“How did you do it?” Morbid curiosity was at it once again. “With Thancred, I mean. How did you manage to overtake him? Was it with strength? Did you play on his inability to handle Aether? Or, did you work your way into his mind?”
The Ascians had a spectacular talent for the latter. It would be hypocritical for her to say that she had not found them in her own mind many times. Why else would she be talking to one? Asking him questions?
“I doubt he let you take over willingly, of course.”
Igeyorhm had noticed his newfound avoidance of her - it was part of the reason why she had come to visit him in his study in the first place. She had hoped to get an answer from him, to find out what had changed since that day. If - perhaps - he was disappointed in her. In how close she had allowed her soul to come to destruction.
It seemed that today was another day he would brush her off, tell her to leave him to his work. She wanted to argue - it was THEIR work, she wanted to remind him. However, if she had disappointed him in some way, it was far from her to want to push him further.
The woman’s gaze lingers upon him for a moment before a sigh passes from her lips and she turns to leave.
IN MY DREAMS (accepting) – a memory they want to share
THE LIGHT OF DAY TURNED INTO THAT OF BLACKENED BLOOD. Clouded the sky turned to nothing but winged creatures, and beneath did green turned to red with blood and fire.
Pleasant days that might have been for a morning walk with his dear mother, gone in an instant as the Horde laid siege to the village nestled below the hill of fresh grass. In the distance he saw them gather, a spectacle of the ages had fear not been inflicted unto his heart.
He saw the monsters gather, saw them raise their wings, crashing down and tearing ablaze his home. From this distance he saw everything. The people whom screamed. The dragons which tore them apart. And oh that great wyrm which almost descended upon his home in such a fury of anguish, Absalon could feel it from malms away. Without ever seeing it himself. That pain. That sadness. The lust for blood. For but a moment, Absalon could have sworn the red gaze upon him. Piercing into his very soul, his very being, seeing all before him laid bare as he gazed upon those very eyes. That… sorrow. It suffocated him.
His heart nearly wrenched in two as tears fell upon his face and he practically rolled down the hill before Marie gripped his wrist. He knew his mother not the forceful type, knowing her more as a lady soft and caring. Her touch caring and soft. But in these moments it was a death grip. Her fingers burying into Absalon’s very skin, his very body, his own soul, the grip as those very eyes. There was a yelp that came from him, a pull from her as he tried to exit her grip to run to town to help those.
“M-Mom! Let go!” fingers plucked at her hand. Attempting to wretch free staring at her with pleading eyes as her face steeled to the blood and guts before them. “Mom! Let me go! Let me go help them. Mom! Mom!” Pleas gone unheard as tears spilled from her face.
She did not wail, not screamed, merely stared down at her young boy with a face of acceptance. Knowing it to be her end. And Absalon none the wiser to her plans, her resolve. Marie knelt, her grip never softening as she stared stern yet soft upon him. Still he wailed for her to release him. Tugging and crying for him to go help them. “Absalon, listen to me.” He never saw his mother with such resolve, with such strength. As if the years of her weakness had amounted to this moment, as if she saved herself for this very day. “I love you. I love you so much as does your father, but you must stay strong.”
Absalon merely stared wide eyed at his mother. Her eyes spoke of running, yet he could see the fear written plainly in her eyes. “What do you mean?”
She was silent for a moment. Looking away into the chaos, then back to him. “I need you to run to find help.” Another way of saying run and don’t look back.
Quickly she released her son, tugging the house ring viciously from her finger and quickly grabbing Absalon roughly to shove it into his hand. She closed his palm. Forcing Absalon’s gaze to meet her’s, not letting him dare stare at the carnage set upon the village below. He could hear the wings beat. Louder, and louder, the dragon’s voices which screamed vengeance. “B-But what about father? He’s still home–” when she did not reply Absalon begun to viciously shake his head. “No! No! I won’t– I can’t…” Was it not a knight’s duty to go into the fray? To die honorably by a dragon? That is what he had read, what he wanted to become of him. The beating of the wings grew louder. He heard them come.
His mother denied him this. Planting a kiss to his forehead and pushing him harshly away from the village. Shoving and shoving him to the other side of the hill. Cries and wails ensued. Begging for her to let him go, to let him stay with her. To no avail as she sharply shoved him down the hill and watched him tumble down with tears streaming down her face as the beats of wings too descended upon her. Perhaps he was blessed by Halone that he did not see the dragons rip into her. Or mayhap cursed that he saw every other living thing in his village perish.
Landing into the stream below, he felt the muck of blood and ash upon him as he gasped for air. Feeling the filth of human blood drench him as the stream turned red with blood. As he looked upward, he saw the dragon retreat away as if not noticing the blood drenched boy who sat horrified in filth. All the conviction in his body left him as the cruel reality sunk into his marrow, that what he sat in was those he knew, those he saw everyday, and now were the ones he would never see again. Was his father in here too?
But not a peep would leave his mouth, his wretched soul full of sorrow. All he could do was scramble out of the blood red stream, kicking up mud and water as he retreated into the nearby woods in hope the dragons would not find him. Tears falling as he ran. Tripping and falling. The undergrowth cutting into his knees and body. The pain hardly worth mentioning over the image burned into his mind.
He was the only one alive. The only soul left. The last of Ferndale.
>> “it wasn’t your fight — it was mine.” (for Emet)
& LAHABREA.
Dressed in his long black and purple robe, his hood falling in front of his face, partially concealing his red mask in the darkness of their God's Sanctuary, Emet-Selch pressed his lips with a slight contempt.
"Your fight?" replied the Ascian in a scathing way. "With your whim of rushing in without thinking, you almost jeopardized what I've been working for for years. I remind you that we are working for a common purpose, Lahabrea. Not to throw a wrench in the gears."
