#silitharius

A guest bedroom, or so it should have been. There, laid a demon of deep red flesh, wings, legs, arms, all tended to with splints, bandages, salves. It was so primitive Syred would have complained the entire time had he the energy or vocal nature to. Now his azure stare just watched from the pillows of the bed as he was fed a violet orb, a soul from a jar filled with them.

Silitharius was bloodied, dirtied, and covered in what was only age old ash and soot from an abandoned house. His hands found a basin, cleaning the filth from him now as he turned to look over Syred. A sigh escaped him. He'd asked for the story, for what happened. He'd gathered what he could from the bare rasps of the demons recollection. Their conversation a quiet mumble. Once he was cleaned, robes dusted and clothes set to right once more, he took to his hair, righting what was dishevelled in an effort to present himself less as a haggard creature he was more notably known for.

" Xyn'rael."

A void imp spawned from darkness, stunned, alarmed. " What?...What?" The imp spied Syred.

" He doesn't know I'm alive I can't let him see m-"

"Stow the Secrecy, Xyn'rael...You're needed. This isn't a time for hiding." The Void elf had a...presence, something assertive that made the imp grow progressively nervous. The imp looked over Syreds form. " What the -fuck- happened to him?...Was it Dregg?"

"Worse."

Xyn'rael shuddered. " Was it the --...You know what...I don't want to know...What do y'need me to do?"

Silitharius looked down to the imp. " Guard him, keep the girls out of here for now. I don't want them to see him like this." " You realize they can -all- take me in a fight, right?" The imp snorted.

"Get creative...I know you can."

The imp groaned, rubbing clawed fingers over his face and whined. " Why do you guys make me do hard shit."

Silitharius' stare watched him. " I had to watch my demon -birth- you out of my body half consumed....I'm practically your father." The elf got more stern, leaning down and locking his eyes. " Help me and keep guard. It's for the girls...You don't need to tend to him..I'll return shortly. No one in...No one out."

Xyn'rael groaned again, peeking through his clawed fingers with one yellow eye. " Fine...I'll...fuckin' think of something....-You- Owe me."

" If it gets you to act...then I will owe you." Silitharius turned to the door, simple pale fingers brushing over the fine wood. " I'm to meet with someone and talk with them." " Is the one who beat crankies ass over here?"

Two demons, locked inside a broken house, enclosed by magic. One had ghostly pale skin, the other dark red.

To those that knew the two, they might have expected something more grand, two creatures of dark magic locked in great combat. It was nothing of the sort, the pale had overwhelmed the red in ease. Broken limbs, bruised.skin, blood -smeared- over shattered wood. soaking an already haunted place with the lifesblood of a monster.

During the brutality, the carnage and blood, clawed fingers skewering one demon in what was an utterly relentless series of horrific carnage.

The Pale was the only one who seem to speak, barely giving the other a chance to breath before bringing more wrath upon him.

“ Why are mortals using my name?...Why?” “ You know this is terribly inconvenient. For me. -How- am I to go about my business when I’m being summoned every which way?” Another clawed finger rammed through the flesh of the red, another howl of pain. “Every time I’ve been summoned on -your- behalf.. I’ve made it a rule of mine to take something from you..First? it was small. A little bit of mail...Then...Bigger...Silitharius.” Carapace could be heard cracking, bones shattering, another howl of pain. “I’m sick of you, my little mistake.”

The pale watched him, a clawed hand clutching the Reds face. A brief skim of memories. “ Who are they, my little bastard?” Flashes, memories, faces one after another, settled so lightly at the front of the reds short term memory, easily plucked. “ Oh?...Quite a few...Some... I recall..The others..” He chuckled. “We will see if they can’t be tracked down.”

The pale ran the back of the reds skull into the brick fireplace, repeated,mercilessly slamming him against the brick. “ You’ve used your last strike..Your novelty has worn off....Duality no longer has its appeal. It’s quite alright, I’ll take in all your possessions, fear not.” “Your weapons, your home.” “Your family.” There it was, a glint of fire, resistance from the red.Shadow magic surged from the broken and mangled demon, the reds will forced the pales back, slamming against the barrier, tendrils lashed out, resistance. The magic snapped over the pales limbs, yet..melted under the lack of concentration in a moment of weakness. The pale rose again, laughing as he sauntered closer.

The beating went on for hours.Bones continued to be shattered, broken carapace at every possible opportunity. Large wings bent in the wrong direction and shredded.  Every so often the red put up resistance, fought back with some small spurt of energy and will, but it was quickly and forcefully wrung from his body.

