Dryad Eyes #54
2,642.
A nearly complete rewrite of a post I tried to start two months ago.
Erek was falling.
For how long and from where were things that he could not say. It happened when he was parting company with Haron and Charis, laughing to himself over the soldier’s audacity. Stepping into the dark passage between ‘here’ and ‘there,’ a path that had opened itself to him on the night of his rebirth, he found things not as they should have been. Rather than permitting him to take but a step and a half to reach his distant destintion, he felt himself slow. He felt himself stop. Then he was weightless and, though no air flowed past him, he felt himself falling.
Finally, after passed an eternity, he plunged into a pool of water. It hurt, terribly, though pain no longer terribly troubled him. Slowly, as his senses cleared, he realized that what he had thought was water was not any sort of liquid at all. It was the very fabric of reality, the essence of existence. Moving from a realm of infinite nothing to one where everything was something, Erek decided, felt very much like plunging into a cold, shallow lake from a great height.
A deep breath, not needed but still incredibly sweet, flooded his lungs. It felt good to feel. Finally, collecting his composure, he raised himself up and onto his elbows to take stock of his situation. He lay in the center of a large, circular symbol that had been drawn in the middle of a large, empty room with stone walls and floor. All along the outside edge of that circular design were twelve candles. Each candle was tended by a hooded person in purple robes, and each robed figure wore a familiar ornate dagger hung from their necks by a golden chain. They were, all of them, Attendants of the Angry God. They were also largely irrelevant. Erek’s attention was fixed on the thirteenth man, who sat in the thirteenth position, and was staring at him with cold, angry eyes.
“Endek?” The demon’s tone was both angry and incredulous. It was not a creature that particularly liked surprises. Certainly, any being that was newly born into such extreme supernatural powers, would not enjoy any sign that there were forces still beyond his control. Still, the anger faded quickly and the beginnings of a smirk were born at the corners of the wicked creature’s mouth. “My own brother--?”
From beneath her hood, Sister Elara Fiortu watched with a sense of trepidation and pride as Endek answered the thing’s challenge. His voice, deep and beautiful and always booming no matter how softly he tried to speak, betrayed nothing of the conflict that she knew he felt concerning the creature. “No. My brother is dead, murdered by an assassin. You are an abomination, an unclean thing risen in his body by some vile power. I will visit retribution on both once I have dealt with you.”
“Oh, it is so very nice to see you too,” Erek’s smirk grew into a full fledged grin as he crawled across the circle, drawing as near to the man that he recognized as his sibling as he could. “What game are you playing at, Brother?”
Endek’s lips thinned, and anger stole onto his face. The demon’s determination to acknowledge their former relationship had achieved the desired effect of getting under his skin. However, as much as it infuriated him, he would not rise to the occasion and allow his temper to be trigged. Elara had spent hours preparing him for this, and though she was worried for a moment, she was reassured that all would be well when he met her eyes over the demon’s shoulder and gave her a slow nod.
To her credit, she thought, she did not smile.
“This is no game, ’Brother.’” Endek was saying. “I merely wished to have a look at the thing that you have become… to look you in the eye before I end you. Our family has suffered enough shame--”
“--because of me?” Erek mocked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He raised a hand to his chest for dramatic effect as he cackled. “Please. This isn’t about honor. It’s about guilt. You’re pissed off because somebody else manned up and got to me first. Isn’t that right? Dear Brother, our family remembers me as a hero! They don’t know the things you know about me, or how you spent years condoning my every… heh… sin with your silence--”
“Your lies--”
“--from the very day I murdered dear old Dad and passed the blame off on that idiot, innocent girl.”
“--WILL NOT SWAY ME!” Endek bellowed, and Erek laughed at him. Elara watched them closely. The slightly sick feeling in her stomach told her that there was something to what the demon was saying. Too raw was the nerve it touched, and took quickly had Endek reacted to deny it. No amount of awareness or preparation for what would be said could prevent such words from getting under a man’s skin. The truth was like that.
But, Elara chided herself, what truth? A creature such as this could take something relatively minor, even innocent, and twist it into something as horrible as a person had ever heard. She knew this, and she would not judge a man that she had come to… admire as much as Endek on the word of a demon.
Erek had fallen back, his writhing, nude body arched while his knees and shoulders touched the floor, and was laughing hysterically. It was more than unnerving. It was vile. It was repulsive. His amusement was the wretched sound of every found villain in every story that Elara had ever read cheering in unison. “It was you! All of it! This! The Angry God!” The demon interrupted his lewd display to say. “You remembered that I was so, so, so afraid of those stories as a child, so you found a local chapter and came after me! You took Bawo! Heh… haha… heh… is he still alive, by the way? Not that it matters. I hardly need him anymore.”
