#viilein

– i might not be able to kill you ... but i can break your heart worse than death.

loras' dark and sinister words echo in his mind. he saw the flash of malevolent magic leaving loras' hand like a barbed whip to rip tharivol asunder. once upon a time, he had seen loras disintegrated a beast with those deceptively beautiful, shimmering tendrils. his counterspell wasn't strong enough to penetrate the strings that had joined into a single beam to strike tharivol from across the room –

he didn't see what happened next. something happened that disturbed the weave all around them as loras cried out in pain and his magic crumbled, flushing them out of the elusive castle built on the grief of a mad man.

and here they are. in the rubble. he turns the drow over, feeling tharivol's face, his arm, his chest marked with a compass and an invisible hook, frantically confirming that he is still, still here ...

“h - hey ... can you hear me? tharivol, are you alright? say something!”

he was trying to warn loras all the while. the effects of magical corruption, of trying to pull on strings long severed -- the dancing along of a wizard through time meant he dangled between the old magic and the new. it never ended well for wizards like that.

summoning vespin, while not easy, is the easiest part of the equation in many ways. there's an anchor here after all. the hardest part is already taken care of. the part tharivol is expecting doesn't entirely come true, because he's expecting his blood to feed the circle that brings vespin to this plane.

what happens if you bring three remnants of a dead age into the same space? well, nothing good.

tharivol pulls at his bonds, feels them break under his grip, and gets his feet under him in time for the magic to sail through the air and strike him. it's the most pain he's been in in his life, he thinks (when he can think past the searing sensation of something trying to strip flesh from bone.)

when the castle crumbles, he's still screaming, though the resulting scattering leaves him dazed in the grass, his head lolling when vespin dragged him halfway upright. it makes his body throb in pain all over, every inch of him alight with it, and that makes him grit his teeth as he flutters his eyes a little.

" i. . .i hear you. i hear you. " he closes a hand around vespin's wrist, looking at dozens of lacerations that had opened across his skin. it burned in the warm air, enough to keep him awake with the hurt.

there's a moment where he reaches out to catch vespin's cheek, letting his hand linger there before he leans on him to try and sit upright under his own power.

" i'm here, i hear you. my body hurts. "

he scanned for loras, eyeing the chronomancer, before something in him twisted. he couldn't leave him for dead. it felt wrong to do so -- but. . .

she remembers every moment of acute agony of being unmade and then made again. dagger to chest, silver thread, her brother's anguish, her lover's mute resignation, her best friend's denial, her goddess' ⸻ well. here is what they don't tell about heroes : they too burn. they too bleed the same red, but the ground sucks them dry, so them gods or monsters or something else fills them back up with ichor.

another world. another end of the world, in truth, and how many has she lived through by now, carrying the worst weapon, the ugliest secret. another world but the anguish is the same, you can't save everyone, rândunea, who told her this, was it her mother ... ?? and here before her a plea. she has always been healer, even when she oughtn't be.

caleb   blinks,   and   two   salty   tears   fall.         he   keeps   his   eyes   on   vespin   above   him,   who   holds   his   chin   in   hand   snugly   as   he   speaks.      caleb’s   tail,   healthy   and   golden   again,   flicks   behind   him   beneath   the   water,   his   back   arched   with   vespin’s   grip.

he   .   .   .      is   free.      he   is   vespin’s,   no   longer   ikithon’s.      he   does   not   have   to   leave   this   place   ever   again.      @viilein​​   says   that   caleb   is   his,   and   the   merfolk   knows   that   it   is   true      —      that   the   wizard   means   what   he   says      —      but   he   is   caleb’s,   too.      this   .   .   .      is   their   home   now      —      isn’t   it?

Its gaze wanders to the man's hand, to a touch it can see, but not feel. It is a gesture it can't understand — should not —, but just like the expression in his eyes, it feels familiar, if distant.

"I remember that," it points, then attempts to recreate the gesture on Vespin's other hand. "I used to like it, I believe. I cannot know." In fact, not only is the metal of Tizón's body hard and unfeeling, but it is also pressing too hard for what is supposed to be a caress. "But you feel and remember. Do you like it?"

Then, it ponders. Sadness is an unpleasant feeling — it is meant to be. It wouldn't be punishment, otherwise. Tizón remembers feeling it, but having forgotten the origin of it, it no longer means anything to the hollow armor. In losing what made it hurt, it had become... defective, one could say.

      *      VIILEIN      /      ft.   vespin      —      “      a   little   awkward,   having   to   pretend   we   just   met.      ”

the   champion   of   asmodeus   nurses   a   bleeding   hole   where   his   ear   is   meant   to   be.         he   does   not   expect   vespin   chloras,   as   the   former   achmage   is   now,   to   speak.      zerxus   does   not   expect   words   of   any   sort   from   anyone,   save   asmodeus   these   days   .   .   .      or   those   who   beg   for   their   lives   in   the   surface   wars.

“      i   have   never   been   very   good   at   pretending,      ”            he   replies.            “      it   is   too   near   lying   for   my   taste.      ”

it’s funny, this weakness of his. vampires as typically known burned in the sun, cowered from the radiance of a cleric and shrieked when the light touched their skin. he was what another vampire he knew called a daywalker, an envious term that laid out what he could do: stand beneath the dawn and feel nothing but the warmth on his back.

his weakness was something more mundane, something so simple it was laughable. their trek had taken them eastward, towards a small town complaining of a nauseating stench over the entire town (it was enebish’s insistence, this time, to seek it out. ‘ for my monster hunting notes,’ he said.)

the source had been an enormous plant growing from a mass grave of victims of the zombies that roamed the countryside of darkon. taking it down with victor’s fire had been easy, but not before it had landed three terrible lashes of wide tendrils across enebish’s torso. his armor and shield had brunted the worst of the blows, but the last one had come down on his weapon arm and the poison leaking from the vines burned into his skin like it was actively eating him.

his magic did not come when called, because they had been on their feet for too long to bring the spells to fruition. he’s tired. the poison makes him even more tired. victor talks about the unreliability of the gods and enebish turns his head up to catch the fire in victor’s gaze.

“ my weakness keeps me mortal. i didn’t ask for this immortality, you know. ”

he pulls his arm back to press a hand to where the potion sinks into his skin, watching the flesh try and fail to knit itself back together. he needed a meal and some sleep first.

“ i don’t tend to ask big questions like who the gods are or how dare they act the way they do. i’ll never know -- how they think isn’t how we think. all i know is she spoke to me and asked of me a duty and i’ve carried that duty. ”

he shrugs with one shoulder, the one on the uninjured side, when victor asks what he’s still holding onto.

“ i don’t know. i just am. perhaps i’m just stubborn the same way you are whenever you refuse to let me heal your eye. it’s just a piece of myself that i’ve decided to hang onto. her voice is my voice. ”

he looks to the vial before he sighs.