Esme Sunshard

“Kill yourself, Faervell.”

She spoke on, degrading his character further, but he couldn’t hear her. He felt the weight of her words and the way they haunted him, especially coming from her. A century without him, and this is what she'd turned into? All they were, gone with the erosion of time? It felt like a darkness around him, his vision pinpointed for a moment just on that smile of hers taunting him with words of release.

No... Esme wouldn't give up on him. There was no one as stubborn and determined as his wife. She would not give up on him and she would not tell him to simply take the easy way out of this despair.

Too many times he'd been taken a fool. Too many times some creature had crawled under his wife's skin. It was that command she’d given that finally snapped any residual doubts in his mind.

He could not accept that this version of Esme, this dismissive and cruel image of her, was his wife. And even if this were her, then their futures were so entwined that he would rather her dead than with anyone other than him.

He moved quickly, despite the heaviness in his limbs, reaching his fingers around her throat and squeezing tight. An anger in him driving his fingers in deep to start crushing while he lifted her up off of her feet.

She had looked surprised - and then horrified and scared. The twist of her emotions echoed what Faervell had seen before in the Siren. It was all the more telling to him that this was not her, and because of that he spoke out with venom in his voice.

“You are not my wife. You are not Esme Sunshard.”

The false Esme grabbed at his hand, clawing at his wrist. She grimaced, trying to breath. Trying to get out her strangled words, “F-ae--r--. Do--..not--.....Pl--ease…” She struggled again to breath, “I--...m… pr-eg--nant--”

Even as her desperate plea came from her lips, he didn’t relent. Blood pumping into his ears as he squeezed tighter. Every lie spoken now leaving a disgusting feeling curling in his stomach. He clenched his teeth to keep from letting the sick feeling rise.

“You. Are not. My wife.” He spoke as flames sparked along his skin and began to try and eat away at her in his grip. It spread further along her body, burning at the bright locks of hair and fine comfortable robes.

He watched with a heated gaze, her guttural screams full of pain falling on deaf ears till she started to choke and cough… and then laugh. 

Through the flames, her melting flesh and burned skin tightened back up. She looks untouched in the flames in the next second. Then he felt the effects of it, the tightness at his throat and the searing feeling on his skin as if reflected perfectly onto himself.

He heard her voice, calm as before, “You should let go.”

He didn’t relent at first, almost convinced he could overcome the near breaking sensation at his throat. Yet, eventually, he would toss ‘her’ aside, ignoring the pain that still radiated through him as he spit out, “Always with such cheap tricks. Scared to fight me directly, demon?”

The demon’s head snapped back and she pulled herself up on limbs that looked stiff and sharp now. She dusted herself off, fluffing the long, untouched bright hair. “Contrived. I know what is in your heart. I know how much that hurt you.” She patted her stomach, “Which part hurt the most?”

Her stomach swelled then, “Did it hurt more that I moved on? That you were not worth remembering? Or was it more painful because you know everything I said was true? After all- Esme Sunshard does not lie.”

“You’re guessing at a future that could never be.” He still had venom in his voice, watching her closely as his mind raced for ideas to counter. He knew he’d been expecting this, but the jarring nature of how easily he’d been fooled for a moment was upsetting to say the least.

All he had to do was weaken it. Make it vulnerable enough to press in for the advantage and force it’s soul into a container. He had hedged his bets on a ploy like this from Batu, and now he needed to make good on his preparations.

“You might know what is in my heart, but you do not know hers. Your mockery of her is lacking in many ways that will never suffice to get what you desire from me.” He continued, plying for more time as he considered his options.

The demon licked her lips, “You say that, but I can taste the bits of you that have stripped away. Fear. Dignity. Are you ashamed that you agreed? That everything said about you was true?”

She sighed as she disappeared in the blink of an eye and reappeared in front of him. Pressed back in a pseudo-intimate form against his chest, drawing his hands into hers already and resting them on her belly. 

He tensed, but touch meant that he had opportunity, and opportunity was all he needed. He wouldn’t believe this false future version of her filled with barbs and betrayals.

The demon continued, “Do you want to know what she truly thinks? I can tell you.” As she spoke, she turned her face up to him. That same face he knew so well, looking with a sharp gaze. She morphs again, her stomach gone in the moment and her clothes changed to armor. The same outfit she was suited in when he’d abandoned her in his tower. “ After all, you are not the only one He was watching.”

He moved subtly, careful to creep up and pull his hand up to her face, pressing his palm along her head in what seemed more an intimate gesture. Just for a brief moment, he saw his wife. He missed her already, wanted her to be there with him so badly, yet this wasn’t her. This was a sick, twisted thing using her, and that still had his body tense with frustration and anger.

All he needed was that touch.

The demon took his hand in hers and leaned in to the touch with her face, “I know what she thinks of you. How she looks at you when you are not looking at her. I know the things she says about you to others. I know if this is the future she wanted rather than the future she got.”

Faervell barely was paying attention to her words then, stretching out with his power to dig into it’s mind. Branding it’s mind with an unseen rune that would give him the answer he needed.

He opened his mouth to speak once it was done, as if he would deign her with a reply to her goading, but it was not thalassian nor common that left his lips. Instead it was the biting syllables of -their- language. 

Eredun spilled from his mouth with a commanding tone, “Ered’nash havik galar, havik norush, havik volosh. Ik il shudas’urzul kurai kyru manul.” Faervell’s tongue felt like it was splitting as he spoke and he felt the surge of energy as the spell completed. There was a dark stain that spread along the edge of her face.

The spell was a siphoner of truth- demanding an answer that they could not resist and he saw the resistance immediately in her eyes as they widened with a sharpness. She went silent for a moment, a deafening kind that left him hearing only a low, pulsing thrum. Like blood pumping through veins.