With his eyes narrowed and full of spite, Endek growled his response. “You arrogant fool. An abomination such as you needs all of what help it can find to shield it from the power of righteous--”
“Why, O Brother-mine? What, are you going to sic another minor deity on me?” Erek’s tongue, forked as a snake’s, flicked out to lick at the tip of one of the sharp, black and gleaming talons that tipped his fingers. “I suggest you come up with a better plan. I tasted real power recently, so raw and monumental that it made the Angry God’s little light show look like a cheap carnival’s fireworks.”
“Big words coming from a demon,” a voice from somewhere in the circle muttered. Elara winced. While not strictly forbidden, they had agreed, going into this, to allow Endek to handle as much of the interaction as they possibly could. It was etiquette. This thing used to be his brother, after all. “The Angry God--”
“--never broke an entire planet, and doesn’t taste nearly as sweet.” Erek was looking at the person who spoke, a young man by the name of Maldo, and licked his lips menacingly.
“I have plenty of options still open to me,” Endek interrupted the exchange before it could continue, shooting a brief and venomous look at the young man. “You know this. After all, was it not I who made our years as mercenaries not only possible, but profitable? You--”
“--’would never have managed to kill even a Dryad if not for me.’” Erek mocked his brother with a falsetto voice, bugging his black eyes and bobbing his blonde head from side-to-side. It was as comical as it was horrific, the nature of the being making this joke making it seem out of place and unnerving. It made Elara’s skin began to crawl. “So there it is then. You’re real problem isn’t with anything that I did as a mortal, nor with what I have become. You could adjust to the latter as easily as you did the former. What really bothers you, what gets under your skin, is that I don’t need you anymore. You know that you can’t make it on your own without your charismatic brother to sell your talents.”
Elara’s heart went out to Endek for the indignation and, yes, hurt that crossed his face. He was proud of his work his brother, of his contributions, and though he knew to expect no kindness from this creature it still stung him to hear these things spoken in Erek’s voice.
“I really can’t wait to kill you,” was the only response the still mortal brother could muster.
“You break my heart.” Erek giggled, and climbed to his feet. His jovial manner did little to hide his contempt for the man facing him. “I’m wounded. Hurt. If you insist on being rude, I believe I will take my leave.”
“And how will you do that?” Endek countered, indulging himself in a small, cold smile. “In case you did not notice, you stand in the heart of a confinement circle.”
“Oh, my poor, sweet, stupid Brother. You are in so far over your head.” Erek cooed at him. “All of these extra people, all of their faith, doesn’t make it anything more than it was. We used these circles to capture stray slepy, and to prevent the occasional magician from throwing charms while being properly executed. But those magicians never did more than scare a few peasants, and a slepy is a minor demon.”
“As if you are something so much greater…”
“Ah, sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Brother. You’re not clever enough for it. That is, of course, part of you charm.” Turning away from his fuming brother, the demon walked to the opposite side of the circle where Elara sat. Her heart hammered in her chest as he knelt before her, and met her blue eyes with his deep, deep black ones. “Isn’t that right, Elara? That is why you went to him last night, isn’t it? Because he’s charming.“
That the devil had divined her name was not unexpected. It was, in fact, common. These kinds of creatures always attacked the people who tried to contain them on a personal level. That was part of what made them so dangerous. They could manipulate people into doing things, terrible things, and fed on the emotional fallout. It would use everything and anything it could glean from the surface of a person’s mind against them. With that in mind, it perhaps should not have been quite so surprising that it would hit on her tryst with Endek, but she was stunned all the same.
“LEAVE HER BE!” Endek roared from his side of the circle, his voice stern, concerned, but largely impotent. So long as he intended to maintain the circle without banishing the creature from their sight, which would be dangerous in and of itself, he had to remain where he was. They all did. The most he could do, really, was raise his voice, and everyone, everything, involved knew it.
“To think,” Erek spoke smoothly, confidently, as he casually examined one of his talons. “You’ve always been such a good girl. Steering clear of trouble, staying true to your vows, protecting your virtue…. Well. Right up until last night, when a few sweet words was all it took to part your thighs.”
