HIATUS

@gladesofamala

Almost immediately, Inshel's face darkens scarlet, markings flickering bright and then low in an erratic pattern, and she huffs, pulling the hood of her cloak higher around her face. It snuffs out some of her innate glow, but in the places the worn fabric is threadbare, the silver-blue light seeps out. “I’m trying to be discreet about traveling to the surface, Balthus, and you tend to make a spectacle of yourself, that’s all I’m saying! It’s not that I’m ungrateful for you going with me but...just don’t draw more attention than needed, unless you have to. I don’t need people asking questions about why I’m glowing all over.”

  He can tell that she’s distraught about the whole situation. And he can’t blame her for it. Had he been in her shoes, he likely would be in a far worse state than she was now. After all, his inability to protect an innocent girl he cared about had scarred him deeply…If he’d rampaged and killed everyone around him, innocent or not, with no control over it?

  To be honest, he’s fairly certain that if he had, he would have followed them into death quickly after. Because unlike her, he’s too weak to live with the guilt. To power through it and work to be better and help people. Suddenly, he feels he understands why she holds herself to such lofty ideals and still thinks so low of herself. And yet…he doesn’t. Because as a third party, he can see that the fault isn’t hers. That it’s a curse, not a mistake. And he doesn’t want her to suffer from it more than she already has.

 And he recalls what she said so clearly…or rather, what the being possessing her said to him.

We, the weapon, destroy, because that is what we were created for…

Whatever it was that possessed her, it must have spared him because it saw him as an ally in destruction. He’s not sure what to make of it…Lon’qu is not ignorant to his violent ways or dark thoughts, but he’d always tried to fight for a decent cause…or at least not a cruel one. And in that bloodbath, he had. Clearly, the cultists were evil, were cruel, sought to exploit Amilia and use him as leverage. They deserved death. But that wasn’t exactly all he gave them, was it? He still remembers the feeling of bones breaking in his hands, of blood spattering his face and clothes and he smashed one of their heads against a wall. He could blame it on the venom in his veins from those snakes, yes, but even still…It feels unreal recalling those memories to see, instead of his usual controlled, precise killings…something so feral and animalistic from him.

  But he listens in silence when she tells him about how her powers work. About how she was born like this. He’s noticed the markings had magical qualities before. Sometimes they would glow faintly, but that had been the first day he’d seen them go black. It’s nice to know that there is at least some visible warning as to when she’s about to turn.

  Not that he has even the slightest idea how to stop it…

“ So they see you as a weapon ,” he surmises, nodding as he looks ahead at nothing in particular. It sickens him…that people would take advantage of her for their own uses, as if she wasn’t a person…A person who’d already suffered enough.

  Amilia clearly has no recollection of what she did or said in detail, only that she killed everyone but him during that turn. She’s surprised that he survived, however. Which does seem odd since she says usually she cannot distinguish between friend or foe. That would imply she should have killed him, too. And easily could have. He could feel the power she held, saw the way she obliterated the cultists with barely a motion. Lon’qu stood right in front of her and she didn’t kill him. Only spoke to him.

  He wonders if he should tell her what she said…maybe he should. He doesn’t know if it will help, but maybe it could…It’s worth a shot.

 “ I did. But not because I was able to elude you. Whatever was controlling you could have easily killed me…But it chose not to .” He pauses, trying to remember exactly what was said. Or at least summarize it as accurately as he can. Parts are clear, but others are…hazy.

 “ I can’t pretend to fully understand why, but it spoke to me…It called itself ‘the Weapon’, and said that ‘my way is pleasing to the gods in the stars’…judging by the rest of what it said, I can only assume it means my own bloodlust and penchant for killing. But it seemed focused on…cleansing the world. On destroying everything so that life can just start over on its own. It said that….I have the same goal …”

  He’d never thought about it that way. Was that his ultimate purpose? To destroy all corruption? While part of him would certainly like to rid the world of evil, he’s no idealist in thinking it can be done in entirety, though he continues to do what he can to improve things in…’the only way he knows how’…those words echo in his head in the Weapon’s voice as he thinks them. Even if the entire world were to be eradicated and be reborn from the dust…the same cycle would continue. Corruption would seep its way back into mankind or whatever replaced them. So why did the Weapon think he wanted that?

  Was the Weapon wrong…or…was Lon’qu blind to his own path? Did he think that way and not realize it? Would he take that path one day? He shudders to think of the possibility.

 “ I don’t know what to make of it ,” he leaves out the part where it said one day it would kill him too…but he won’t bring that up to her. Not right now. It isn’t relevant. “ But maybe we can find out .” Somehow…he’s not exactly sure how he can help. Even if he found a book titled “The Secrets of the Weapon” he wouldn’t know it…wouldn’t be able to read it. But there has to be something he can do to help her. To keep her from meeting this fate she seems destined for…and the fate it seems destined to bring on the world.

