✞ // Blog activity is gonna be winding down for the next week or so while I catch up with schoolwork! (Also, Jaycon is this weekend.) This also means I’ll be putting the Black Bird prompts on hold for at least a couple of days.
“Old?” His fingers grazed his wrinkles--his sagging skin, crevices that deepen with each passing day... and he was more than aware of his dulling, graying hair. “N-no, not yet. I’m only...
When Ardos said he wanted to meet him alone–in the northernmost woods, away from either of their homes, and so soon after their discovery of the Purification Chamber project, no less–Eldes knew immediately his brother’s intentions were less than pure. Asking if the matter could be discussed via P*DA proved fruitless, and Eldes knew it was a lost cause even as he typed the message.
There would be more than a little fallout from the discovery that Eldes betrayed his father and brother. Greevil howling with rage at his at son for his betrayal, threatening to cut him off completely, was far from the end of it. Empty threats hardly suited his father, after all.
He cast a nervous glance over to a heap of bushes just northwest of him, where Marduk lie in wait should the worst come to pass. The Vibrava, young though he was, seemed to at least grasp that his trainer was in a degree of peril, and from Eldes’ perspective, he was crouched remarkably still; not a single leaf so much as twitched.
Only when a wisp of blue and gunmetal gray edged through the thicket did Eldes’ awareness of the outside world return–and so did his rapid pulse. And when he just began to brace himself for the worst, a much darker cobalt appeared by Ardos’ side…
And Eldes’ racing heart came to an abrupt halt.
Marduk was crumpled and limp beneath the Heracross’ claws.
Ardos almost seemed to derive some kind of joy from his brother’s horror, his arms folded and his head shaking as if to scold him. Ardos flicked his finger in signal and the Heracross tossed Marduk to Eldes’ feet, where the tiny antlion Pokémon slumped like a doll. Eldes fell to his knees and cradled Marduk without a thought, hardly comforted by a twitching front leg indicating he was still alive.
“In the bushes? Truly? As if I wouldn’t notice?” Ardos shook his head in a mockery of pity. “As if I would hurt you? Come now, brother. I merely wanted to talk. You don’t trust your own twin?”
Eldes couldn’t say a word. Even his thoughts were frozen.
“Your bug will be just fine,” Ardos asserted. “I didn’t kill him, for Arceus’ sake! But when I saw him on guard–as if you had anything to be guarded from–well, you understand. What an insult.”
With a tap of his Poké Ball, Marduk vanished from the forest clearing, a ray of light keeping him within the safety of red and white metal until Eldes could tend to him. There was no telling what Ardos would do if he tried to leave now; if he attacked Marduk unprovoked… would he really do the same to his own brother?
“Are you going to look at me or are you going to keep gawking at blades of grass?” Ardos’ voice had an edge to it, this time–but Eldes knew there was more to his brother’s frustration than his being stunned into silence.
By the time Eldes mustered the ability to look Ardos in the eye, his face was already level with his brother’s, and he realized Ardos had crouched down.
“You know why I wanted to have this little ‘talk’ with you, yes?” Ardos growled.
Of course he did.
“The Lab.”
The Purification Chamber. Oh, Arceus, especially the Purification Chamber.
If only he hadn’t been so careless. If he had never published his research…
“Oh, what it did to poor Father… his dearest son, working behind his back all this time to destroy everything he’s struggled for. Worse yet–”
Ardos grabbed the collar of Eldes’ shirt and pulled them both upright, then slammed him against the trunk of the ancient cedar behind him. Eldes slumped to the ground and the next thing he felt was a boot colliding with his abdomen. The wind knocked clean out of him, he could only wheeze as Ardos went on:
“–Everything I worked for! Finally, something to give my life meaning–something to dream for–and you betrayed it! Betrayed us! For that whore of a wife and her sniveling crotch droppings! For your precious research! For creatures that are meant for fighting, in the first place–for tools!”
Even through the haze of pain, breathlessness, and disparagements to his family and Pokémon, Eldes could still hear the offended chirr of his brother’s Heracross and he vaguely registered the red light that absorbed her back into one of Ardos’ three Poké Balls.