Suddenly, her hand tightened on his. With strength that exceeded far beyond that of the woman the demon wears it pulled back. There was a sickening snap and a crunch of bones as Faervell’s hand bends in a way that should be impossible. Pain and panic shot through him and Faervell heard himself scream as his head swam with the desire to pull away.

He barely heard her words- voice twisted as it spoke in Esme’s voice. Ciaragan’s voice. Vinessa’s voice. Elleynah’s voice. His mother’s voice. All one on top of the other, speaking the sharp words in demonic, “[Do you think you are clever, you little insect? Do you think--]” It struggled, gritting it’s teeth. “[-- you can outsmart him? -Usssss-?” 

Each voice spoke the same words - beside one. The demon’s true voice hissed beneath the other’s, a name uttered so quietly his mind barely registered.

Zar’oken.

That alone allowed him to bite back the waver in his voice and the tears burning at his eyes as he slapped his other hand upon the creature’s head. Rather than allow it to linger close, he let out a force of magic. An explosion of energy erupted between them and the demon was blasted back, sliding away on feet that began to lengthen, fire eating away at it’s skin once more.

Faervell had his space he needed, trying to suck in a breath and pull the wounded hand to his chest. He couldn’t look at it right then. He didn’t have the time. He looked at the demon instead, as the fire spilled away and the creature left behind melted away.

It had grown tall and broken- an amalgamation of demon parts as it stood to tower over him. Orange hair dripped off its head leaving only a sickly green and black in its wake. Skin split and crumbled, falling away from the lengthened animalistic form that resided within. It was long, thin, like a starved beast that now had its unnatural eyes set on him.

“[Little insect].” It hissed, the voices still mixed together in some unnatural tone that unsettled the ears.

Faervell wasted as little time as possible, using his good hand to make quick circular motions. A practiced hand that drew the spell in the air with fel energy before pressing his hand flat to it. There was a roar of power that drained from him, then suddenly bolts of pure chaotic energy tore from the circle and bombarded the creature. One slamming in after the other with a flash of light that was near blinding.

He didn’t waste his breath on replies, instead relying on power to push back the demon now.

His hand lowered down to his belt, scrambling for the ritual knife strapped safely at his side. He tore it out of its confines and raised it as if it were a weapon against the creature. He had practiced this ritual countless times, the motions as easy as breathing for him. Quick sharp cuts through the air that began to form a different kind of seal and leaving traces of the energy connected in a perfect design unseen to the untrained. 

The demon was now starting to recover from the blasts, it’s body bent from the barrage, but snapping back into position as it began to walk forward. Slow and menacingly, each step too heavy for even for it’s large size. It reached for him with long, spindly fingers as it called out, “[Come here. I am not done feeding.]”

Faervell could not take a step back, focused instead on going as quick as he could through the ritual. Once the ritual circle was complete before him, he brought the knife rough along his forearm, drawing a gush of blood that soaked on the blade and would be the fuel to the spell he was casting.  He could already see the droplets drawn up, filling the circle with his fel tainted blood.

He dropped the blade, holding his arm out still while his good hand went for his belt again. He struggled to grasp the crystal he’d prepared for this moment, realizing too late that he was shaking- with fear or pain, he couldn’t tell. Both, more than likely, not that he had long to think on it. He managed to find purchase on the stone and brought it out- a perfect crystal ready to contain what he needed, red as the blood that he had drawn.

Faervell held it up to the design, trying to strengthen his voice as he spoke the practiced words in demonic, “[Blood given in binding, Shackles open to hold. Settle in this soul. Surround in, this one. I bind you by blood, Zr’oken, forevermore.]” 

He knew what would come next, and even as the heavy, ground-shaking steps grew faster and faster, he forced himself to have faith in his spell. He looked forward finally to see the creature’s mouth, far too wide, open with rows of sharp devouring teeth. Each dripped with fel tainted saliva as if starved for a taste of his flesh. It had gotten so close then, risen above him as it leaned in to take it’s first bite.

He watched as it froze, the body shaking as a growl rumbled deep from inside of it. It stayed still a moment, unable to move, but glaring with only hatred and hunger in it’s eye. It’s breath was rancid as it washed down over him, the looming threat.

Faervell did not break the spell, though, continuing on, “[Siphon. Drawn. Devour.]” The final words to complete the spell and he watched the effects immediately.

The lifeless red stone in his hand brightened  and suddenly the creature began to unmake. Flesh and bone snapped and tore, it’s long form compressed and drawn to nothing but a dusty vapor that drew into the crystal. There was no scream of pain from it, just the air of hatred around it as the red crystal changed it’s hue slowly to the sickly green color as a demon’s soul filled it. Bound forever to a stone the size of his hand.

The process was too slow for Faervell’s tastes, watching as each second ticked away. He felt his heartbeat heavy in his chest, waiting till it was completely devoured and even longer after that before he would drop his hand back down.

He sucked in a breath as if he had forgotten entirely how to the whole time, panting as his limbs shook, the pain shooting through his right arm like a burning iron scalding him. It was a problem he would deal with and would certainly cause more issues later, but that was not what he would think of now. Instead, he would allow himself just a moment of respite from the terror of the whole challenge.

His legs gave out then, barely catching himself as he watched that perfect scene crumble away to the familiar dark caverns and the glass like flooring. An empty space, hollowed of it’s prior occupant now. It was only him. Only him and a demon now confined under his command.

"I'm sorry for this."

Sailing to Antarctica

Storm on the Black Sea by Ivan Aivazovsky

He hates the taste of blood. Those that say they do are lying. They lie to look more like a monster. They lie to make others think they are insane. They lie to make themselves appear darker than they are. They lie because they have to. Without the lie, they are lesser. 

He doesn’t have to lie.