The moment before the sun broke over the horizon, the world sat in silence. Soon the early birds would chirp and a calm glow would brush across the sky, but for now the world was silent.
Nivathostin preferred the silence. Every morning, he awoke before dawn and sat at the edge of the tree line surrounding Dreadmist manor, staring over the mist-covered city below. He thought about every soul who was about to wake and wondered which ones would have good days and which ones would have tragedies. The elf knew the tragedies of life, and his sympathy had grown vast for the struggling soul.
He sat in the cold, silent darkness for a while, and a heavy sigh emptied his lungs just as footsteps crunched in the dying leaves behind him.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
His ears perked.
Crunch. Crunch.
And the sound stopped right behind him. The smell of coffee drifted beneath his nose.
“Nivathostin. Your –”
“Join me.”
…
Silence.
…
“...I dreamed that everyone had died.”
…
Crunch. Crunch.
The darkened, bundled figure slowly lowered onto the log beside Nivathostin, holding a platter with two cups of coffee. Usually the second cup went cold, but sometimes the struggling elf needed company - so on this morning, they sat in the frigid winter air, each one hardly speaking a word, and the cups in their hands kept their souls warm until dawn broke over the horizon.
((Written for a monthly creative prompt for the March of Withermore guild.))
His eyes scrunched together. The sheets around him felt like his own, but he couldn’t part his lids to see them.
He was still wearing his robes from dinner.
What time was it?
By the gods, his head. It pounded something fierce. Surely a hangover, but he didn’t remember drinking. Just one glass. Not even one glass.
Finally one eye cracked open. The sunlight was piercing, but the curtains were closed. Even that small sliver of light sneaking into the room stabbed him.
Yes, it was his room, he deducted, but –
Vynlorin tried to move his arms. Restraints? Both eyes cracked open now, but he couldn’t move his arms. Was it truly his room?
He stirred until something caught his eye. On the floor, cross-legged and asleep, sat Nivathostin. The rogue’s blades sat beside him, and though his eyes didn’t close all the way, the man’s stillness and his limp head falling back against the wall were evidence enough of his slumber.
Vynlorin cleared his throat.
The rogue fully cracked an eye open, awake.
“Vynlorin.” A tired voice.
“Explain.”
“You’re mad, Vynlorin.”
“Explain,” the lord demanded again.
Nivathostin groaned with his bones as he pushed himself up from the wall. The lord’s bedchambers were so dreadfully simple: a bed, a nightstand, and a window that always hid behind curtains. Still, enough light poked through to hint at the morning’s splendor.
“You’re mad, Vynlorin.”
He approached the bed, pulling the covers back to reveal that everything the lord had assumed was indeed correct. He still wore his robes from the night before, and a thick rope held his arms in place beside him.
And then the rogue continued.
“I would say you were drunk, but your mood is more pleasant when you’re intoxicated.”
Nivathostin gave the lord a few gentle pats on the cheek as a smug grin born of advantageous confidence shone proudly on his rigid features. Truly a rare opportunity to turn master into prisoner.
“You are a fucking monster, my lord, but even monsters fall quickly when the pressure is just right.”
Vynlorin seethed at the treatment. Nivathostin toyed with him, but even worse than being toyed with was the darkness of the memories that failed him. He couldn’t remember what happened after he left Ghostlynn Grove.
He did, however, feel the pounding torment that teased the back of his head.
“…Did you hit me?”
Vynlorin asked the biting question as the rogue moved to the rope to untie it.
“Yes,” he answered unashamedly. The question made him pause. He had hit the very monster that he was about to release. “…Because you, despite your madness, are not in the habit of killing your own men unless given good reason – or unless gripped by insanity. And you could give no good reason.”
He continued untying the beast while the words swam around Vynlorin. Whatever rage the lord felt toward the rogue had shattered, and he was left considering the last 12 hours.
The void consumed him at dinner, and it took his full strength to bite his tongue in the presence of the court of House Valtieri. He fled to keep himself in check, but once he left Ghostlynn Grove it was like a dream consumed him.
A dream of chaos. Corruption.
A nightmare.
“Prepare a courier.”
The conversation ended. Nivathostin nodded at the command and said nothing more of the incident. He left the room after removing the ropes, leaving Vynlorin to drown in the thoughts that now pacified him until he could pen a letter to Aredhele.
“Getting drunk was good. I decided that I would always like getting drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe if you could get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn’t become so obvious yourself.”
- Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye
“Disappear Here. The syringe fills with blood. You’re a beautiful boy and that’s all that matters. Wonder if he’s for sale. People are afraid to merge. To merge.”
- Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero
Nivathostin watched from the floorboards as the dark figure stepped away. His head throbbed, pounding, the entire world spinning around him. He tasted the metallic twinge of blood seeping into his mouth, and not a muscle moved no matter how much he willed it. How pathetic he must have looked.
And yet Vynlorin’s wrath spared his life once more.
Each step echoed through the floorboards like a mallet. The beaten rogue fought to remain conscious, and he saw only the blurred outline of Vynlorin’s feet stepping out of the room while followed by the demon who acted as the instrument of the lord’s passion -- and what a passionate man he was.
The world darkened around the rogue. The sounds of the doctor scrambling to get to him slowly turned to silence. The pain of his punishment pulsed within him, and still the dog smiled. Nivathostin recognized the consequences of his actions before he made them, and now he hoped one other would share in these consequences as Vynlorin set off toward Valtieri Manor.
Last night Cerusani and @nivathostin conversed on the porch. Classic Cerusani back and forth. The dynamic is fun. @tamalas-art drew a little piece of the interaction. I am in love.
Aredhele dragged everyone out to Stranglethorn for the fight against trolls and other things for Moon Guard’s week-long Conquest event. Naturally Vynlorin sent Nivathostin because the heat and humidity would ruin his own fabulous hair.
So of course I had to draw @aredhelvaltieri and @nivathostin being sexy fiends in their Stranglethorn attire.
Li’l doodle of a scene from yesterday’s story between Vynlorin and @nivathostin. My dream is that someday I’ll be good enough to illustrate a whole story. ;(
The night had been so pleasant at the Westfall Fair. Nivathostin’s bleeding heart took him to the adoption pen where he took in the most pathetic creatures he could find there: a three-legged doe and a half-blind goat that had suffered an accident which left its lazy tongue hanging out. He spent most of his coin to rescue these animals and then offered everything he had left to a woman collecting donations that evening. He and Cerusani wandered together, and then she offered to buy him whiskey and a Westfall-style taco before they nestled themselves in the corner to enjoy their food and their new animal companions.
The night had been so pleasant until Aredhele arrived, and then she shattered everything with her terrible words yet again. He couldn’t escape her, and all the ghosts in his past grew more violent whenever she was around. She bit at him, and he bit at her, and then their words twisted into the foul memories of their past.
He set his fingers upon her abdomen and dared to bite back even harder.
“Where is it?”
Within the bright and vibrant atmosphere of the Westfall Fair, he asked Aredhele the looming question that sat in the darkness of his heart. The question that haunted him like a ghost day after day.
“Vynlorin has it...”
Anger. Rage. Spite. Nivathostin suffered under the weight of her answer, and it blinded him.
“You-- ...Don’t.”
He choked on his fury and wanted to vomit out the food that Cerusani had bought for him.
“In the end, we all do what Vynlorin wants. That is how it has to be, Niva. You ran away, and he captured you. There will always be a bigger, and better beast.”
Nivathostin stormed his way toward Thornwood manor with the conversation replaying again and again within his mind, and he hardly noticed that he was nearly dragging the suffering beasts behind him -- yet another thing that would bring disapproval from the terrible lord of Thornwood. But Nivathostin couldn’t spare an ounce of compassion for the man. Tonight, his fury had blinded him and he would defy Vynlorin for the first time since being brought back from the depths of the Nether.
Tonight Nivathostin would test the lord’s patience, and anger would be his courage.
The guards opened the door for the rogue when he arrived. Nivathostin was allowed wherever he pleased in Thornwood for he had become the lord’s dog who watched over the lands whenever Vynlorin was out. The men outside had no reason to question his actions even with his frenzied steps, and they opened the manor the same as any other evening.
Vynlorin sat within the dining hall and heard the rogue’s steps. How curious, he thought, to hear the man who always carried himself in silence, and the sound stirred him from his seat where his glass of wine was discarded on the table.
“Nivathostin?”
Vynlorin’s stern gaze fell upon those two wretched beasts trailing behind that now defiled his home, but the rogue didn’t stop. He rushed Vynlorin, discarding the leashes on the ground as his elbow rolled back and fingers crunched into a fist. The warlock caught the aggression in the rogue’s stance, and though he was confused and surprised, he was quick to react. Shadows skittered across his fingertips as he threw his hands out, beckoning darkness to tear through the fabric of reality.
“Nivathostin!”
Chains that twisted with the strength of the void snapped out of the air and lashed out toward the rogue’s limbs, but the rogue knew what the terrible lord was capable of. A sheen of his own shadows flicked off the rogue’s lithe form and crashed against the incoming chains, kicking the void magic back long enough for Nivathostin to throw that fist forward.
