Chapter Nineteen: Meeting
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Waking I lay motionless, a constant fierce sound of rushing. And again, the weight of force like a torrent pounding an immovable wall came over me, this time with taste of salt. The sensation lapsed in and out of my vague consciousness, a prickly feeling I couldn't quite discern from were; was I dead? An unshakable darkness shrouded me, only the rhythmic force bellowed in each clash bound me to wakefulness and the moments of salt trickling my lips.
It... Was a drone of forces at work a calm I dared not linger, if to abate my weakness to stay. Something ran along me, in this dark, the reoccurring sensations and sounds laid fore me a tapestry not of sight but sound. Rolling over each other endlessly in an open expanse of deep blue, the noise reverberated crashing like that of a hundred warhammers against a maw of rocks. Kin to spikes ready to skewer any folly, the roaring tide spraying became cold drops caressing my skin.
Wake up.
A voice bellowed in my mind, my body slid muck wet stone; unable to grasp reality that tore at my dwindling senses, the voice came upon me again. I tried to respond, and tried again, as I realized the fading fog, settled by coughing up ocean water. Vision returned, I leaned over almost collapsing as shivering cold ran slick down my back. My arms felt as iron, barely able to adjust to the darkness around me. Eroded but smooth rock, to my side a theme of ramming waves against an embankment of cliff. pelting where I laid in trickles of salt. The mind stood muddled as I came to the scenery around me, my clothing resembled more bedsheets of bundled rags drenched and stuck to my skin, blood pooling beneath me.
Raging emotion swirled, my mind turned flashes of images and reasoning came in quick bursts of my recollection, yet the burning pain cared little and before I had time to asses my vision stirred. my eyes wandered to the corners of the surroundings, instinctively without consent. Something within far stone, beyond the dribbling water had shifted. A reflective sheen peered back at me in that quick moment I caught a glimpse. Dismayed to the healthy state of my mind, the eyes due to play tricks but I had luck just for it to be real.
The shadows seemed alive as I took it in. My straining eyesight barely able to register the tiny changes, perhaps not if every so often soft crumbles and rock hadn't fell around this anomaly. Pounding and waves came at my side, while I blankly stared in creeping anxiety at the unknown, the rising beat struck more. Looking down to my now quivering body, shaking from the cold or bloodloss I didn't know. Regardless of it all, the thumping refused to cease despite my plea, but as I glanced to my sides the crashing of water had stopped. As I came to realize it was my own echoing heart.
My knees buckled, heaving forward I caught the fall. Meeting the ground once more pain surfaced all over my body as the shock lessened, bloodstained and wet. The aching memories and wounds called back to me as I lay- But my attention kept to my surrounding as a distant noise rolled closer. Red.. It was an apple tumbling out from the dark. It was out of place amongst staggered rock and salty air, nay had its presence stopped my bubbling anxiety for the briefest moments; I felt as if my heart would've burst as it's companion followed. Causing a part of my mind wishing I had gone blind. Just so my eyes didn't reflect void itself.
Then darkness spoke, from my trance state I somehow understood,
"Eat.." ...Bellowing like thunder, I couldn't move. Trying to speak my words fell short, till I edged back did the force dissipate.
"What-." Again my speech left me, like I was paralyzed. The darkness huffed...
"Death lingers on you. Eat."
The apple nudged closer as it spoke, hitting my hand.
"Eat. Then rest."
Almost invading my mind kin to a command, perhaps it somehow was, my body and will bending to it. I couldn't deny the words.
..
It's dark form encompassed my sight, despite what seemed as if I looked through red, turbulent varying blur my vision was clear; a jet black sheen that resembled scale, arching over into a wider sly form. Legless it was like a wall- No, A pillar which adorned piercing eyes. Gaping upwards my body was made dwarf opening its mouth, striking razor like teeth. And a flicking tongue. From up high, it's constant stare looked like pity, but in certainty there was no denying. If it wanted me dead I'd be.. A trembling feeling rose in me, and I couldn't resist, as I took the apple, my mouth acting on pure instinct.
Biting, my body yearned for it, all the same it remained vigilant over me. Disrupting any semblance of normalcy I once thought it's actions defying what it was. As I ate my stomach turned, a rising jolt of heat coursed through me. It was a warm feeling and welcoming one, unknown and no doubt obscene, I felt safe breaths away from the beast. My senses slowly drifted off yet. I remained content, I didn't know why but It didn't want to devour me..
