I'm sluggin it out

Hunting the beast in this indomitable cold happens to be harder than what Varis thought. It’s been days since he has seen anyone, just pure white, viciously cold snow. Snow that makes his chilled skin all that much colder. The shadar kai’s palm feels frozen, even as he holds it under his thick fur coated wool cloak. He lost feeling in his fingers nearly an hour ago. He hadn’t worried about it, warmth will come once that fucking villain is dead. It’s only when Varis’ legs begin to buckle in the knee deep snow that he relents. He supposes revenge will have to wait until he warms himself. 

Gathering supplies to burn is fairly easy, the wizard reaches into his pack for an easy spell scroll. He doesn’t even realize that he has been shivering until he struggles to unravel the twine on the wrapped parchment. “Damn it all.” Varis mutters quietly to the whistling wind. No response comes to his curse. 

It takes a few unsuccessful tries before the scroll comes undone. The dark elf lifts his mage hand upwards, palm to the sky. This hand is unsettling still in comparison to the rest of his body, the magic pulsing through his shoulder, his only true source of warmth. A sparkle of earth comes from the palm, fresh bark for a campfire. He mutters an incantation and swipes his fingers forwards to light the wood and it sparks with warmth he hasn’t felt in more than a ten hour stretch. Varis inaudibly groans at the warmth as he sits, dropping his bedroll open underneath him. 

The, now, empty scroll of paper burns into the embers of the fire as Varis tosses it in. He huddles close and breathes for a moment, just taking in stock of himself. His fingers are beginning to get their sensation back and his feet are no longer hurting, toes no longer tingling. But with the lovely warmth beginning to surround him, the ache of his missing arm comes back. The ache of his face, the massive scar caressing the right half of his face begins to tingle. Damn.

He hates it when this happens, when he’s been in the harsh weather for too long, worked himself dry, the ache that settles into his chest and bones comes back and he can feel the thoughts rushing in with them. He doesn’t like just sitting like this. It always spells disaster. He has to go, to rush on. To kill. Otherwise he might think about the why. The real reason he’s been chasing this stupid fucking monster from continent to continent. The people he’s truly been chasing. 

The dark elf’s head is beginning to ache. When was the last time he ate anything? Not like he hasn’t had the goods for it, there’s a trove of untouched provisions in his pack that he has yet to touch. Varis simply doesn’t feel hungry, his appetite hasn’t been there for a couple hundred years. It’s not there. Maybe he should eat, yet the thought of tasting anything, of opening the doorway for opinions and thoughts to come through makes his stomach churn. No food. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. 

The quiet cold, the whistle of freezing wind is the only sound beside the crackling fire that seems to fill the air. It doesn’t help Varis in trying to empty his head. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, desperately attempting to quiet the trickle of thoughts that are trying to push through. Stay on mission. Don’t think. Don’t.

The older man’s eyes snap open when he thinks he hears the whisper of a laugh he once knew. A light chuckle followed by a chortle. His one silvery white eye looks out, frantic because that sounded like Bran and Glee. Oh gods. His hands begin to shake, mage hand wavering and flickering. Perhaps he is too hungry. There’s nothing waiting in the air besides Varis. Only Varis. 

He looks to the flames, breathing in a soft breathy sigh, trying to control himself. Varis closes his eyes once more and tries to suck up the warmth of the fire when he hears it. A voice beside him. 

“I thought you hated the cold.” 

When his eyes peer open to the sound, head whipping towards it, Varis really knows he’s hallucinating. A vision of himself is stoking the fire, his white hair longer, past his broad shoulders, his face fresher and with both hands at his disposal. His younger self nearly looks glowing, vibrant and at an ease that Varis is sure he’s never truly felt. A wry chuckle leaves his younger self’s lips and Varis reaches his hands up, shaking and heavy as he attempts to wipe his face. Only one palm reaches his face, cold and meaty. His magic palm has fizzled out and feels like static through his face. Gods above, stupid fucking abberation magic. Fickle thing. 

“Get out of my head.” Varis growls to the hallucination, ducking his head into his fleshy palm, cradling his forehead into the touch. 

Another chuckle, light and airy leaves the apparition, so life-like, so unnatural. “I’m afraid I cannot. We share the same head, unfortunately.” He sets the stick on the ground and it sizzles the snow, steam arising into the air. How can such a thing happen if there is no other person there to do that. Varis looks up at him puzzled, more confused than before as he shakes his head. 

“No. You’re not real. You’re-” His voice shakes, raspy and rough from the lack of water. 

“A hallucination, maybe. But maybe I’m real. Perhaps you’re in your own web of fate. Meeting your past, your ghosts.” The other Varis tilts his head, eyes narrowing in an inquisitive nature. Does he look like this to others, those sharp, beady silver eyes unveiling everyone’s little secrets? It’s unsettling and the dark elf feels a tiny twinge of guilt. “...But you would want that, wouldn’t you? You would like to see them again.”

