Eastern Sands Poster Boys

I love getting ready

The imagery of dark nails beginning to bury into her mind were all too real for her. The effect, the allure, his presence. He was close again. Too close. The last time his heartbeat in her mind he had left her blacking out in the basement of a warehouse. The hate and the rage intoxicating to him. The mist of anger blurring his vision as to the atrocity and fear he had inflicted on the one person who cared, the one person who loved.

The cold magic of his touch enveloped her finger through the space between them, as he sat beyond the expanse of the doctor’s room. A physical connection she was all too familiar, a connection she would likely flinch away from. Even so. He stayed his intent. Relaxed this time, not forceful. Following her, not leading her. Maintaining that need to touch, asking in a silent way, but having an assertive need to keep the fingernail immersed in the black expanse of his dark gift. For once he was sincere, for once he wasn’t angry.

If she opened her mind, the image of his grip around her throat flared in a painful memory for them both. The dark figure almost invisible as he perched outside the bedroom window. Her blinking eyes only flickered his silhouette. First a man who had realised the pain and suffering, and overbearing guilt and clawing need for repentance. The other a dark and twisted organism of black tendrils, erratic in artificial and sharp motion, contorting and flickering like the static of energy coursing through the sky. Lightening was the best way to describe the nerves and fear he brought to them both.

Bare fingertips reached out to place themselves against the glass of the window. Rain running down and coursing around his touch. His heart wretched. Again her gift did little to save her from his memory of the last few months. A rage born pain of malice and revenge, all consuming as he searched for the Harthlochs, as he scrambled for his power. But most of all was his desire to find her, and in his original thoughts, punish her for the betrayal, just as much as he wanted to hold her.

The fight with Zenedin had changed all that. Sai could bare witness to the Yuria blade plunged down through the dethroned, dark Prince. The shattering metal splintering as Jaskire’s magic fought to save him. Tears of anguish at yet another defeat, having only left the Serendian with a dagger wound as his price for striking down the revenge Jaskire so sorely needed. Blood and black oozed from him. The following story told of a flickering consciousness. Black alchemy reshaping and forming his flesh out of the corruption in his body. Someone had healed him. Someone he had known. Though the memory was lost, much with the intensity of his toxic mind.

Now all Sai could see in his mind was the Jaskire she had loved. The one who had lain with her that long, wet night in the safety of the stone farm store. The regret of mistreating his Lotus, abusing her as he would an enemy. A desperate man following a desperate prophecy attempting to push his partner towards what he believed to be true power.

He knew now just how much he had to make up for, if he could even make up for it at all.

The once red glow of his eyes had faded to the gaze only she had known, as he waited, all night in the rain on that window ledge. He watched as she laid her head with the doctor who was prepared to save her.

Zenedin could even feel it now, the colour draining from his features. Makeshift bandages had done well for themselves considering the circumstances. Though now he could feel the scarlet beginning to soak his chest through the linen bindings. Each foot fell heavy as he made to exit the church into the warmth of the glistening sun. Shoulders slumped, an ailing hand grasping at air to find the stone wall which ran the perimeter. Each breath drew longer, filling lungs to fight the fatigue and wavering focus. The dagger wound still stung, though with a numbed edge as sensation began to tingle in absence beneath his skin. A small price for the freedom that the death of the ninja had imparted on his family.

Nevertheless, the Serendian had done it, lasted long enough to walk his dearest cousin down the aisle and sit through a ceremony of happiness and joy. His wife squeezing his hand as they watched their family growing, even if it meant a war was well on its way. He would not be the one to spoil the celebrations. All attention had to be with Donya, not with himself. Zenedin believed his wounds trivial, a stab that had yet to bring him down, and thus ignored the protest of his body as he had bound the cloth about his abdomen. A fix that would be enough to see him through until the ‘I dos’ and beyond, far enough that the taste of wine still comforted his tongue. Suddenly taste had become that much more important. To feel, to pick apart flavour. The ability to do that even as his awareness  was fading  Regardless, he was happy, he was at peace as he stepped over to the shade of a corner store.