Though his breath had hardly returned, Eldes mustered the strength to raise his head and glare defiantly at his attacker. “Is that all you came here to do?” he spluttered. “To insult me and my work? And my–my family?” He coughed. “Then say your peace, Ardos. Say it and leave us–for good.”
Eldes was sure he could even feel the muscles in his brother’s limbs stiffen.
“I told Father… and now I’m telling you,” Eldes continued. “If this is what you are… if this is what the Verich family has become… then I’m through with it. My family, my work–you will never take them from me.”
Despite it all–despite himself–Eldes found himself smirking. When Ardos’ fists began to tremble, for an instant, it looked like Eldes had won. He could, and would, take every beating in the world if it meant he could protect the people and the life he loved. Even if he never walked again, as long as Ardos and Greevil stayed away from his Lab, away from the people he loved–that was all that mattered for the moment.
But Ardos didn’t continue his assault, nor did he leave Eldes on the ground. When he, instead, knelt down to stroke Eldes’ crimson hair, an unexplained horror slowly swept across him–each sweep of his brother’s bony fingers painting a new layer of dread until his triumph was completely masked.
“Oh, dearest brother,” Ardos murmured, “you truly believe it’s as simple as that? ‘Terribly sorry for bothering you; we’ll leave you to sabotaging our efforts, now?’ Foolish. You’re still a Verich, you know. You might have taken Lily’s name–pray tell, why?–but Papa and his money nurtured you just as much as it did me. Without him, without us, without me, Eldes, you are nothing.
“Anyone else, oh, we would have eliminated on the spot. But we love you, brother. We want you with us. We can reach a compromise–we can make this work.”
Eldes wanted nothing more than to spit.
“You can continue your research–with us, and on our terms. We have a position lined up for you already, in fact. You’ll get to poke and prod all the Shadow Pokémon you want. And the best part? We’ll even leave your little family alone, and they will have nothing to fear from us. All you have to do is fake your death. Oh, what do you think? I like the idea of an explosion, myself; you’re lost in it, not a trace of your remains found, death in absentia a few years later–”
“Enough!” As if the idea of it weren’t sickening as it was; was this a game to Ardos? He talked as if he were planning a damned vacation! “You think this is funny? Breaking Lily’s heart, leaving Michael and Jovi without a father–as if I were so sick as to agree to it!”
“Then watch all three of them–and Krane, and the rest of the Lab’s staff–burn to death. And they won’t have the dignity of it looking like an ‘accident.’ We’ve already planted bombs in every room of the HQ Lab, Eldes. You will still work under us, and all of Orre will remember esteemed Dr. Eldes Yoon as a murderer. Our spies–” To make his point, Ardos flipped open his P*DA. “–have confirmed that every single one of them are in the building. Refuse my offer, and I will give the order to detonate the bombs. And I will do it now.”
In that instant, time stood still. The sound of Eldes’ own heartbeat deafened him, drowning out wind and birdsong. Even the tears breaking into his peripheral vision clung to his waterline, still as rocks.
Everything was over. If Eldes refused to comply, his family would be dead. If he agreed, he abandoned them as a liar.
The choice was obvious, for he would do anything to save them. But how could he deceive them? How could he destroy them?
Only when Eldes began to force words from his throat did the world continue to spin.
“Okay,” he finally sobbed. He hung his head and his tears began to fall. “Fine. Just don’t… don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt them…”
Eldes’ body shook with sob after sob as he repeated himself until the mantra gave way to garbled wailing. Hot breath laced his neck, and only when Ardos spoke did Eldes realize he was being held in a smothering embrace.
“Oh, Eldes. Oh, Eldes… you did the right thing. Papa will be so proud of you–as he always was.” Ardos’ comfort had the sincerity of a snake. “Your family is safe, and best of all, you’re a Verich again. You’re my brother again.”
Eldes couldn’t bring himself to return the sentiment.
“Now, remember:” Ardos said, pulling away, “you have three days to say your goodbyes. Understand? Pa–no, Master Greevil, now–he and I will be in touch with you during that time. Our bombs and our spies will remain; you know what will happen if you try to warn them.”
