The first time around, I gave EVERYTHING. I drove myself into the ground, to be my Master's perfect Learner. To prove it had all been WORTH taking me on as a student. So that he would be proud. So he would love me. So that, like a father, he could look upon the child he raised and think "I did a good job, didn't I?"
Even then, I felt his uncertainty.
His fickle heart.
He was a weak man. One that let a mere child bully him into glorified fatherhood and then could not even commit to the choice he had made. As substantive as a cloud, drifting aimlessly across the endless sky. He abandoned me then. He'll abandon me again. I am, at best, something he feels he is "supposed" to do.
He does not love me. He never loved me.
But I love him.
And some days... I hate that I do.
I hate that I spent night after night, pouring over excruciating texts in tiny font. Ancient, dusty, tomes that talked endlessly in circles. I hate that I practiced and practiced, until I could appear effortless before him. The star pupil. The gem of the tower. Dispised and envied by my peers. And... and so utterly, utterly ALONE.
I died.
I died, desperately holding up the tower itself. The only one even vaguely prepared. When The Dark came. I saw tears and terror on the faces of children. Saw the ceiling crashing towards us. And chose to protect THEM instead of myself. It was, perhaps, the first and last time they ever saw me as something human. Fallible.
I was afraid.
But I did not let that terror hold me back.
They tried. Gods, they tried so, so hard to save me. Wept and screamed as the world seemed to END around us. As day turned to night and monster straight from the worst nightmares of man, crawled from the screaming vents, the WOUNDS upon reality itself. The last thing I saw? Was not my Master's face. But the tear stained faces of children pouring everything they could, into taking the impossible burden that even in those moments? Was killing me.
I cracked apart. Overloaded by the core of the Tower, which I had been desperately channeling. It... it was like becoming light.
And then the world rewound.
I did not learn my lesson. I was still young. Did not yet fully understand. Like all Reincarnators I thought I was here for a REASON. It took time to fully grasp how things worked. But that second life? Even now... even now I miss it.
Because back then...
I made friends.
I was so GRATEFUL. Could not unsee, that when the horrors came? They did not abandon me. They didn't even LIKE me. But... but I wanted them to. So I tried. I talked with them. Ate with them. Told jokes and went on trips. Was young. I grew to care so, so much about them. My dear and beloved friends.
Then?
I got to watch them DIE.
Gruesomely. Slowly. And without hope.
Perhaps that was when my love and compassion for the Protagonist died. When my struggle with hatred began. Because while those I loved suffered in mud stained hells, trenches and bile stenched infirmary, she frolicked in rose gardens. Dreaming of girlish love.
What of Duty? Of the death and suffering she IGNORED? How DARE she selfishly concern herself only with her OWN feelings and desires, as the world that NEEDS her dies in fear and agony! What SAINT is she? What GODS allow this?!
Thus was born my Rage.
And so, I refuse my Fate.
But I've made a mistake. A... a terrible mistake. And even now, he circles me like a bird of prey, correcting my stance with hands that linger. A man that looms. Standing too close. Forever patting my head, fingers carding possessively through my hair. Gripping the strands to make me look at him. Always gentle... but with just enough strength to hint that he could NOT be, if he chose.
He manhandles me like a doll. Physically. With magic. It is all the same. Looking forever delighted at the ease at which he can simply drag me into the air with a hover spell. Like a child sized balloon. To be carted around at his mercy.
I barely SEE my actual Master.
Alaric enables it. I... I refuse to call him Grandmaster in my head. He's already gotten to me once. I can endure. I survived once. I can do it again.
"Is my lesson so boring? That you must retreat into your head, child?" More like horrifying. The scent of blood is overwhelming. I keep my eyes locked on the far wall. "Ignoring my lectures will not let you escape them. You are merely force yourself to repeat them, you know. I am perfectly willing to repeat your lessons as many times as it takes."
"Academically" studying The Dark my ASS. Alaric Blight had, HAS, a fucking torture chamber. These are the worst sort of magics. I REFUSE to learn them. Will NOT use them. FUCK YOU.
I give the poor corpse before me what little dignity I can. By not seeing what they have been reduced too. They deserved better then this.
Alaric huffs a laugh. Gently putting down his ceremonial knife on a nearby table. He wipes the viscera from his hands with a rag as he strolls, calm as you please, over to my helplessly floating form.
"Ah~ that stubborn little glare. So FUSSY, Grandlearner." He laughs, the picture of indulgence. "I suppose I HAVE kept you here a touch too long, haven't I? We've missed several meals AND your nap. You are a growing child. No matter how fascinating the material, I can hardly expect you to concentrate under these conditions, now can I?"
He reaks of copper and a rich cologne I have grown to HATE. If only because it is his favorite. I am gathered from the air and pressed against his front, held like a child. I... I still can not move my limbs. He is no fool. For all I am pressed, lovingly almost, against him? I would tear his throat out with my TEETH.
