Any shred of power or lick of control daring to spark within the palm of her clawed hand was to be immediately snuffed out. Threats of impending violence, doom, agony and pain sprouting from the ground as thorny black vines towering far above her head. They coiled and twisted with a rancid odour splitting from their flesh and staining against Orin’s speckled skin. A scent that found familiar space with the changeling. Within the Dragonborn’s eyes she saw, of course, Bhaal. How couldn’t she? Formed from the very flesh of the Murder Lord himself and imbued with his ravenous fury, it glimmered across each scale and burned beneath his iris’. And beneath Bhaal, Sarevok. A recent revelation, granted, but one all the same. Nobody else had managed to make Orin feel so painfully insignificant and small, all the while existing too loudly and taking up too much space. Not like Sarevok, and not like Druj. Was this still part of the test? Was it ever a test to begin with? Had she squandered a chance of freedom, and if so, how dare she view it as such?
The inevitability of Orin being trodden beneath at least one of the two was clear.
As he went on and on and on and on, Orin stood scowling. Her shoulders shrunk into her small frame and any semblance of wicked joy or even enthusiasm had swiftly wilted behind her pale eyes. Venomous words dulled before hitting her divided mind, making no dent nor impact against the vibrating dome. A choice had to be made. To obey or to rebel. Obeying one would be to disobey another. Orin didn’t want to obey anyone other than herself. For once, Orin preferred to avoid violence. Though her rotted soul and blackened heart yearned to snap bones and pierce flesh, her brain thought better of it, and in a deathly situation such as this one, she had to rely on her smarts above all else. Her consciousness and sanity was deeply flawed and broken after years of struggling, but in times of need they pulled her through. They always had done. They always will. Without them, what did she have? How different would she be to the mindless lemmings that slaughtered with little rhyme or reason and absolutely no beauty?
Sarevok was as good as dead. She knew that. He knew that. Druj knew that. Everybody under the damn temple knew that the moment Orin booted him to the sidelines and eradicated almost all sense of power that beast held over her. Her own ambition for the beauty of the slaughter was the sole reason for his lungs still burning oxygen, and his ginormous rancid heart pumping blood. Orin had plans.
She had plans and no choice. The word “freedom” was certainly being thrown around rather liberally. And, quite frankly, this little display of a powertrip was yet again ironic coming from someone left rotting at the bottom of a tower with a worm squirming around. Any fear momentarily inflicted into her had fizzled away into nothingness, leaving that blunt, hollow and cold ache in its place. Did she even believe he was capable of those things? No, not really. She had to fight the urge to roll her eyes.
Neuroticism flickered a brief smile at the corners of her mouth. A twitch of her left, tearful eye. A high pitched giggle slipping out. She couldn’t help that.
What choice did she have?
A cloud of red mist appeared in front of her now raised right hand, manifesting her Bloodthirst dagger. A new, neat little trick, gifted upon her by that of an overly helpful pixie. As she tilted and twisted it, the netherstone embedded within the gilded centre sparkled beneath the candlelight.
“You are nothing to me.” A breath. In and out through the nose. Perhaps one of exhaustion or even frustration. Regardless of what it stemmed from, it was a brief moment of regulation. Truthfully, she wasn’t entirely sure where she was going with this. An old urge of hers to live exclusively for herself kicked up dust that choked at her lungs and squeezed Orin’s words out. Perhaps the idea of being bottlenecked between picking some faux promise of “freedom” or allegedly being chewed out from the inside had flipped a switch at the back of her skull. Why should she allow this annoyance to provide a senseless, self-serving ultimatum? If she was to die within this room, let it be of her choice, and her choice alone.
“You do not frighten me. You cannot do any of those things to me.” Another pause, her grip tightening around her beloved blade.
“I have bested you before and I will not hesitate to do so again - you would be wise to fold your peacock feathers behind your waxy scales, and know your place.” Her breathing picked up and her face twisted into a pained frown, struggling to decide between utter sadness or absolute rage. Was this her roundabout way of giving him yet another chance to live? Or to at least to walk away without a fight? Did she even care about the netherstone and the Absolute, or was it all just for a lick of praise that this spawn was showered in? Why didn’t she just kill him all that time ago? At least one answer was clear.
A moment of hesitation. Panic, even. She said all of those things for herself true enough but had any of it been for Him? No. No! Curled fists now at her sides and her eyes flickering around. This is what she had worked so hard for? To be bickering with an underling over her rightful place in his embrace? What a joke. But she was not laughing; The realisation of having and knowing absolutely nothing other than Bhaal repeatedly had hit her like a boulder over the course her life and it melted through her innards as she spoke.