"...The...Weapon..."

Discomfort settles heavy into her bones at the mention of such a thing, and Amilia shifts uncomfortably in place, pulling her knees up tight to her chest, hugging them into place with her arms. Her chin comes to rest on top of them, expression turning thoughtful and pensive as she sorts through her memories. There were precious few encounters others have had with her in her uncontrollable state that haven’t ended in death and disaster, and Lon’qu is the first, and likely only person who hasn’t despised her afterwards.

Bar the cultists whom they had wiped from the face of the earth.

A cold chill crawls up her spine and she unconsciously rubs her arms as they break out in gooseflesh.

“I’ve been told of the ‘Weapon’ a few times over the course of the study of this affliction of mine. Most notably, there was ah...a...period of time I served the ruling faction of Plegia’s government. Before Gangrel’s reign. I was...um...sold to a influential nobleman, a Grimleal cultist of rather high standing and wealth.” Amilia pauses, meeting Lon’qu’s eyes again, and she finds comfort, strangely enough, in the strange mix of emotions mostly hidden on his face. His attempts to remain impassive in the wake of this information was comforting. At least someone had their wits, still.

“It wasn’t anything terrible, as awful as being ‘sold’ might sound. I was still essentially employed by the man despite the context of how I arrived there. I was a medic to him and his family and oversaw multiple births, and helping elder Grimleal through bouts of illness. It was probably the most normal my life has ever been.”

The memories aren’t entirely unpleasant and she finds herself smiling. Though she had not been born a Grimleal cultist or even really raised as one, she had been raised with a deep and profound love for Plegia as a country, as a people, regardless of the religion that governed the land. The Dark Dragon was just one of many dragons in scripture to her, as a child. She finds herself almost comforted by the thoughts, before they tip darker. Again.

Like they always do.

“I was caught sneaking out of his estate when I knew the time was coming to empty my markings," she explains, hands temporarily leaving the tight grip on her legs to gesture to the glowing lines in question, "...and the results were disastrous. I was heckled by the guards to return, thinking I was trying to run away from my master’s estate, and their constant tailing caused me to lose control of myself in a poorer district of the nearby city." There is a brief pause, and she takes a shuddering breath before she continues, obviously disturbed by this recounting as her voice wavers slightly. "I slaughtered hundreds of sick people suffering from some sort of flesh plague. A plague that slowly eats you from the inside out. And not just them, either. Several of the guards tried to stop me, and they fell prey to it too.”

There’s a pointed look flashed his way in grey eyes, as if to say, ‘you’ve seen them, now.’

“Those sick people were crazed by the malady that infected them. So crazed they thought I was some sort of...goddess. A weapon of the gods sent to free them from their suffering, a child of the stars. When I was brought back to my master to be executed for killing his guard, he instead expressed an interest in my...usefulness as a weapon because of the things the guard and the infected had said. There were several tests done to determined some of the things I know now.”

A long sigh leaves her and she shakes her head, sinking in on herself, reliving the memories of those madmen they had put an end to just days before. She leaves out the part where she had been kidnapped by those very same ill and deranged people before, as a part of the 'tests' done to determined just what was needed to push her over the edge to become such an unstoppable force. He didn't need to know the history of the people they had killed. Not yet. She felt enough guilt for walking straight into their trap and letting him get hurt for her sake.

After all, there was a diamond now carved into his chest to be an eternal reminder of this horrible incident. She wouldn't burden him further with it than that.

“There is a great deal of debate whether I am ‘possessed’ by some entity called ‘The Weapon’ as you say you encountered...or if it is a fragment of my own self warped beyond recognition that simply manifests like a second personality when I black out. I can’t say for certain. I would like to hope the gods didn’t ‘grant’ me this power. Just look at the consequences of it. Those cultists were...that man was....in love with...that thing I become. That’s horrid.”

Her nails dig into the flesh of her calves so hard, for a moment, she vaguely wonders if they might bleed, trying to put the dizzying, uncomfortable feeling rising ever higher out of her mind.

“Remember when you told me I’m not special because I’ve killed people and got blood on my hands, and I told you I want nothing more than to not be special? This is why. Whatever I am, whatever the weapon is, so many people are convinced it’s...divine or holy, a product of my faith and I...I don’t want to be that. I’m just a woman. Whatever ‘the Weapon’ said to you...as bizarre as it is, I much rather believe I’m not a tool of the gods with no choice in my fate. That those were my own thoughts, just...twisted out context by the madness.”

Her voice grows so small, so soft, it’s barely there, barely more than a whisper.