In only that could I take solace.
...
Freywyn was a terrace of hills, it rested and fell on numerous inclines. Leading up a flight of stairs, hundreds of steps in a straight path made it difficult to remain hidden by one you subtly pursue. Still Ceron pressed onward, his gaze distant and unassuming not that passerby's saw anything but a mask. But a slouch and demeanor to be overlooked, side the dozen levels and alleyways Beth had finally turned past a level below, a winding street that met with adjacent buildings on either side. Windswept his billowing coat as Ceron overlooked from above, a vantage the narrow passages scantly allowed. Asriel had beckoned at the edges of his mind, a vestige- Corralling waking thoughts into a perversion of Ceron's own.
To strengthen the mind, or purge the lesser within. To let it take course was an ambiguity Ceron could not risk, to loose a part of yourself becoming one with another. A piece of you, lost an gone but never knowing truly why, a dementia of recollection shapeless a body like vessel void of emotion. The mind was not meant to meld, most would become hollow. Nevertheless, Ceron had taken a vow, to restore this body and mind. To any force withstanding, whom impede that goal, will be dealt with the same justification as a roach beneath a boot.
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Doubly so if said force had a deep connection to Asriel's past. The muddled memories came in a rising tide set between footfalls and dancing shadows, the night of the boy's torture and the seal' whittled down by Asriel's own blood. These memories were the boy's own, had he not pieced the clues or was Asriel too naive? Ceron grimaced, "Beth, was captured presumedly, by those whom took you Asriel, the very same demanding you sign a magical oath of forfeiting noble claim." Vying to achieve, her own stake? Ceron could only assume, any sisterly image was a falsehood of memory.
The sun bore, cooking Ceron's backside his shirt slick against skin minutes had past, counting down since Beth had entered a far shop it had been just under the fifteen mark. Just as patience thinned, flashes of light danced, a sickening yellow lit up brick barely obscured by the shopfront. An alleyway that hugged the building's rear, letting curiosity dig Ceron jumped from his perch, lead one foot to the next.
'Do you have a plan?' Asriel worry lingered, his semblance of consciousness not yet faded, 'And does it primarily involve violence?'
Only if it requires it, Ceron subtly smiled "Not particularly." The buildings formed a blockade of wall, a thicket of metal barb lining tops of rails, not wasting any time Ceron went for the direct route. The shop's light was dimmed a wooden building embellished with words unknown. Rotted shelves and chairs sat just outside, a welcoming disposition. Ceron scanned the outside in quick glances, turned to open the door- It was wedged shut, bending under his weight. Looking side himself Ceron knocked, parring a respectful courtesy none answered.
A second thought tickled his noise, a tinge of piss and notably blood.
Not the wisest of decisions, but Ceron hadn't the time or resource to dally with looming concerns. More reason than any, baring no soul down the derelict path, no one would mind another broken door surely. Just a bit of force, the brittle door handle snapped off, Ceron stepped back, kicking the door down as he approached. A stream of dust, blood and piss pooled under a lying corpse of a woman, but that had not stopped Ceron's stride, no the blond hair in a fritz just over the obese woman's body. Holding a knife coated in the same woman's entrails, slowly dripping off it.
Beth looked up, "I was attacked" she said with a deadpan, the blade hand against her forehead in exasperation. Her fickle facade faltered as Ceron drew in a sigh, a brief but draining silence; shattered by the creak of wood toward an obscured corner, a click later Ceron threw himself backward an arrow pierced past his cloak and far wall. Beth dove headfirst, capitalizing on the confusion her knife primed for the throat. Her strike fell short, as Ceron with the same force of bashing in the door prior reared a kick to Beth's sternum. She folded crashing into the floorboards dozens of feet away dropping the knife, by the second click and drawing of string Ceron grabbed a lying chair and threw it intercepting the projectile and attacker.
The mask lit a life, the shadows receded even without darksight the muffled gasp of pain was evident enough, the chair splintered a chunk finding purchase in the attacker's shoulder. Ceron pressed his advantage, there was only one, the cloaked attacker struggled on the floor tearing the chair off themselves a tad too late as Ceron's boot met their head. The attacker fell back unconscious, a far door slammed and Beth's limp figure was gone.
