#voidtouchedhearts

“En'othk uulg'shuul. Mh'za uulwi skshgn kar.”

The voice rang in his head a thousand times that night, probably even more. It was sinister, unnerving, unrelenting. It wanted him to do what it bid his child, to submit. He was going insane slowly, surely, the voices gradually taking over throughout the time spent at Farmer Brown’s place. The stench, the feeling on the air as the shadows crept over the land and washed over his form, clawing at his mind.

“Submit, falling child. Submit to all you have fought so fruitlessly against. Submit to your one true master. The Light shall never hear your prayers again.”

He remembered all he had done wrong in his life, all the things that led him to this very moment. Especially when he confronted Lledwyn and Demytrya of his crimes long past. Even the one he had never even shared to his lovers, the truth that he had killed his own father. Of course, in his mind it was for a more than just reason, but patricide was not something so easily forgiven. And he feared for retaliation on that, as well as other transgressions.

He remembered the sound of the knife tearing through skin and bone as he drove his blade down his father’s neck and through his heart. He remembered the betrayed look in his eyes, the final words just moments before. “Ailos...no..!” He recalled the sight of the blood curdling up through his father’s mouth and the feeling of relief as he threw the body from the ramparts of his keep. Victory was almost always sweet, but in that moment, he abhorred it.

“You were the instrument of all their demises. You could have saved them all with the power I offered you, boy. Will you take my gift now?”

He shut the thoughts away until he finally found himself in the arms of Zeirya that night, his arms around her tightly as they laid in her bed. She ended up falling asleep before he did, or at least he thought so. His hand ran through those crimson locks slowly, his eyes staring at the wall remembering the night in extreme detail, over and over again.

Plucking the seed of corruption from the ground, siphoning its power, controlling it of his own accord. Shutting the whispers of N’zoth from his mind and taking what was right in front of him, giving into his desires for control. His desire to see the Scions free o Brown’s scrutiny. And when he had used the shadows to expel Zeirya from the barrier they were contained in? He sated his desire to keep the one of the people he could not live without, safe.

“You, will, submit!” He had commanded the seed with a mind of its own, and it had listened. Doing as its new master commanded and receding its corruption back into itself fully, quickly giving it to Lledwyn for it to be sealed. It had all started so wrong, and ended up being so easy to control. That primal power of commanding the shadows with his very mind and fingertips, it was intoxicating.

When he was sure that Zeirya wouldn’t have been bothered, he untangled himself from her and rose to his feet. Stepping out of her room and out into the fields of Erudition. He stood at one of the hay bales in the field and looked at it with a scrutinous gaze trying to reason what he could manage to do. He rose his hand to it, focusing his very will to it and slowly the void crept along his arm. Swirling around the appendage and manifesting as a cloud of shadows at his fingertips.

He looked at his hand and took a slow breath, looking back to the hay bale. “Pierce.” He muttered softly, the shadows quickly reacting. They swirled and formed short needle like structures and shot out, extending as they did so. They pierced through the soft hay and tore at its center. “Banish.” He commanded the shadows again, they left his hand completely and wrapped around the bale in a sphere. After a second, they dissipated and faded away, leaving no trace of the hay bale or their existence.

Ailos looked to his hand in quiet fear of what he had become, but also in a hunger to become so much more. He could control this, he could be stronger with this than he had ever been with the Light. His lips curled into a grin as he came to this realization, whispering to himself. “And so the sworn to Light, shall fall.” He sighed the words out as if reaching euphoria, lifting his gaze to the sky and calming himself.

He stared at the stars for a long time, finally bringing himself back down to Azeroth and turning to walk back into Zei’s room. Sliding back into the bed with her, resuming their old position, and letting himself fall to sleep.

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In his sleep he found no rest or solace, the voices still plagued him. Even worse now that he had given into their corruption, no matter his level of control over it in such a short time. He was a paladin, a priest even, who had fallen from the Light. Whether it was divine retribution or the Void testing its new champion, he could not tell. But his night was cursed with a deep slumber, the memory of his first wife dying again to his own hand.

Her cold blue and dead eyes staring up at him, watching her head fall from her shoulders over and over again. The clouds of snow poofing up, her ichor like blood coating thick on his blades, staining his armor and his mind for an eternity. This had to be a punishment for everything he had done, there was no other explanation for it. All he could do was watch it happen repeatedly.

While in the real world he mumbled her name, screamed it at times. He could not be consoled by his lover, her touch keeping his mind intact, but not much further. He twitched violently, stirred and rolled in their bed, tears leaving his eyes. His chest heaving as he relived the battle, crying inaudibly in his slumber. Until finally as the sun’s first rays shined through the window and warmed his face, he shot up. Eyes alight in their fel fire, his body muggy with sweat. Panting, struggling to find breath.