Crrshhh~
Vynlorin stumbled back and knocked the glass of wine from the table as he struggled to keep his balance. Nivathostin’s fist slammed into his jaw, stunning the lord as he remained hunched over the table with the world swimming around him, but he couldn’t recover. Darkness clouded the rogue’s eyes and terrible whispers skittered through his mind as the wicked taint of his race fueled him forward.
Nivathostin gripped Vynlorin’s throat and slammed the lord against the wall behind them.
“You’re a fucking monster, Vynlorin.”
The words rolled out of the rogue’s throat like a beast growling against its prey.
Vynlorin stared without fear into the man’s clouded gaze. He sensed the rogue’s wrath bubbling within, but the lord couldn’t make sense of why his dog now bit back at the hand that fed him.
Suddenly something clutched the rogue’s collar from behind and threw him across the room. The void elf was like a ragdoll as he rolled across the floor, and a heavy foot slammed down into his gut and forced a howl of pain to burst from his chest. When Nivathostin finally turned his gaze upward to his assailant, he saw nothing other than a heavy blade threatening his throat with the solid form of a shivarra at the other end of it snarling down at him.
Nivathostin’s chest heaved with breaths fueled by adrenaline as he remained pinned on the floor like a beast in a cage. Vynlorin’s demons never strayed, and they alone were the reason the lord could sit with such smug confidence within his own lair.
The lord stirred from the wall now. His piercing gaze wrapped around the rogue’s throat and would have strangled him if it could, but Vynlorin didn’t seek to harm the man; instead, he only wandered closer until he could stare down with pity against the dog that sought to tear him apart.
“Nivathostin.”
The dark voice crawled up the rogue’s spine and brought a renewed sense of fear within him. It was the same voice he had heard when trapped within the lord’s dungeon. It was the voice that scolded him when he didn’t comply with the lord’s demands. It was the voice that heralded a terrible night of suffering, and now the rage within Nivathostin subsided and twisted into the sort of fear that grips one’s soul as they stare into the eyes of death.
Nivasthostin danced his gaze from the shivarra to their master, and Vynlorin could see the fear now swirling within the rogue’s mind.
“Nivathostin.” Vynlorin touched his lip between words and noted the blood that glistened on his glove. He was amused that the rogue would attempt such an act, curious as to what led him to it, and proud that his pet had succeeded in such a bold task. His heavy-lidded gaze returned to the dog on the floor.
“I’ve grown fond of you, Nivathostin, but I hope this isn’t going to be a new habit of yours. I would hate to have to put you back in the darkness until you’ve calmed down.”
A heavy swallow rolled through Nivathostin’s throat and brought his flesh against the blade that threatened him. He couldn’t defend his actions, and he didn’t dare sling further insults against the master of the house. He knew he had lost and would continue to lose. Vynlorin was indeed a bigger and better beast -- a master that would, in the end, force every knee to bow in subservience.
Silence lingered between them, and Vynlorin knew his warning had been heard. He turned to mourn the wine now bleeding out on the stone floor until Nivathostin finally spoke.
“Aredhele is meeting with the underworld tonight.”
Nivathostin remained as a bleeding and broken man. He suffered the chains that life had bound him with and mourned everything he had ever been. Fate had finally crushed the last fighting spirit in his soul, and now he knew that he was nothing more than a dog being tugged around on the leash that Vynlorin wrapped around his throat. The meek words were spoken only through an unbreakable sense of duty, and the lord arched a brow over his shoulder.
“Is she? Very well.”
The lord started out of the dining hall, leaving the shivarra with her blade at Nivathostin’s throat as a reminder not to ever raise a hand against the master of the house again -- but he stopped at the sight of the crippled deer and goat that looked up at him with their pathetic little faces.
Vynlorin’s lip scrunched up into his nose as he stepped around them, shouting back another warning for the rogue who still suffered on the floor.
“And get these filthy creatures out of here before I feed them to the hounds.”
In the stillness of the night, terrors stretched their talons and roamed the world with freedom. Nightmares crept from their lairs and settled within the souls of the tormented -- the unfortunate minds that held onto fears and offered them to the gangly shadows as sacrifices. Nivathostin had always been susceptible to these feasts and felt those fangs bear down against him night after night, ripping sleep from his body and peace from his soul.
Dread held him, and he embraced it with an addled mind.
The beasts of Thornwood were quiet at this hour. Nivathostin slipped from the sweat-stained sheets into the night and carried a glass of whiskey with him -- a deadly medicine that wrapped his mind in the peace of its poison. A small trail through the forest beside Vynlorin’s manor became the rogue’s escape when sleep failed him, and tonight he became a spirit drifting between the trees until he came to the place where the grass had been imprinted with his torment.