Cursing himself Ceron ran toward the door, in moments had flung it open to be met with a vacant courtyard of winding paths. Twisting in opposite directions, she could have ran down any of them. "Beth..." Ceron involuntarily muttered, unbeknownst to himself. She was cunning and fast, a deadly combination. Turning inside, the shop was a decrepit storehouse of books, the lying woman Ceron passed over to make of in a moment, Beth's unconscious comrade a more pressing issue.
Ceron's mind was frayed with confusion a fractured point of view, one deemed of sisterly betrayal and other of the lying corpse, what was to gain? Ceron stood over the unconscious figure, shrouded in red cloak and cowl without reservation tore it off; greenish pale and pointed ears, slimy skin. Repugnant, Ceron bunched his nose at rotting inlaid garlic within the man-- Goblin's tunic. Beth comrade in arms with a gremlin?
A half breed no doubt, outcast from both of its parent and victimized. Wretched goblins had the insatiable ability to reproduce mocking rats, could impregnate almost anything with two legs willing or not. All dominated with goblin sheen sneer and vile. They of course had ability themselves, just as it was Ceron apathetically mused, though this goblin wears clothes its baser instinct corralled, it would behoove anyone to find any rational. By the ears, it could only be of elven blood.
'I haven't seen this goblin before, if any.' Asriel supplemented the forming question, his voice distant.
'Beth... Couldn't hurt a fly, I- had to stop kittens from bullying her once.'
...
A ring necklace of teeth and thumbs too large for any adult. Ceron had seen enough, strapping down the goblin's belongings a crude short sword and crossbow, a bundle of bolts pilfering them leaving all else. Those green hands needn't them anymore, drawing the goblin's own blade Ceron pierced the heart. Jolting awake, Ceron held him down a defying eye-wide fury quickly dulled, to a resolved death stare till his end. A soft gasp, the goblin parted from this world... A sense of emotion bit at the back of Ceron's mind.
"Would you rather I had not?"
'No, the goblin deemed to slew us. Once the pang of the crossbow's string rang out he had made his intent clear' Asriel spoke, his conviction, a resolve abash with emotion.
Ceron grunted, "There just may be hope for you after all.' To show weakness in face of opposition meant a quick death, never count on mercy of an enemy.
"At which point had you come to realize, how distant the image of your sister was from reality?' Had it been the moment her blade came inches to our throat?" How blind could one have been, Ceron may have images of a past figments of recollection through fogged glass-- But he held no imparting relation, whom face meant what and why. The emotion twisted to mostly indecipherable whispers... The question waned as silence snared thought, Ceron had felt the surprise and anguish turn at Asriel's sight of his sister. Burdensome, but not deceit having tortured enough to know a little about veiled truths Ceron was confident there was something more, perhaps more than Asriel himself knew.
A decrepit shop, narrow hovel of surroundings a vacant alley in disarray. All together begged reasons why, how-come Beth had pranced over here, a mere diversion a deal gone bad or some other twisted reason? The sudden foray, kicking of the door had startled Beth enough, her compatriot a convenient pairing of time and place, led Ceron he belief of his presence anticipated. Failing to see anyone but her, the conclusion of a fellow just out of sight was plausible. Not that Ceron wished to claim his mastery on stealth, it would be disadvantageous to claim no fault.
But if one expected an adversary, why dally yourself with murdering this portly woman? Surely she would have served better a hostage or timed distraction, Ceron pursed his lips standing over the deceased in question. Marred with several blade cuts to the chest and arm, it had been done quick, judging from the high quality dress this was not her shop. Nothing on her person side a broken staff, a fallout between comrades seemed more likely, if at all relevant any information was better than none. However as time progressed, the mountain of concerns grew with no sense of resolution.
Like chimes in the wind, Ceron focused his mind and took stock. The dull emptiness of the shop receded, mere annoyance as the situation was a helplessness. A Lowly emotion replaced with rage and lust to regain the lost. What was his.
"In accordance Asriel, releasing me from my seal. You accepted your life forfeited it into my hands, to shape and will as I please' To end those and make them suffer for what they sowed. Not for some soft material worth, or idealistic dream but blood.
Even if your own family turned against you."
"I will shed them no sympathy, and you Asriel be prudent to do the same."
...
Dubious as the shop was, Ceron doubted many would rat themselves out, beckoning all to a murder scene-- Assuming we're dealing with the sane. The woman's body was still warm, her staff and robes a sign of magical alignment, to the degree of her prowess. Well, she had died a rather pitiful death Ceron garnered it wouldn't be much, if anything would come.
To summon a demon.