Metal heels click and clack, echoing in waves across damp stone. The deep canals of Abyss are quiet, save for her humming, rolling back and forth, in and around her in a whirling circle in the depths of the dark. 

Where the melody came from, she cannot remember, but in one of the quiet, empty corners of Abyss, just outside of what could be called the settlement, Inshel waltzes in circles with an invisible partner, the only light the flaring and dimming glow of her markings.

Round and round and round in circles, the same 1-2-3, 1-2-3, pattern, all to some song only she knows, echoing off into the dark of the caverns, and into the endless black. 

A melancholy display for something she can’t quite remember, a memory hovering at the back of her mind but never quite there in full. 

    While it’s true he doesn’t know everyone here, she is very much a stranger to him - one he’s never come across before now even in passing through he halls or attending class. However, he does spends most of his time looking down or avoiding crowded places so not knowing who she is isn’t unusual for him. But it still manages to make his anxiety creep up regardless. He has no way of knowing if she’s a noble, another student, a teacher of some sort (though she looks young - around his age if he had to guess), a guess - she could be anything and he very well may have offended her somehow. Perhaps the guard he had saved was a terrible man and he’d prolonged the life of a criminal or maybe the light from his magic had hurt her eyes or maybe - his mind was on such a tangent that it took her unsettling gave on hm and her voice to yank him out of it long enough for him to focus on her once again.  

     If he weren’t so confident over the control he harbored when it came to his crest, her words might have sent him on yet another spiral. But he knew he hadn’t activated it and knew it would never activate without him willing it to do so - years of underground torture relating to his crest had given nothing but complete control over it. It was a small comfort in a life where he was constantly ducking his head and looking over his shoulder. Even so, the question made him tense up, visibly so. Healing magic wasn’t special or strange, though he supposed most students preferred physical weapons and magical attacks to it. But, if put in the same position as he had just been in, he would like to believe some of the other students who dabbled in it would have gladly helped the guard. Maybe, though, it was unusual to see a student heal someone. After all, that job did largely fall on the staff - they were there to take care of the young nobles who attended the academy, after all. So, perhaps, her surprise wasn’t that unusual either?

     Well, regardless, the thought did manage to calm his nerves ever so slightly. She could have been a student here in the process of learning healing magic. In her position, he could sympathize with her interest - he always wanted to learn and absorb new information, especially if it meant he could help more people. His magic was naturally advanced for his age and position - another blessing from being tortured, it had brought the most out of his crest and the gift it gave him for magic, especially in regards to healing magic. He didn’t like to dwell on such thoughts, but it did bring him some comfort knowing he could save someone’s life almost as a direct result of everything he had been through.

      “N-No…it’s all right,” he struggles out at first, his voice hoarse and lips trembling. He’s terribly overwhelmed, but that’s almost entirely a result of how many people are still hanging around the market while the guard tells an exaggerated version of what had happened to the curious onlookers. “Um, I did, yes.” His tongue feels like it’s sticking to the roof of his mouth with each word he manages to squeeze out. “I-If you want to, you can - I’ll try to answer them, but, um…maybe somewhere else would be better.” With the amount of attention the overjoyed guard was attracting he was afraid he would be dragged into the chaos once again, and he’d rather avoid having any more eyes on him. But, if she wanted to learn healing magic, he did want to help her to the best of his ability.  

Inshel pays close attention, watching his face and mannerisms, trying to discern if this student was one of the 'safe ones', someone she could speak to and trust without concern. It was hard to judge, honestly, but she doesn’t miss the blatant discomfort he shows, like a rat in the sewers cornered by hungry cats.

It’s almost disturbingly familiar.

This was a dangerous step she was taking, she knew, and she wondered if the others down in Abyss would be angry with her for showing herself on the surface so plainly. He wasn’t staring too hard, he didn’t recognize her face or her name, yet, she tries to tell herself. Yet the clamor of calling herself a fool for being so brazen starts up again in the back of her mind, obnoxiously loud in this area filled with chattering and noisy people.

Feeling slight jitters beginning in her hands, gaze darting back and forth, she makes a small gesture of ‘follow me’, and wordless skitters about twenty paces through the crowd before waiting for him to catch up. She’s on the edges of the throng of people now, as they are blessedly beginning to disperse and move on, the excitement, as they would deem it, over with, but a new worry has crept into her mind.

The guard had been injured. By who? And how? That would bring the authority of the church down into the market, and that was the last group of people she wanted to be seen by. If word got back to the archbishop about her skulking around up on the surface, it was likely not going to be good. Balthus alone was going to put her through hell and back for coming up here by herself.

The more the crowd starts to disperse and people drift back to their regular shopping near the gate, the more and more she starts to panic. Her hood is up, and dark, on a fairly normal day. She sticks out. Someone will notice. Someone will ask.

Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!

Clenching and unclenching her fists, she tries to focus and calm her breathing, the manic stutter of her heart in the back of her throat.

Technically, she was a student. She was in uniform. If she could just act like she was supposed to be here...

Again, she repeats the gesture, a little less frantic, and slowly, trying her best to focus on appearing...normal. Yes, normal. This stranger’s friend, coming to find him after he left her in the crowd to heal that man. It was a perfectly normal cover. They had been taking a walk and were going to continue it now.

"Inshel.. Lift up your leg for me." A husky tone left his lips as he had gotten the Inshel resting her back against the walls. A restlessness took hold of Balthus and he figured that he turn to a woman that he trusted in these sort of matters when it came to relief. [ Inshel from Balthus! Obligatory Sinday Ask! ]

Her breath always comes short when they’re like this, and she’s thankful he dwarfs her in size so easily, for how brightly glows being mostly obscured by his frame caging her own to the wall. Fingers lightly tug and pull at the hair to the base of his skull, not enough to hurt, and she does as requested, lifting one leg as high as she can and lazily hooking it around his waist.

Her free hand comes up and rests against the his cheek, a faint pressure pulling him further down to her height, back arching forward to reach, a series of soft, surprisingly gentle kisses placed along his jaw. For the situation, it’s awfully romantic, but at the same time, soothing, moreso than it needs to be. 

Slowly, her eyes flutter open, hazy with something between lust and genuine affection, and her face warms with the faintest hints of a smile.

{hey hi hello good morning normally I'd put this on my art blog but fandom applicable so this goes here too

"Not like they'll need us for a while. Relax." The man brushed a hand down Inshel's waist as they lay together in her quarters. He remains still as he allows his hair to be played. After the usual intimate moment they share in private. Balthus' eyes quirked looking at Inshel. "Surprise you got enough in you to play around with my hair." ( From Balthus. )

Deep-seated exhaustion pries at her mind and her bones, trying to pull her down into sleep, the faint flaring and dimming of her markings in time with her slowing breathing the only real light in the dark room they shared, far down in Abyss.

Despite it though, her fingers rhythmically pull and detangle the long waves of his black hair, grown out in the years they were apart while the war pulled their land and people asunder. It’s a comforting thing to her, a sense of quiet familiarity in a time when there was little of comfort anymore, little they could call home. 

Cold air settles on her sweaty skin, turning her bare back cold little by little, the constant underground chill of Abyss causing goosebumps to break out in the free space between her markings. With what little energy remains, her body twinging in sore places in protest, she scoots herself a little closer, voice catching raspy in the back of her throat.

“I’m just getting cold, now. Hard to sleep like that.”

It’s not exactly untrue, after all. But there’s a small pause, before she tacks on the rest of the truth.

There’s something oddly touching about that statement– he’s the last person most would expect to think of the lives of the flowers, to be sensitive enough to care if their fleeting beauty was destroyed or not. 

As their footfalls come to stop before a myriad of wild roses, orchids, lilies, violets, and hundreds of other preciously curated spring flowers, small hands creep idly around the crook of his elbow, peering at them past Blathus’ arm. She simply feels safer, close to him, and in ways, he reminds her of…a giant puppy. 

They’ve only been on the surface for about a week now, and she often feels uneasy, in such open spaces. Almost agoraphobic, when she thinks about how many years of her life she’s spent caged deep underground. It's a strange dichatomy, the fear of small, caging spaces, and the fear of the open areas. But these flowers alone are a testament to how beautiful the world she’s not know for so long could be, even cold and harsh the weather could be. One of her small hands leaves the curve of his bicep, and points, then, to specific spots.

“I haven’t…seen flowers since I was very small. They’re so beautiful– and look. Even though someone cares for this garden, between the blossoms, there and there? You can even see the wildflowers poking through all the planted blooms. That’s so lovely. They’re strong enough to hold on, even with all the other flowers.”

         ❝ At the very least you recognize that whatever your reasons might be, they’re no excuse. And I refuse to be responsible for you. So make your choice and go there. The longer you linger, the longer you’re in the way and I need to go up these stairs, thank you. ❞ 

Moving her body out of the way, leaving space on the stairs, Inshel gives the other woman an empty, and somewhat fake smile. She’s not bothered by the brusque or cold demeanor Rosamaria has, nodding in agreement. 

“Maybe I am, and I agree. No one is responsible for me, nor should they be. Regardless, thank you for waking me, you’re right when it could be something or someone much, much worse. I appreciate it.” 

There’s a pause in her words, and she ponders a moment, why she feels the need to explain herself to Rosamaria-- it’s not really clear to her why she feels so put on the spot by it. She is reminded of something far buried in the past, deeply nostalgic, but doesn’t bring it up.