A kiss to the forehead. Another brush of Ardos’ fingers through Eldes’ hair. Then, as swiftly as he arrived, he vanished through the trees, leaving Eldes with his arms around his shoulders and his knees to his chest.
{♙♔ } Ʈhe human’s question went unanswered for the next few minutes while Voldo nibbled at the cherries nestled in his palm. Only after sucking the sticky residue from his claws did he bother looking up to find the human’s cloak presented to him. Slowly, he inched his head closer before taking a hesitant sniff.
Dusty tomes and weakness.
It wouldn’t do to have that human’s scent lingering on his shoulders. After all, he’d heard the stories: mother rabbits that rejected their young if they were ever handled by a strange-smelling human. He didn’t know if dwarves functioned quite the same way, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“…No.” He pushed himself off of the boulder and rose to his full height, towering over the passing humans. “Tal-Vashoth are rebels. They reject the Qun and their people. I am-”
Exactly what he’d just defined.
Even so, it pained him to considered himself as one of them: one of those monsters who fought for the sake of fighting, who spread chaos on Seheron, who targeted the weak and the innocent. Tal-Vashoth knew nothing of honor.
“…I am different. I have no need to rebel. Master loves me. With him, I am allowed to be, and that is enough.”
He tilted his head, draining the rain water that pooled underneath the crevices between his horns.
“I am called Saarebas- a dangerous thing. …But Master has named me ‘Voldo.’” {♙}
♗ ✍ | | “Rebels? Well...” Eldes paused, searching the recesses of his memory for anything he might have read about Tal-Vashoth. But on this subject, he had shamefully little to go on; he frowned, embarrassed to admit to a gap in his knowledge even out of earshot of any of his colleagues. “In the sense that they aren’t followers of the Qun, yes. But not all of them are violent; there was a Fereldan scholar, a brother in the southern Chantry, who interviewed a Tal-Vashoth goat herder in Nevarra. I’m sure they weren’t the only example of a peaceful Tal-Vashoth...”
Eldes neglected to mention that the goat herder in question was actually Vashoth, as familiar with the Qun as any Nevarran human or elf.
“‘Dangerous thing’, was it?” Eldes sighed, wrapping the rejected cloak around his own shoulders. Such a pity, the way mages were treated under the Qun. Stories of the bound Qunari mages, their lips even sewn shut, were passed onto every magister’s child--all the better to scare Tevinter child mages into obedience to their parents, themselves. “Magic is a tool; a wondrous one, used correctly. You don’t have to be a ‘dangerous thing’--and you aren’t, not anymore, thank the Maker.
“But I must ask...” Eldes frowned. “Why would your ‘master’ leave you out here, in the rain? I... rather doubt you would have been allowed very far into the tower, but if you stayed near the entrance, with the guards, certainly...”
✞ // I made a few minor changes to both About pages; all that pertains to the blog is that I edited Eldes’ status after his release from prison to reflect some future plot developments.
He grit his teeth lightly, his own posture stiffening. Familiar or not, the voice had hit a bit of a nerve. Michael knew fully well that he should have kept a closer eye on the Aron. Rocky was still adjusting to life as a trainer’s Pokemon after all, if it wasn’t evident by what was happening now.
The words that followed actually got him to growl.
“For your information, I happen to be an adult!” Granted he was barely legal, having just turned eighteen and not the age to drink, but it was the age of an adult nevertheless. He couldn’t help that he was a bit on the short side of average height. “And I have more than that Aron I’m looking for!”
Really, such a childish outburst was uncalled for, but Michael was certain that the stranger had started it when he’d pointed out the obvious. He at least wasn’t reckless enough to send out Marshmallow to make his point, which would be abusing the young Lugia’s naive and easily swayed nature to think intimidating his trainer’s opponents was a good thing.
Not to mention the stranger did have a point less savory people could be with them.