As the hours passed, as blood soaked every inch of the floor. The pale grew progressively more irritated. “Go -BACK- to the nether little bastard....Go writhe in nothingness for Eons like the slime you are...Maybe grow a backbone and LEARN what you are!” “Go Back!” Another broken bone,  rent flesh providing new blood. “-GO BACK-!” wood piercing flesh, bricks ground against the red demons face. He didn’t slip into the nether, though he’d long since passed the threshold of needing to. The Demon refused, putting it’s essence at risk. Why? Who could say. “ GO...B-”

In an instant, the remains of the room were destroyed, leveled. A hand, no, a fist had broken through the entire room, gargantuan in size. Black hand had essentially rammed itself through. The force was otherwordly, sending both the pale and the red flying, landing in a daze in the dirt and grass. There, in the dirt and rain stood a ren’dorei, violet robes. Eyes glinting with pure energy of the void. He’d stepped closer, mumbling one word, an incantation, a spell. -POOF-. The pale had evaporated, shunted into the ether at a simple spell to banish him. Silitharius stepped closer, sifting quietly through debris to find the mangled body of the red. The elf settled down. Setting a hand to the broken demons form. The Red spat out the second garbled words he’d uttered. “I said to protect Ceri.” Silitharius nudged the demons chin, looking over the shattered  form. He frowned down at him. “ We need to tend to you.”

“ I told you...to..protect...Ceri.” The red growled out, even now a broken mess on the muddy ground.

“ Daddy!” There, a red-headed girl sprinted across the expanse of a stone hall. Shadows had billowed up into the path of a home designed of tiny hands grasped at the shadows form seeking to hug the writhing mass of shadows, but found no purchase once the form had coalesced. Corporeal in appearance only. Syred stood there, adorning a violet silk shirt and pants, spying Amarah once his figure had formed. “ Spawnling what are you doing up? I’m certain it’s past your bedtime.” “ Silly said we could!  We were good and he said so.” She nodded, pointing a tiny digit at a single doorway in the hall. Syred turned to look back at the door, then back to Amarah. “ I see... you -and- Ari have been behaving?” Quick insistent shakes of her head, causing red curls to sway. “ Uhuh. Why are you ghost Dad? “ Syreds azure sight turned to lock on Amarah. “ I’m still doing business, Amarah. I can’t come home yet.” “ That’s too much business!” She insisted, frowning at her. “Come home.” Amarahs stare showed worry, trepidation. “ Soon, Amarah. It’s very important business.” “ Promise?” Her words held an upward incline, eyes wide. She’d gone into puppy-dog defcon 4. Deliberately looking as downtrodden as possible. Fuck, this con artist right here. Syred had a thing with promises, Amarah knew it.” A slow exhale escaped him before he nodded. “ I promise I will return the very instant my important business is done.”

“ Okay...” Amarah turned to step away, racing back to an unattended coloring book. Syred turned to head into a solitary bedroom, almost dusty from lack of use. Inside, sat Silitharius sitting along the floor, legs crossed, runes glowing over his flesh in an ornate green and violet glow. The elf had taken some time to himself it seemed, all the while seated at the foot of the bed like a guard dog.

True to the analogy, in the bed lay what he guarded, Ari settled on the mattress with a coloring book settled next to the unconscious form that was now known as Ceri. Ari turned her gaze up to Syred for a moment, frowning at him, her small facial features down-turned into a scowl before she returned to coloring on the bed.

Good. Hatred would benefit her in later years Syred explained in his own thoughts, dismissing her Ire to spare a glance at Ceri, and then to Silitharius. “ A word?” Silitharius nodded, rising from the ground and his meditation, kilt dusting the stone ground as he padded barefoot across the room to follow Syred. Both wandered down the halls, finding a decorative table selected by Syred as was much of the home. The building held a number of aesthetics of an old manor, stone walls and flooring, Elven furnishings and paintings supplemented with a number of magical enchantments to sustain the building, a few specters bound to anchors for maintaining candles. Syred and Silitharius settled to talk in private.

Syred told Silitharius of his plan in its entirety, every detail, every contingency. The end of Syreds words had Silitharius frowning, deeply. “ I do not like it.” “ Nor do I, but the risk and collateral damage is reduced is it not?” “ No, it’s transformed into mental damage. They won’t understand this, the same way they didn’t understand before.” “ Should I risk the physical?...put them in more mortal danger? This plan works.” “ This plan gets you killed.” Syred slammed his hand on the table. “ I MADE A DEAL.” The yelling echoed through the stone. a moment passed before his voice became a hissed whisper. “ I don’t want to do -any- of this. But I do not break my deals.I -hate- this..All of this, but I can’t go back to the way we lived. I won’t lie to myself and hope for something like that.”

