Apollo: my character sees a future event involving yours
Veles.An endless enigma for Inshel, she spent more time than sheâd care to admit, watching him when she could. Â When she couldnât, Â she was meticulously searching every little pocket of magic avaliable to her for answers about him, about his existence.Soul-searching, divining cards, godsdamned tea leaves, hours spent with herbs and incense burning, runes drifting in and out of the sight of the naked eye, spirits and magic sharing their remaining threads of knowledge, weaving a patchy, torn tapestry of truth and fiction.It was turning into an obsessionâ she MUST know. What must she know?Â
How could such a creature exist? Once a man, turned to a blood-feasting beast of the nightâŚwas such truly the fate of those cursed by the sun, to never see itâs light again? And more so than thatâŚWhat she desired to know most was how he could liveâ what kind of future awaited someone twisted by lifeâs lurking horrors?His very existence made her markings burn, his presence made her blood sing with power, echoes of a verse written into her very flesh. All she was, all she would ever be was constructed to obliterate creatures like the nobleman,. It fueled her search for answers, only to bring more and more questions. If she could only understand him, perhaps the drive to kill him, etched so deeply into her core, would begin to abate.
It lead her to an all too familiar series of events, sitting in a circle of runes painted in metallic paint on the floor of her tent, magic channeling through her markings, sorting through the whispers of the magic, prodding gently at the give of space and time. A delicate, time-consuming process, and an exhausting one at that. Yet, she couldnât seem to stop. Every time she saw a flash, be it future or past, discernible or not, her steeled heart hardened, and she pushed past the haze of clawing sleep, determined once more.
Hours of this passed, and perhaps she was drifting when it happened. Sleep is waking to one like her, and waking sleep. The vampireâs surroundings were somewhat indiscernible, as if multiple potential timelines overlapping could not decide what to show her, twisting and warping, like a water-stained oil painting. The scene before her eyes almost made her sick, it changed so frequently.One moment, a moonlit garden, with creeping ivy and glowing flowers, upturned to the skyâs radiant lady, muted colors like the bottom of the sea.The next, a parlor room in a dark castle, lit by gothic styled candelabras and a gigantic fireplace. The flames that flickered within were colors she had no words for, no names, twisting in and out of the space in-between worlds.
In the middle of it all, he towered, stone-still, as if he himself were carved from the stone surrounding him, staring straight forward, brow furrowed in contemplation, arms tucked behind his back, beneath his cape. For a short while, she played witness to this moment of thought, as a shadow floating in the cracks between passing moments. In the distance, running footsteps approached, muffled and yet echoing voices torn and shattered all around, falling on her ears and not all at once. Into the scene morphed two children, causing Veles to turn, and the icy visage to shatter, warmth seeping into his face as he scooped the small boy, (he reminded her of a bird, so cheerful), calling to his father, into his arms. A taller, more demure, but still smiling girl, the spitting image of her father, approached his side, and he reached down to ruffle her hair affectionately.Inshel could not hear their words, but it didnât matterâ what she was seeing was clear. Regardless of what the monster under his flesh wished to portray, at the core, Veles was still a human. A twisted, cursed human, but a human. Capable of emotion, capable of living in peace. The joy at the sight of his family was enough stab guilt into her heart at her own monster within for demanding his death.
Suddenly wrenched from the revelation with a sharp crack of blue sparks exploding before wide eyes, spilling tearsâ(why? She didnât understand what had moved her heart so), Inshel toppled back, clutching her chest and gasping for air like a woman drowned. Darkness crept into the vision, and she accepted the embrace of sleep with one final thought.No matter what the markings demanded, she would never take such a future from himâ the gods themselves be damned.
