?  A San’layn, but not a San’layn, but absolutely a San’layn.  How can you be so stupid?  And how does a creature like that walk freely within this city - or anywhere, for that matter - without the villagers rising up as one and slaying it?

Perhaps he wasn’t strictly a San’layn, Ysabell admitted dismally to herself, but the eyes, the teeth, the confession of drinking blood, all because he made a bargain with a troll Loa, may as well be the same thing.  Next to her, Tarot fidgeted nervously, the imp’s eyes darting around with a glint of either frustration or impatience for being stuck in one place for so long while his mistress spied on... he never knew exactly how to refer to the other woman.

“Sh-she smells like sssssunlight!” the imp blurted out unexpectedly in an agitated pitch, practically salivating.  He remembered that scent - so intoxicatingly lush and warm to his demonic senses, screaming of forbidden delicacies and juicy meats to be torn to pieces.  However, the sudden exclamation had pulled Ysabell from her thoughts and jumble of feelings on the subject that she couldn’t quite put neatly into a well defined box, her dim fel gaze boring down at him.  He had managed to disturb the few other denizens in the quiet downstairs alcove as well, none of them looking on him with friendly intentions, and drawing unwanted attention to his mistress.  Fearing for its safety, both from Ysabell and the others in the den that he’d disturbed, the imp phased between realities with a desperate flailing of limbs.

“As always, helpful information,” Ysabell deadpanned, a sudden wave of exhaustion washing over her.  She leaned into the wall for support with a heavy sigh, waiting for it to pass, and collected herself once more.  Her curiosity had led to an over-exertion, and now it was time to retire; but she could still feel Tarot’s frantic presence just on the other side of the veil, tapping at her senses like a fly caught in a spider’s web.  “Is something troubling you?” she asked quietly.  The imp always came unglued when Nymaré was involved, ensuring there would be no rest if she didn’t address the situation.  Though, given their current location, a caveat seemed needed.  “You may answer me calmly or you will remain silent on the subject.” She allowed him the moment he needed to decide if he could calmly address his issues or not.  Eventually, the imp shimmered back into this reality, his nervous energy dumped into grasping and pawing at the hem of her robe. “Th-the cards, missstresss,” Tarot began shakily, the volume and pitch of his voice painstakingly lowered and evened out. “Sh-she does not exist in th-them.  Or y-you don’t.  Void.  Death.  They b-burn... THEY BURN INTO NOTHING.  CHAOS!” The imp was instantly silenced, if by Ysabell’s will alone, his pawing at her robe having given way to clinging desperately to it as he buried his face within the dark folds of fabric with a whimper.  There, the creature inhaled deeply, only traces of summertime to be picked up from his mistress. “The sun burns in her as it burned in you,” he cried softly, wrapping himself further into the bottom of her robe, drawing some comfort from it and the fact that it muffled his words. The imp added dreamily, soothed now that he’d gotten it all out, “Only embers now... only embers... burned to ash.”

[conscience-sanguine]

Fear and Loathing in Gilneas

Well then.  I do believe I have an accurate grasp, now, of what exactly it feels like to have all the shards within myself ripped from me at once; though not in quite the situation I'd fantasized over.  There was only one victim, and she endured it willingly.  And, gods below, was it far more painful for me than cathartic.

She had the good sense to leave as soon as it was over.  I wouldn't trust me in that moment, either.

It wouldn't serve me to drain every last bit of fel from her before I get what I need from her friend, anyway -- assuming he is capable of being of any use -- though, for a moment, it almost looked as if I wasn't going to give her or myself the option.  I haven't felt that particular brand of crazy in quite some time.  Even now, I can hear its siren song when I close my eyes, keeping me from surrendering to the rest I so desperately need, urging me toward inclinations I've long since shed.

Luckily, any movement whatsoever quickly dissuades me from following my dreams.