Silitharius’ expression seemed calm, knowing. “ You lie to yourself everyday when you say this is only about the promises you made to her.” “ Fuck you.” Syred sneered.The words almost comically cut short by Silitharius’ next words. “ How many times have we stepped across the border and pain of death?...How many times has that world spat us back out? We are too sour for the other side.” He teased. “Is this, the Syred I’ve met? Just one plan with no backups..No plan B, no plan C. No ace in the hole?”

Moonglade, silence and unknowns. There in a bed laid an elf, a Sin’dorei of tragic health. To and fro his conciousness waxed and Waned. Memories of his past lives sputtering into recollection before dissolving into the long since known insanity. His body was emaciated, malnourished and weaker each day. Though he grew thinner and thinner, though his body atrophied he hadn’t died. It was as if something inside was keeping him alive, and at the same time leeching his very mass from his form.

From time to time his tenders would heard sudden gasps, wide eyes and outcries. Though some knew of Silitharius and what happened to him, most saw him as a mystery, an elf of poor circumstances.

Conciousness found him most under one circumstance. Something unknown and eerie that would happen once every few days, sometimes more frequently. A girl dressed in a bright red dress, straight long black locks tied in a ponytail and black slippers, blue eyes and a deep frown on her cherub like face.” Silly!” The girl called out each time, and each time Silitharius found his mind just enough to cast a single spell, transporting the girl through a portal beneath her feet and someplace else. The event was easy enough to witness by medics, but so often was it quick that none realized where the child had come from, how she’d gotten inside, or where she went. At the end of the phenomenon? Silitharius slipped back into his weakened unconscious state. Motives and reasoning aside, someone often came for Silitharius on what was likely his death bed. This girl that stood no more than four feet tall addressed no one else but Silitharius, and often angry and chiding was her voice.

Months passed...until an event came so much more severe. Any medics witnessing the scene would see the ceiling be consumed in undiluted blackness, inky and devoid of any other color, void essence painted the ceiling, oozing down the walls as one long arm pushed into exsistence, massive clawed fingers depositing the small girl down on the floor next to his bed before sloooowly retreating back to the ceiling. Bright yellow eyes opening to peer down at the elf. “ Silly, You’re coming home.” The girl spoke sternly, her small hands balled into fists.

The sensation of the void spawned a volatile reaction in the elf, another sharp gasp and a consciousness returned. Wide jade eyes peered up at the ceiling, trembling in terror. “ No, Ah..” He turned, seeing Ari so close by. Trembling fingers and a soft mumbling banished the small girl to another place, though where was unknown.In that same instant, blackness consumed the whole room, sound muffled. Silence and blackness was all that remained as the massive black hand that engulfed the Emaciated elf.

When it was over? Silitharius and the girl were no more, leaving only a bed crushed in the shape of a massive hand print.. Blackness faded into the ceiling as if there was a drain allowing the substance to ooze away.

The elf was no more, though many a mile away, a large globe of blackness hovered in the sky above Darkshore, ominous and looming.

It had become something hectic and odd all at once. Each day a new scream, newly wrought horror. Silitharius heard her scream a name again...and again. Syr’edilith. Syr’edilith.

Syr’edilith. Silitharius had spent more time with the girls, keeping them safe and most importantly, goalie. He’d done his absolute best to keep Ari and Amarah from entering Ceris bedroom, despite their pleas and outcries and demands. Silitharius knew what kinds of screams those were, what kinds of screams indeed. He’d no intention of letting the girls see Ceri in such a manner. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was one day, an encounter had come differently. Silitharius had spied some things missing in the house, even as frantic as his wandering mind may have been he still noticed the missing items, innocent seeming, but tattling that the Elder had been about more. Quietly each night he’d hoped her voice wouldn’t call the name. Quietly he kept the children company, telling them made-up stories to keep them distracted. And then...

At the door of Amarah and Aris bedroom, where the three had sat. Silitharius had been braced against the door. Another episode,

Syr’edilith

Cried through the walls.Silitharius’ eyes closed, dreading the word and knowing of Ceris pain, but the pain that came with it. Shadows billowed beneath the door, filling the bottom of the room, smoke consumed the elf in one horrifying moment. The instant the cloud had entirely captured Silitharius form, it was gone just as quickly.