The sound of his name caused his anger and frustration to give way to confusion, eyes blinking behind his glasses in confusion. Pop Tart meanwhile had reached the older man’s feet, sniffing at his shoes before trilling a sound that was only directed at familiar people. Small paws were placed on Eldes’s foot, feelers reaching up to hug his leg.
Michael, reassured that he did indeed know this man, began to step closer. “Yes…” It all began to click even before seeing the other more clearly as the distance closed. “Eldes?”
{♄} || Eldes had to stop himself from beaming upon Michael’s recognition of him. What the boy said to him before vanished from his thoughts; he had confirmation that his son was standing right there before him--seven years since Cipher’s downfall, even longer since Eldes’ renounced his title of “father”, a miracle brought them together again.
Of course, he couldn’t be too friendly. They had parted on amicable terms, but Eldes was still the former Cipher Admin, not the father that nurtured him as a child.
“But of course! Oh, forgive me; I should have recognized you sooner... you’ve grown quite a lot since we last met.”
Eldes extended a hand out to Michael, free for the boy to shake.
“You’re looking for more than just your Aron? Whatever it is, I’m happy to help,” he offered. Then, his tone growing a shade darker, shadowed with concern: “But you have to promise me you’ll leave as soon as you have what you need. I’ll even leave with you, if I must.”
The sound of another was enough to make Michael pause instead of calling out again. Something about the voice was familiar, nudging him to try and remember where he had heard it before. Because he had, at some point, heard it before.
If only he could remember when.
Squinting in the lighting he cursed mentally over not thinking to include some kind of sensor that would let him see in lighting his eyes couldn’t. Really, trust Rocky to get lost in a cavern with a bad history and poor conditions. Maybe whoever had spoken would help him out in finding the lost Pokemon since he definitely wasn’t leaving without him.
He took a step forward, holding up his hands. “Sorry sir, I’m just looking for an Aron that ran off after training. I think he smelled the metal down here and came looking for a snack. You wouldn’t have happened to see hem, have you?”
Pop Tart peaked out from behind Michael’s legs, padding towards the other person in the darkness while sniffing. Like Michael’s ears, the Sylveon’s nose recognized the other, though the Eeveelution could not place where.
{♄} || “Is that so?” As it was whenever he encountered someone he was not familiar with, Eldes kept his posture stiff and his responses curt--even if this boy was little more than a lost child. “Perhaps you should have kept a closer eye on him, then.”
He prickled with frustration, his conscience begging him to help the boy find his Aron. He hardly wanted to stick around any longer than he had to, himself. He shuffled to the adjacent wall.
“There’s no telling who else might be here; you’re fortunate not to have met someone who would have had no qualms about attacking you. A naïve little boy, alone in the dark? Easy prey.” He sniffed. “I’ll help you. But you must leave as soon as you find your Pokémon--for your own good.”
It was then that the Sylveon caught Eldes’ eye, catching him off-guard with its familiarity. He’s seen this Pokémon before--it had to have been seven years ago, now.
If Eldes was correct, then that could only mean the boy in front of him...
No. He couldn’t be.
Eldes felt his heart stop, then start again at a rapid pace. For a very brief moment, his cold façade wavered, just barely setting itself back in place in time for Eldes to ask:
“Just a moment. Perchance... is your name Michael?”
Pyrite was… still a place of thugs and questionable people. Really, despite the passing of time, not much had changed about the sleazy town and Michael doubted it would change.
The nice thing about the town though was that trainer battles were never in short supply. And that meant that training Rocky was going smoothly. The Aron had been holding his own well in battles, depending less and less on Pop Tart. By the time he’d battled every trainer in the square, the steel type had been getting to a point of nearly taking down Pokemon himself.
Nearly having his glasses eaten though was a sign that Rocky probably needed to eat. After chatting with Duking he planned to head back home, but those plans changed when after talking he noticed Rocky had run off.
And thus he found himself wandering some of the lesser known areas of Pyrite, places he hadn’t ever ventured to during his journey. Searching the rest of the town had been fruitless and it was only by luck he met someone that mentioned someplace called the Under. With how long it had been abandoned… Well, it was fairly creepy and had his skin crawling a bit with how empty it seemed.