He lowered himself into the dew-laden grass. It was a beautiful throne of solitude with a view over Thornwood, and he knew that each stray flicker of light down there was another poor soul who sought to escape the terrors. Nivathostin felt a connection to the vagabond lights knowing that these spirits suffered the same as he did, and they were all ghosts traversing a world that rejected them.
A faint smile trickled across his lips.
Although he didn’t have the strength that Vynlorin or Aredhele or Tirian had, he still carried on. Despite the burdens that dragged his heart into darkness, he still moved forward. Against the shackles that chained his feet to the past, he still looked ahead.
And the ghosts of Thornwood stirring in this hour with him were only a few of the many who joined them now.
Each one of them sipped the medicine the world had prescribed to them, and each one would find their peace in time -- peace enough to fall into a slumber for the few hours that the terrors allowed them before daylight dragged them into duties once more.
Duties that would be met by a tired and diligent soul fighting to take the next step.
Nivathostin set his head against the tree that held him up and closed his eyes to the gentle sounds of the small hours. Even in solitude he wasn’t alone. Nature wrapped his tainted body in her arms and soothed the child of darkness against his terrors. In the little things around him he found support, and his addled mind drifted away with each breeze that caressed him back to sleep.
(Mentions: @shandaumath @aredhelvaltieri @wokeastroke )
To be told the truth I do not know if that is your first name or last name. To be told the truth I know extraordinarily little about you. This is not the way to start a proper letter, but this is not a proper one to begin with.
You may not remember it but we spoke the other evening outside while looking up into the night sky. We spoke of being lost. I hate admitting it but I am truly lost right now. I am losing control more than I have ever, and it is going to cost me if I can not get myself together. Master Vynlorin insinuated as much as me losing place with the House, and I can not let that happen. I can not lose my family. They may not be by blood or name, but all the same they have become that to me.
Master Vynlorin suggested I turn to you. I do not ask for help easily, if ever at all. Weakness is a death sentence I find especially upon our kind. However, here I am asking you. Would you be willing to meet with me to talk about things? I have no expectations of you saying yes but if you do I promise whiskey.
I wait for your word even if it is a no, but I hope it is a yes. I need to not feel lost and out of control anymore, please.
Assumed Sincerely,
Cerusani
She scanned down at the letter, reading the words over again in her head. Her right hand tracing each written word as a pursing came to her lips. “No.” Crumpling it up Cerusani tossed the letter into the burning fire behind that raged, and started anew on a fresh piece.
Nivathostin,
I have two bottles of whiskey, and the need to speak with you. No ulterior motive besides the need for words. Let me know when we can speak.
Nivathostin was entirely surprised when the courier brought a letter to him in Thornwood. He had just finished his morning routine at the training grounds and hadn’t even arrived at his quarters when the messenger arrived.
“For you, Nivathostin.”
He arched his brow.
“Not for Master Vynlorin?”
“It’s addressed to you.”
The rogue slowly opened the seal and read the brief words as a confused but pleasant grin crept on his lips.
“Thank you,” he replied to the courier as he folded the letter up and carried it with him to his next destination.
“It’s hard to understand other people, to know what’s hidden in their hearts, and without the assistance of alcohol it might never be done at all.”
- Michel Houellebecq, Submission
Cerusani’s words replayed like a haunting echo as Nivathostin suffered his intoxication.
Lost.
Felt lost.
The insufferable feeling of being lost.
The distance from Shadowtalon Hold to Thornwood Manor shouldn't have been beyond his abilities, but the deceptive nature of the stars misled him. They danced and teased the rogue, darting from the sky into the ground like mischievous fairies mocking the elf who wandered the woods with blindness. He could feel them ridiculing him, berating the poor soul who thought he knew his way but had strayed once again.
His body had suffered so much in the dungeon, but oh how his tolerance for whiskey suffered the most.
Nivathostin stumbled toward a tree. His hands fell against it, and then his body, and soon he dragged his back down the crude bark chipping beneath his weight. It was hopeless to wander -- to deceive himself that he would make it back like this. If the world was to spin around him, he would let it.
If the stars were to ridicule him, he would let them.
They were the same stars that ridiculed him at the gates of Silvermoon when the stench of death and undeath burned away his dreams. They were the same stars that ridiculed him in Boralus when a sea of unquenchable emotions drowned away his future. And they were the same stars that ridiculed him now in Duskwood where the weight of everything he has suffered kept him blind to finding his own way home.
He cursed the stars that should have been a guiding light -- the stars that should have led a wandering man north and carried a dreamer into prosperity.
How much more would they ridicule him as he suffered in the darkness?
“Today, tomorrow, a day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.”
- Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master’s Son