He will not be giving me that chance.
I dispise him.
I DISPISE "naps".
Bad enough to be dragged around in his company for lessons. At least then, I can remember his evil. The cruelty and crimes. But NAPS? Insidious. We're it not for the immobility, they would have done terrible things to my head, long LONG ago.
They are exactly what they sound like. I am dragged off, to be cuddled like some stuffed animal, in some beautiful and soothing environment. For a nap. Bonding. Just me, him, and my head pressed against his chest. Against the hypnotic sound of his beating heart. Fighting the exhaustion in my bones. The desire to just... just let GO and know a moment's peace.
We never make it to the garden.
An explosion ROCKS the Magic Tower. Over a decade too soon to be The Dark. Alaric stops misstep, his personal barriers keeping even dust from touching us, as in the distance, Mage's scream. The Tower's barrier...goes up.
It...it NEVER goes up.
That is the seige barrier. For... for ATTACKS. Who would!?
"Ah. I knew I was forgetting something." Alaric says, as calmly as though musing on the weather outside instead of an attack upon an ancient, foundational institution. "It seems the temple dogs have finally decided to act upon all their barking. I imagine their little whore will make a wonderful figurehead. They always WERE on the look out for more puppets."
I stare up in confusion as he looks out as the barrier. His gaze flat, empty, and cold. Voice is distant as his muses, as though he long ago stopped caring. He catches my gaze upon him and the warmth floods back in.
"You see, little one. I normally kill them. They tend to make a pest of themselves. I have a list of things I must get done each cycle." He smiles fondly, utterly ignoring the alarms that have begun to sound. The calls for all Master's to defensive positions. "It is something you will learn, with time. A lesson I, of course, will be teaching you~"
"Now, since THIS building will likely become useless to us shortly. Let us go pack, hmm? The story progress. It's time to go home." He turns, and we begin to walk away.
"W-Wait!" I manage to choke out.
He pauses, looks down at me, patient even as people die. What, after all, does HE care, if they do? I try desperately to gather my thought. It is like scrambling after dropped beads across a smooth floor. I think, I HOPE, I get enough...
"I... G-Grandmaster I li..LIKE learning here. With you. It feels more familiar and has better places to... to nap. Could you... WOULD you, PLEASE, go save everyone?" I manage to rip from my throat, each word like pulling a tooth. I hate it. I HATE IT! But for them? Anything.
"Oh? Grandlearner~! Was that a REQUEST?" Croons the madman who holds me, his grip getting tighter for just a moment before relaxing back into it's gentle hold. Lips, almost burning with power, brush softly against my temple in a kiss. He makes a horrifyingly satisfied noise. "Of course MY child. Anything for MY Grandlearner, after all. You are my world, little light."
The world twists.
And suddenly? I am floating safely in the shade of a tree, far across the valley from the Tower. I can... I can feel the struggling Master's. Fighting to hold off the Temple's holy warriors. It is a blood soaked standstill. Until Alaric Blight steps up to the field.
Then?
EVERYTHING IS FIRE.
He is The Arch-Mage of Red. Not just for his hair, but for his terrifying master of fire and battle magics. What once, moments before, was a sea of green? Becomes ash and flame in an instant. So hot the fire burns the very air itself. Bordering on plasma. The ground itself molten in his wake.
None survive. How could any even dream?
It is like a nuke made man.
I shake. Tears slipping down my cheeks as I watch old growth vanish in the distance. Centuries of life. Gone in a moment of ugly destruction. They will praise him for this. Call him a hero. But I know what he is. What hides beneath that ugly, shining, mask of a charm and civility. And... and I am scared.
A chirp of starlight and tinkling glass, high and questioning, hovers just to my right.
Fairy-dragons. A full swarm. Creatures the size of a cat with the power of a god. All but one, staring furiously down at the destruction in the valley below. They radiates furious grief at the loss of so much life and forest. But the one looking at me... feels? Questioning? Somehow?
Can they project?
I can only assume. I KNOW they can understand spoken languages. All dragons can. And as powerful as dragons ARE...
"Please... please! Help me!" I choke out, finally letting my tears spill. Because if I can not cry in front of dragons, then where? "I'm not strong enough. He's a MONSTER. I know you can feel it! Please! Just until I recover. Until I can fight. PLEASE!"
More of the tiny creatures look at me. Glance at each other. Then back towards where Alaric continues his destruction. Their destain for him is obvious. Their eyes as they look upon me, hold no special love. Just ambivalence. But... they are what they are. And they DO hate the sort of creature Alaric Blight has become.
With a tearing WRENCH the spell holding me is SHREDDED.
Painfully, in dragon claws.
In the distance, Alaric stops. No doubt feeling that. Knowing someone not only freed me, but ATTACKED HIM. The dragon that was worried for me touches my shoulder. And before my Grandmaster can ever discover WHO stole me away?
I am Gone.
I do not see the city of Towervalley, the magic tower itself, BURN.
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