{♄} || Any Shadow Pokémon that still existed would surely flock to the Under (or, at least, what little of it remained accessible). Eldes’ expertise told him it was there, in southernmost Orre, where raw materials used in artificial Shadowfication lie beneath the soil--and where every documented instance of natural Shadowfication has occurred. It only made sense for Eldes to scour the area for straggling Shadow Pokémon; the least he could do with his undeserved freedom was nurse them back to their natural state.
But he expected to be alone. Nobody had any reason to be here, had they? Perhaps Eldes was more than a little naïve to think so. Shady characters abounded in Pyrite, and a restricted area--a cavern, no less--would have drawn them in like flies to honey. Yet this wasn’t the voice of a criminal; no, it carried too much of a tremor, an uneasiness that spiraled further into desperation.
Whoever this person was, they were lost. Or looking for someone who was lost.
“What's someone like you doing here?” Eldes began. In the dim light, he could only make out an outline of the figure scurrying about before him. “You ought to leave--sooner rather than later.”
{♙♔ } ℱinally. Saarebas had almost begun to think that the human would continue to speak without ever offering anything of value. With a quiet hiss of approval, he approached the human with tentative caution. Though he showed no visible signs of aggression, in truth, he mentally prepared himself for combat- both a pillar of piercing ice and a blazing rune of fire were only ever a simple thought away.
As was the case with all Qunari mages, Saarebas’s skills were self-taught. His magic was quick and powerful yet crude and inefficient, lacking finesse, often striking a wide area with a complete disregard for friendly fire or collateral damage. Saarebas had always believed that if he and his fellow mages were permitted to share information, that it could only lead to safer spell casting for the lot of them. But it wouldn’t do for the ‘dangerous things’ to gather together and spread word of dissent and heresy, now would it?
Bitterness festered within him all over again. As he stepped over Arvaarad’s corpse, Saarebas made sure to crush the man’s fingers underneath his heel.
He turned around, then, presenting his bound arms, pulled tightly against his back. In the past, Arvaarad would massage his shoulders and aching joints, if only to restore the blood flow to restrained limbs. The man actually considered that a kindness, and yet somehow, it never crossed his mind to remove the bindings altogether.
Saarebas shifted all of his weight down to his right foot until the sound of Arvaarad’s cracking finger bones echoed through the air. {♙}
♗ ✍ | | The sound of those finger bones crushed under Saarebas’ heel rang in Eldes’ ears. He knew that couldn’t have been an accident; that had to have been the Qunari’s Arvaarad.
I can’t even imagine how much resentment has been festering in him...
Wood and metal, Eldes quickly observed. He frowned; anything used to bind a mage would have to be resistant to magic. He wasn’t sure he could melt the metal band trapping the Qunari’s wrists, at least not with magical fire. But a small, controlled fire could eat away at the wood, and if nothing else, Eldes could free his fingers.
“I’ll have to burn it off,” Eldes said. He hoped telling Saarebas what he was about to do could assure him he was not a threat. The last thing Eldes wanted was a reactionary Qunari interpreting any sort of magic as an invitation to attack. “It’s a small flame--one I can control--and it shouldn’t... no, it won’t burn you.”
Eldes decided to leave his reservations about the metal behind for the time being.
His fingers hovered over the edges of the planks, and orange embers lined the frayed slabs. He let them merge into a gentle flame that began to eat at the weakest of Saarebas’ trappings.
“There.” Eldes kept his voice low, relaxed despite the intensity of his focus. “You won’t be bound for much longer.”
Now, why did he say that? He knew it was hardly true.
✞ // Hey there! Just letting you know I’m still alive and I haven’t forgotten about my asks (of which I have... quite a few, aha ;;;;; ), but part of the reason I’ve been absent is that I have something really big planned for the blog!
I’m finally going to have a centralized plot going on, and it’s going to be (most likely) in the form of a fanfic; it’s still in the planning stage so I don’t want to announce anything too soon, but I did want to let you all know I most certainly haven’t forgotten about this blog or my muse (though... -looks nervously at asks and owed RP replies...-)