“You two haven’t put me through enough yet, have you?” he whispered with a good natured smile on his lips, mind growing wistful and witless as eyelids flickered. Each chuckle, a deep movement of his diaphragm, arcing the pain of his injuries through his core. The words meant for his father and grandfather as they peered down upon him from their place of rest. The informal form of prayer he extended to his predecessors was answered with a pulsing of his heart, the pain calming to a sullied ache. “Really? You had to wait that long for that?” A bald head lolled from side to side. Thoughts turned to a time when they were both still with him, both still playing with him, setting him up for life and its trials.

His head knocked against the cold iron of a bucket. The old tool rattling and crashing besides the wheat sack he had found himself perched upon. Weak hands extended in a vain attempt to steady himself. “Do you need me yet? They’re safe now, all of them. She’s married, grandad! She actually beat me at someth..” his voice trailed off, jaw drooping slack for a moment before his body jerked his senses awake once more. “I take that as a no?” words murmured softly to the air as his head relaxed back on a bed of hemp sack, the smile very much painted into a grin within the one sided conversation. “I just want to sleep now, dad.” Lips clapped as he worked his tongue about his mouth.

The wet feel of his own blood, thick between fingers as it struggled to clot beneath his suit jacket. Worry and concern for his own condition dissipated as his belief that he would be found held steadfast. What little energy remained drew inwards, pictures and people revolving in his imagination as he thought of their futures. Kaliynna finally finding the right love. The warmth she so deserved. Akila finding the peace at her heart. Edwinn calming the storm at his centre. Karidaen finally leading his own band of mercenaries.  Shanlee resolving herself from the valkyries for good and finding the life that lay beyond prayer and strict restriction. Silhouettes of sons and daughters taking their parents hands. Donya still sparring away, ducking, dodging and weaving, whilst Jherden was stuck with a baby at his chest, slung cosily in white cottons. Tamariss smiling down at the ring on her finger as she collected their son in her arms.

The quiet street perfectly framed the broad man in his own mind as imagination began to give away to sleep. A bleeding wound reduced to less than a leak as his heart rate slowed and eased into rest. The warmth of his thoughts guiding him away.

Bliss.

She had actually managed to beat him at one thing. Marriage. Donya had gone and found that bug which had infected him some time ago. He only hoped that this one was better than the others, more loyal and less… Well, lacking of a backbone to stand up proud next to his cousin.

Nevertheless, each step brought him closer to Velia. The suit carefully packed away in the satchel at his horse’s side was something Tamariss had picked out especially. It was just saddening that his wife-to-be wouldn’t be joining the  celebrations, but then business was always a busy commitment. Thoughts of family flickered from children to gatherings, to growing up, to aging, and then to his father and grandfather. As much as he wouldn’t admit to it, the poison of loss was still festering at his heart, albeit under much more control than before.

The fears of his grandfather suffering at the hands of the murderer would forever raise his blood to a boil. The limp remains of a man so desperate to stay alive, not for his own wanting, but for the sake of his family. The will of a man past his time still looking to teach and cherish. Eyes clamped as the physical world withdrew from any focus, head curling to the side as he bowed in tension.

“Not today Ze-.” Stolen from the air, his sentence never to be complete. The blow felt as though it had materialised from nothing at all. The darkness of the nights travel consummating into a physical object. The crisp air he once enjoyed on his calming ride offered little to numb the impact against cobbled stones. The irregular surface battered his jaw as it bounced and jerked along the harsh lines.

“We’re not finished Harthloch.” A voice encased in smoke and whispers circled the warrior as he blinked a stun from behind his eyes. Hands patted against the ground as he tried to bring himself up. Already the horse, startled and panicked, began to jump and dance with erratic steps.

The second impact threatened the integrity of his forehead. The soft sole of an Eastern shoe kicked at the bald scalp, commanding attention and snatching wits from the Serendian. The metallic tang of adrenaline flowed down the arch of his spine as he finally awoke to the threat he was under. The buzz of elated fight of flight. The rush of war. The ignorance of pain lent itself to the determined movements of his body, hands attempting once more to bring him up, this time thrusting one shoulder over the other to spin where he lay. Already an elbow rose to block the blow he anticipated.