#void-touched

GLOW prompts: Eyes

Cursed! Writing Prompts

The night deepened in the Ledgermaine on the singular night of whiskey confessional, and much of those that had shared and taken their shots found their own tables and their own company, leaving Safrona alone in her booth. It was a time too tempting, given over to a few more tastes of bourbon than she perhaps should have, but gods, was it needed. Staring into a section of the curtained booth until it was liable that her eyes would burn into the silken shadow, she knew she had gone overboard when she realized the darkness seemed to be taking shape, forming into the visage of a man to sit across her. 

Initially, she met the silhouette with a slow curve of a knowing smile, presuming her late visitor to be her Orchid. “Miss me already?” She teased breathily, warm on whiskey, “Or the Scotch?” But the face that stared out at her was...wrong. Meticulously carved, it stared back at her like cold stone kissed by the Void. The cold cut of a smile came to his face in return as she fought back her whiskey daze and realized her mistake. “You...aren’t who I thought you were.”

“I am not.” His simple refrain bore an almost metallic echo, a hiss of breath in the wake of each sentence. “But we may become better acquainted, Courier.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “No, no lovely boy. I’m no courier here. This is not business. Confessional only.” She began to pour a finger’s worth of bourbon for the stranger, her Brother in the Void, and lifted it toward him in offering.

“Is it?” the Void Stranger confirmed, taking the bourbon into the grip of a supple leather-bound hand. “Then will you confess?”

“Me...?” Safrona echoed with a laugh. “It’s usually the other way around but..., I’ll indulge you. What am I confessing?”

With the same cooled grin, the Stranger murmured. “A wish of yours. What do you most wish for at this moment in your life?”

“Ohh, that’s easy,” Safrona blurted, feeling all her day’s little madnesses and complaints she’d bottled under the professional refrain of the Courier bubble out of her like a flow of champagne finally released of its pressure. “The fighting. The war. I’d like everyone to find their damn peace already.”

“In this room? Perhaps it is their differences, their flaws, the inferiority of not Knowing that makes the conflict inside wage on with all else. A flaw of the un-evolved. But no. Tonight it is different. The drink has them pacified, does it not?”

“Un-evolved.” Safrona chuckled softly to herself. Was she hearing this man right? “Are you saying I should keep them all drunk all the time?” Safrona was entirely amused by the thought. “No, for some of them, it makes the fighting worse, trust me.”

“Yet... listen. There are no words of hate, no battle standards risen, no wardrums tonight.” Truly, it had become quiet, a hush falling outside of her booth. “All are content. Complacent. The world, the spheres beyond, it is made for those like you and I. Not them. And like the base animals they are, they can be made sedate in our wake. Peaceful. Understand?”

“...what are you even..?” Something in the Void-Touched visitor sounded wrong, sent a shiver of wrong down her spine, but she could not keep her eyes open anymore. The glass of bourbon slipped her fingers, spilling amber across her booth. Something was wrong. So wrong.

“What do I mean? I will show you.” His voice was a metallic whisper against her ear as her consciousness flat-lined, sinking into a poisoned sleep.

“Rejoice, and be at peace. Just as you wished.”

He could feel it at his center. The Fragment of Void and its limitless potential. He knew how to control it, but only barely. He needed time. Time to study it even further, learn its nuances and secrets. Eventually, he believed, he could master it as well as he had the Will. He just needed time...

But time was not something he had. The Void Fragment was continually dissolving all souls he captured, and slowly, very slowly, dissolving his Will. He would need a continuous supply of souls to keep his Will intact, unless...unless, he were to find a Host. An empty shell to possess, one strong enough to withstand the deconstruction process long enough for him to figure out  how to halt it completely. But what being possessed such a shell in Lordran?