Varis tenses immediately, mouth growing as dry as the deserts of Abena. Don’t say their names. Don’t speak of them. Shut up. Shut up. He doesn’t realize he’s smacking his own temple with his closed fist until he feels shockingly warm fingers wrap around his wrist. 

“Shh, Varis. Don’t do all that.” When Varis looks up, the younger version of himself is looking at him with… kindness. Care. As if his own elvish features could make such an expression. Varis thinks he might be sick, though, he supposes he would have nothing in his stomach to upheave. 

“Stop.” It’s the only word he can manage to get out. 

The other elf’s face softens and he just shakes his head. “I can’t believe you. How can you have changed so much? Look at us. You changed me.” Other Varis’ fingers reach out to caress his scar and the dark elf flinches, hand snapping up to stop his younger self’s wandering touch. 

“Don’t.” He growls in a sharp tone, one aged eye narrowing at the other one’s mirrored gaze. Varis’ other half is untouched, unharmed and unscarred. Like a portrait, a direct vision into his awful past. “I didn’t- I didn’t want this. I was given this. I was made to be like this. Don’t you fucking dare.” 

Varis tightens his hand on the younger man’s eyes becoming blotchy with tears, unfocused. “And all those you’ve killed in cold blood in your path. The mercenaries in Abena-”

“They attacked me first, it was self preservation-”

“Or what of the family in Nostel, the child.”

“I didn’t know she was in there, sh-she wasn’t there the night before and her father was my only lead!-”

“The man in the tavern who asked you for your autograph, you killed him for no reason!” 

Varis’ eyes widened, enraged, big tears seeping from his eyes. He grabs the other version of himself, wrapping his hand around the wizard’s slim neck. “Shut up- Shut the fuck up!” 

“You killed all of them. Glee, Bran, Kiya, Orio-” 

Before the younger man can finish his words, Varis shouts and smacks him into the snow. He begins to punch him again and again, each hit landing with a sickening thump. He can hear his nose snap, can see his face splitting. Blood pools out of the other Varis’ mouth, his nose and he can hear him saying it again and again. Glee. Bran. Kiya. Orion. No. No. NO. 

Varis keeps hitting him but he won’t shut up. He won’t stop, even as blackened bruises form onto the other dark elf’s skin. Even as his skin bows and splinters under the scratches of Varis’ sharp knuckles. He didn’t kill them. He didn’t kill them. I didn’t kill them. The wizard screams, a blood curdling, animalistic scream that echoes off of the mountainsides and shakes the wind. And his hand has suddenly grasped a knife, slicing it into his other self’s neck. He hears a gurgling and with blood stained teeth, the younger version smiles. 

“Good. Fight, Varis. You get it now. You’re a killer. You kill. Because you can’t kill yourself. Coward.” His voice is unnaturally clear for someone choking on his own blood. 

Varis can’t stop screaming but the next stab towards his other self’s neck doesn’t hit anything. Instead all he feels is snow. Cold, chilling, biting snow. The dark elf lets out a cry, digging into the ground to find him. Where is he? He needs to see it. His red, marooned thick blood coating the snow. But it isn’t there. He isn’t there. There’s no knife in his stiff fingers, no cool metal touching his cold palms. 

The warmth isn’t there either. There’s no fire keeping Varis’ body away from the strong winds of the blizzard swirling around him. His arm has been out for a while, the mage hand having disappeared out of necessity so his body could focus on warming itself. Varis screams until he can taste blood, punching into the snow until his already numb hand feels like it might fall off. The dark elf’s tears are freezing against his skin, his cheeks burning from the icy sensation. 

It was the longest, the coldest walk. Not in temperature, not in the air but in his lungs. Because really, it was blistering hot, the dry heat eating at Varis’ darkened skin, the glaring sunlight making his eyes squint under its unyielding gaze. He never did take well to the brightness of this world, it’s bubbling kindness and empathy- its mortality. Its suns. And Abena is all of that and more, the greed of mortality, its dying love. Its bright suns that never seem to cease.

He’s wearing a cloak, a thick cotton that has become ratty from his nearly aimless wandering. It's been nearly a hundred years since he has spoken to someone. Since he has spoken to anyone. The Shadar-kai wonders if he has any vocal cords left or if they have perished along with the rest of himself. He hasn’t gotten any closer to find the bastard. The evil cretin that has stolen his life, his love. His. It's all gone, dead and buried, well- everything that could have been buried. 