“Iilth qi mah'shar…” Echoed through his mind as he finally realized where he was, the whispers fading away. Their presence no longer felt.

Sleep was impossible, it did not matter how hard Zeiyra tried. Her mind was alert, twisting over every thought that passed through. The darkness had taken over hours ago, and the room around her was... Silent, save for the sleeping breaths of the man beside her. It was strange how quickly her room at Erudition had become... Their room? Zeiyra had learned... So much about Ailos over the past few weeks, and now, he was planning on taking her to meet his sister... At his home. It was then, as she laid there beside him in the middle of the night.. That she realized he knew so little about her and where she came from. He'd basically given her a book about his grandfather and his family... All he knew was that she had a missing sister. Zei couldn't remember the last time that she had verbally announced her nobility, or her own story. So few knew of her past before the woods of Northrend... And for the first time... She was considering baring it all to someone... To him.

Slowly, Zei slipped out from around Ailos and out of the bed, moving in a slow, stalking manner to keep from disturbing him. He hadn't been sleeping well so seeing him actually sleeping peacefully, she didn't want to steal that from him with her own tossing and turning. Careful footsteps carried her through the room, collecting pieces of her clothing and her armor, periodically looking back to the bed to make sure that the sounds of the chain mail chiming didn't stir the male. It didn't take her long to dress herself, covering her limbs in the lace and chain mail she was so familiar with. A second skin to her. In a matter of minutes, Zei was once again dressed, her heavy boots clutched to her, she walked to the door and stopped. Her eyes fell on the intricately carved bow and quiver that were leaned into the corner by the door. Her brows knit as she looked back to the bed once more before she grabbed the bow and the quiver with her free hand and she slipped quietly out the door of their room, making her way to the grounds of Erudition.

Bare feet stepped into the dew covered grass outside and a soft, long sigh escaped her. Eyes closing, she took a deep breath and tilted her head back, smiling as the cool breeze of the night swirled around her. She dropped the bow, quiver, and her boots into the grass as she took a deep breath, looking skyward to the stars that danced above her. Her eyes swam through the night sky, darting from star to star, when something across the field of Erudition caught her eye. There, walking towards the hills and trees, was a glint of light. Zei narrowed her eyes through the darkness, then quickly grabbed her boots, shoving her feet into them before grabbed her bow and quiver. She began to jog, carefully, across the field, slipping her weapons over her shoulders.

Silly hunters and their damnable curiosities, always letting it get the better of them. That glint lured her from the safety of Erudition, and from the reaches of Ailos and the others. Deeper and deeper into the woods of Silverpine, causing the tall woman to slip between trees and tramp through brush to search for the source of the glint of the light. She didn't even realize that the light had lured her so far through Silverpine, that she was close to the western woods of Tirisfal, the hills raising around her as the trees became denser and denser before they were gone and she emerged into a clearing. An empty clearing. Slowly, Zei pulled her bow from her shoulder, holding it in her left hand as her right reached back for a single arrow, notching it carefully in its place before slowly advancing through the clearing towards the center.

“Curious little sparrow... Searching for his Light that I took? Do you want to see it? Do you want to save him as he saved you from me?”

The words were dreadfully quiet in her mind, the walls that Ailos had built still strong around her, keeping the voice of him at bay. “Silence yourself... Unless you want to alert him to your presence again and have him come to stop you again.” Zei grumbled back, outloud, unafraid to be seen talking to herself in the middle of the empty clearing. Now, realizing that it had been the will of him to bring her out here, Zei turned back towards where she'd come from and began to walk back towards the trees. “He will not reach us here, on the soil where darkness plays. You tread where demons of your mind play and where dreamers dance, but I promise you, his precious little Light, you will be safe here. Come, I know you are curious. Come look and touch the soils of my gift. It won't cost you much.”

Zei stopped in her tracks, just a few feet from the center of the clearing. She looked down at her feet, and the earth beneath them. Slowly, she slid the toes of her right boot over the dirt and grass, taking a deep breath. She could feel the walls tremble in her mind, her right arm slowly beginning to glow beneath her armor. “Nothing will stop him. He will beat you... And I will help him. Your tricks will not work on me... He will never let you win.” She mumbled the words, and that soft, distant laughter in her mind started to make itself known, the cracks in the walls starting to chip apart.

“Mortals. Always doing the most foolish things for people they... Love. Never could I have imagined two to find one another, and swear themselves to one another. But are you brave enough, little sparrow, to meet the desires that you seek? Why not pull the tricks out of my sleeve? Whatever you find can be yours, I will not stop it. If you hold my hand... I will set you free.”

Zei scoffed, shaking her head. She didn't realize that ever moment that she stood in that clearing, talking to his voice in her mind, that he was breaking a little more of those seals away from his cell in her mind. “I desire nothing. I have everything that I could ever want. You know nothing.” She snapped back, walking once more, faster this time, towards the trees on the edge of the clearing.