That man, though.  Wasteful, dismissive, inattentive, far too excited by shiny objects.  He actually assumed my injury was the result of some negligence on my part -- and, to be fair, it was, though not in the manner he was assuming: that I were some overreaching novice that called too much upon herself.  He asked for clarification.  I offered a more thorough representation of the facts, and suddenly it's a sob story?  How?  Why?  Did *he* want to cry?

I will take his reactions to mean he has no idea what I am capable of, which is exactly how I would prefer it be for the world around me, so I suppose I shouldn't fault him for that.  In fact, it was a sobering reminder of Silvermoon's nobility culture; one I obviously needed, despite how disappointing it was.

As long as he can deliver on what I'm paying him to do, what should I care?  But if all he teaches me is how to open a pocket to some candy store dimension because he believes me to be some lost little princess dabbling with demons to shock mommy and daddy, I will gladly show him how wrong he is.

[conscience-sanguine]

I Can’t Even Right Now

It's not as easy as it looks.

When it's quiet, and it often is, I can feel it scratching at the back of my skull, twisting in my gut, clawing at my heart, and it all comes together in a scream welling up within my chest with a madness that tears through my body, demanding expression.  Demanding release. But I can't.  I can't let it out. I can't, and then the rage sets in as that feeling gnashes at its prison bars and paces away again, trembling with frustration and the promises of what it’ll do once it gets free. And it's not this *thing* I was left with from the Hold. Or, it's not just that thing, though that thing does not help.

Is it heartache? Is it boredom?

Impatience?

Doubt?

Grief?

I have experienced them all before -- some more than others.  I am familiar with them in cleanly cut doses, meted out over time.  But what is time, now, other than a joke?  Nothing has its place anymore.  There is no outlet.  And neither is there an end.  And this thing is a razor wire tangled and twisted around on itself, coiling ever tighter, snapping and lashing.  I am its center, and it is mine.

So I have to wonder what they see when they see me moving through the crowds.  Can they feel the shards within myself stirred to a frenzy, longing to explode outward and rip through all of the flesh and bone and candy-coated complacency around me with exquisite, cathartic violence?  Or am I a picture of normalcy with nothing but my scent to give me away to a select few, who, even then, don't seem to notice my overwhelming desire to rend the universe in two in order to find my way home.

Ignoring all of that...  Being mundane?  None is as easy as it looks.

Maybe it's this awful hair color.

[conscience-sanguine]

The Fel Blossom

I’m the strange one?  I should have known that creature would be able to smell my true nature on me.  It seems like only yesterday, or a thousand yesterdays ago, that some shady orc appeared from the shadows of Lordaeron’s undercity specifically to sniff me and then tell me that I smelled like a demon, was it? a warlock? Something he should not have been able to know.  Maybe I don’t recall as well as I once did, but that is what my book was for, wasn’t it, New Book?  No telling where that thing is now.  It contained my life.  I hope whoever finds it will appreciate that, assuming the thing doesn’t devour them whole.

Mm, but Fynne could always smell me, always find me.  The difference between he and the illidari is that he couldn’t help but love it.  I do not miss that.  I smell like a brood mother, though?  How unflattering -- not to mention somewhat surprising, given my current state of existence.

Oh, but how I’ve missed the violent and unbalanced.  Manic, broken thing that he was, he provided moments that reminded me of the life I’ve been exiled from and the people left behind.  Why can’t I recall their names?  Frustrating.  Though, perhaps that isn’t a surprise.  They, like this one, flitted in and out of my gravity like little butterflies in a bloodied and burning garden. It’s best not to name the things that aren’t meant to survive.

[conscience-sanguine]

Me: I am death!  I am the night!

Prydaz don’t care.

[conscience-sanguine]

Conscience

Everyone needs one -- if not as a guide, then at least for reference. Mistakes are so easily made when we forget ourselves and what we have done, no matter how brilliant or dark.

I seem to have run out of pages inside of myself for everything I need to remember.

Of course HE doesn't know who I am - that is not surprising.   But it would seem that no one knows who I am.  Oh, the mischief I could make...

Assuming I live through this.

It's quite freeing.

Though, I don't recall freedom feeling near so... empty.