They had built the tomb around Kiya’s body, which only seemed fitting. She was the beginning of it all, she always was. She was the best of them and it seemed that she took all of the good that they were with her. They found nearly nothing of Glee, nothing but a horn of hers that had floated to the surface of the water, a black ram-like horn snapped in the middle and covered in stained blood. Bran was found whole, under a piece of rubble with scorch and acid marks lining his once clean skin. He was torn to shreds. Matted, battered and bruised. Thinking of it makes Varis feel ill, his stomach twisting and turning something Vicious. 

And Orion… He can’t even stomach the thought, pausing his walk in the sand dunes as his silver white eyes glaze with tears. His chest aches like he's been hit with a hammer, hard. Like his chest is nothing but a concave of splintered ribs and holed lungs. Varis reaches his static fingers to his chest, the raw magic grasping at his tunic like he’s trying to free up space to breathe. Kida had come to the small but growing mausoleum to find her father, to bring him home. And Varis wanted him. To keep him. To hold him close, to sink into that coffin with him and whisper all of the things he had meant to tell him. But then she looked at him with those eyes, no longer younger but a mirrored color, shape the same as the Bard’s and… he could not say no. As voiceless as he is now. 

The dark elf breathes out a shaky sound, broken, wrenched and wheezing. He hates how easy it is, to forget that they are truly gone. That he shall never hold them. Love them as he should have. There are no second chances. Only pain. He feels cool tears pool down his darkened indigo cheeks, tracing tracks into his skin that only dry up under the glaring heat of the sky. His fist tightens, gripping the cotton under his unfeeling fingertips. 

His pointed ears twitch, picking up the noise surrounding him, the sliding of feet against the scalding sinking sand below them, before his mind even catches it. Varis gracefully dodges the arrow being flung his way, the quick thwip of the wood sinking into the air and through the mirrored image his robe creates. He sighs softly, quiet enough that only the wind and the gods can hear before he turns, an angry gaze shifting to the group of mercenaries behind him. 

The rogue looks surprised, hardly a man- still a child, with a shortbow in his hands and bright owlish blue eyes. A roar pierces through the air and his silver eye shifts to the man running towards him, axe in hard and with enough bulk to tear through a cavern wall. Varis just internally groans, he doesn’t have time for this. He grabs his chained amulet with his flesh hand, eyes narrowing at the large merc, the chain beginning to glow as he focuses. The stone turns a bright violet, blinding and sparking with the electric magic that seems to pop and shatter. He lifts his free hand and slices down, pure wind the weight of steel slapping down on the barbarian. 

He hits him once with it, the merc falling to the ground, coughing blood up through his wrinkled lips, gold specking his scaled face. And then Varis hits him once more, his head splitting from the sheer impact of the force. Brain matter splatters onto the sand like a bowl of dropped stew, chunked and thick. He hears a cry emit from one of the group, a shrill scream full of pain. He’s felt that pain, screamed that way; he knows how it burns your throat, makes your skin bristle and crack. He nearly pities the woman until he looks over her shoulder and sees the casted magic in her palms and scoffs. Fool. He snaps his fingers just as a fireball forms between her clasped fingertips, fizzling out the magic before it can even reach the air. Her face grows pale and the dark elf shakes his head, reaching down to grasp the knife from the dead Barbarian’s belt. He feels another arrow flying over his head as he leans down, shaky and unfocused. The boy rogue is scared. As he should be. Valiant though. What a shame. Varis grabs the dagger and in a puff of black smoke, he’s behind the mage. He grabs her jaw and she gasps, clawing at an arm that isn’t really there. The half elf looks terrified, whimpering and crying, muttering elvish curses his way. 

The little rogue runs his way, sobbing as he drops to his knees, wide eyed and sniffling. “Let her go- Let her go, please. We will leave, we will go, you will never see us again.” His blue eyes are like the ocean, waves of sorrow and cooling. Tears swim down his face like rain. It had rained that day, when Varis was scooped from the water, it hit him like morning dew drops. It was cool and gentle enough that he thought he had been placed in the heavens, but there is no heaven. Not for him. Not anymore. He lost his heavens. 

Varis does not blink, does not wait, he simply slides the knife along the half elf’s neck like gliding through butter. She gurgles something, spewing blood from her open mouth and neck. It pools down her wizardry robe, making the white robes turn a vibrant red, marooned and deep. Her violet eyes turning gray and lifeless. He drops her body against the sand, the scorching sand drinking in her seeping blood like water. The dark elf walks to the crying boy, his blubbering form making his heart clench and when he looks up at him, he sees Bran. His silly nature, his large smile, his fat tears. Emotional, young, loving, hopeful, devoted Bran. His large grayed palm touches the boy’s forehead and he’s blinded by the brightness of his little brother. Him. It hurts like the two suns in the sky and he squints.