“Nothing? You do not wish to share his battle with him? You do not wish to fight off the evils with him? How can you do that... Without me? Stay, little sparrow. Stay here where good and bad do not exist. Here, I can grant you your every wish and desire. I can grant you my gift. Feast upon the fruit of the trees and the meat of the animals, huntress of darkness. Come, bathe in the eternal dreams. I offer you the chains of freedom, and you may keep them for eternity. You can save him. You can fall with him. Embrace my gift, child.”

That glow began to grow brighter, the pull of the void becoming stronger and stronger as it began to seep from the cracks in her seals, wrapping itself around her mind. Slowly, beneath the armor of her right arm, more runes began to etch themselves into her arm, filling in a part of her forearm that was still untouched. And it was as her feet stepped only a few feet from the border of the clearing that she stopped, her head coming up and her breath catching in her throat. “That is enough from you..” She hissed out, her brows knitting. “I do not need you to save him. I do not need you at all...”

“That was what your sister said... And then she embraced us. Just as he embraced us. Everyone you love in your life has accepted our gifts. Why will they not allow you to do the same? Do they think you are too weak to handle my gift? Do they think you will fall to your knees and bow before me? Prove them wrong, child... Let them know what kind of huntress you really are!”

The seals caved, crumbling to dust in her mind. She gasped as she felt her right arm spark to life, shadows and void coiling around it in a dark display. There was no burn or ache this time, only a pulse of power, thumping to the beat of her own heart's pace. Zei's eyes widened as she watched the magics swirl and dance around her forearm and hand, the long tendrils of violet snaking down around her arrow that she still held notched in the bow she held tightly on to. “All Light fades to darkness. Without Light, there is no darkness. With no darkness... There is only void. The fire has been extinguished and from it, a phoenix of darkness born from the ash of the Light. Anger will unfold, it is resting in your bones. A bitterness of sorrow. His dark sun will light a silhouette, from which you will burn if you do not fight back. You will lose him. Accept!”

The howls around the clearing echoed in her ears, silencing the voice and snapping her attention forward. She spun on her toes, pulling the arrow back on its string. Fel-fire eyes flashed, a violet smoke creeping into her orbs unknowingly as her eyes darted around the perimeter. “Left.” Her body pivoted and her arrow flew before she could see what she aimed for, piercing through the right eye of a wolf, who let out a yelp before falling to the ground. “Behind you!”Again, she spun, pulling another arrow and notching it as she moved, releasing it once again before her eyes had chance to settle on the wolf that was merely feet away from her. The arrow whizzed through the air and pierced through the wolf's throat, dropping it instantly.

But those violet shadows around her arm were now encasing her bow and every arrow drawn into it, giving a haunting look to her as she shot what looked to be bolts of shadow through the air. And her eyes now glowed a deep, shadowy purple. It was then that she felt it, her ears beginning to perk. Her hearing became overly sensitive, the sounds of paws running through brush pulling her attention to a shadow between two trees across the field. And her eyes, they saw the alpha wolf as if her eyes were those of the predator, granting her the ability to see the animal perfectly in the dark, as if it were day time.

That last arrow flew from her bow, whizzing through the air towards the larger wolf. As it neared though, the shadows around the arrow broke off into pieces, creating four more arrows in the air, created solely of the magic from her arm. Two arrows veered to the right, two more to the left, and as that solitary, tangible arrow slammed into the muscle of the wolf's front leg, the other four flew at it from the sides, ripping through fur and flesh in the sides of the wolf's throat and sides. The wolf ran only a few feet further before it, too, fell to the ground, leaving Zeiyra standing there, staring.

Slowly, the violet in her eyes peeled away, allowing the green to emerge once again. Her vision slowly returned to normal, causing her to peer through the darkness of the night once more.

“And so the hunted becomes the hunter once more. Accept, child. Become the true Huntress of Darkness... The Sparrow and the Raven, born from ashes of the void...”

Zei took a deep breath, holding it until her lungs burned. Her eyes were still locked on the dark silhouette of the wolf she'd just killed, her ears twitching as she fought to hear the world around her. Slowly, her bow finally lowered, and her eyes fell to the earth beneath her feet. She didn't know that now, her forearm, held those Shath'yar runes in more places that it had when she had walked into that field. Now, her entire forearm was covered, from wrist to elbow, with his words. The corruption was... Threatening and tempting, at all the same time. With a heavy sigh, Zei tilted her head back and she looked skyward, her eyes focusing on the stars above her once again. A single, solitary thought finally crept to her mind. “Ailos...”

With a turn and a jolt, she rushed forward, out of the clearing, and back through the forests to Erudition. It wasn't until she was back at the door to their room and was slipping quietly back inside that she heard that final, barely audible word in her mind.

“Accept.”