The demon’s voice was intoxicating. Like some kind of sweet alcohol, it went directly to one’s head and deadened their senses. Then, even the language used lost meaning, and the victim would be lost to the direct flow of whatever intention lay behind those words unless he or she had something powerful to cling to. Elara had heard of such experiences, but until that moment had never had one for herself. What brought her back was Endek’s voice. Big, kind, strong, gentle, complicated Endek and his loud protests in her name, demanding Erek’s attention. He had already lost so much to this monster, she decided, even before it took it’s present form. Her name would not be added to that list, not like this. She lifted a hand toward him.
“I can speak for myself,” Elara’s voice was loud, shaking but firm. It was a close call, but she had made it back to herself. Even so, she could still feel the demon’s hateful power, the very essence of all that it was, tugging at the corners of her mind, trying to unravel her once again. Locking eyes once more with Erek, she said this. “What passed between Endek and I does not concern you is very much none of your business, very much like whatever issue my God may take with me over my broken vows. It does not matter. Today, I will maintain my candle. But please, do continue trying if you like. You will find that this puppet’s strings will not be so easily pulled again.”
“Mmm.” The demon gazed at her, long and thoughtfully. That glimmer of actual interest that crept into it’s dark eyes was more frightening to Elara than anything else that she imagined it could have said or done in that moment. Still, however, she clung to her duty, to her Endek, and did not allow herself to be moved. She steeled herself. She could vomit later.
“You know, you really might be something special one day. I haven’t encountered a will quite like yours since my last visit with Geran himself. I would love to take you in hand so that I might spend the time and energy breaking you just to see what makes people like you tick.” His words were very serious, even solemn. However, the wicked, many-sharp-toothed grin that split his face a mere heartbeat later was not. “Too bad, though. It seems your old friend Toi, there, is not made of stuff quite as stern as you are.”
Too late, her gaze snapped from Erek to the figure on her right. Toi was a good man, the youngest son of a line of farmers that stretched back for several generations. Being the youngest of six children, five of whom were boys, he had never stood a chance of inheriting the family farm. That was how he wound up studying alongside the Attendants of the Angry God. Elara had never known him to be bitter or angry over that. He had always been bright eyed and hopeful, full of an exuberance for life that was unmatched by any of their Brothers or Sisters. She had even kissed him once, a long time ago, because she had become swept up in his excitement over the good work that their order was doing that it had seemed the right thing to do at the time. Everyone did.
That was not the person she found sitting beside her. Toi, whose last name was not given but to his closest of friends, had pushed his hood back, exposing his close cropped brown hair to the candlelight. His face was flushed, as if from shame, or possibly anger. Perhaps both. His eyes were swollen as if from crying. For a long time, he stared down at his candle. Then, finally, he lifted his chin and met the demon’s gaze.
“You told me the truth.” Toi croaked.
“I did, didn’t I?” Erek agreed, his voice full of pride. “You loved her all that time, you’ve been there for her, you’ve tried sooo hard, for so long… and all this sudden she gives it up to--”
“I heard.” Came the bitter, broken reply before the demon could finish. Taking a long, shuddering breath, Toi raised his candle and looked over at Elara one last time. “I-I’m sorry.”
“Toi, don’t--!”
“Goodbye.” He blew out his candle.
A nearly complete rewrite of a post I tried to start two months ago.
Erek was falling.
For how long and from where were things that he could not say. It happened when he was parting company with Haron and Charis, laughing to himself over the soldier’s audacity. Stepping into the dark passage between ‘here’ and ‘there,’ a path that had opened itself to him on the night of his rebirth, he found things not as they should have been. Rather than permitting him to take but a step and a half to reach his distant destintion, he felt himself slow. He felt himself stop. Then he was weightless and, though no air flowed past him, he felt himself falling.
Finally, after passed an eternity, he plunged into a pool of water. It hurt, terribly, though pain no longer terribly troubled him. Slowly, as his senses cleared, he realized that what he had thought was water was not any sort of liquid at all. It was the very fabric of reality, the essence of existence. Moving from a realm of infinite nothing to one where everything was something, Erek decided, felt very much like plunging into a cold, shallow lake from a great height.
A deep breath, not needed but still incredibly sweet, flooded his lungs. It felt good to feel. Finally, collecting his composure, he raised himself up and onto his elbows to take stock of his situation. He lay in the center of a large, circular symbol that had been drawn in the middle of a large, empty room with stone walls and floor. All along the outside edge of that circular design were twelve candles. Each candle was tended by a hooded person in purple robes, and each robed figure wore a familiar ornate dagger hung from their necks by a golden chain. They were, all of them, Attendants of the Angry God. They were also largely irrelevant. Erek’s attention was fixed on the thirteenth man, who sat in the thirteenth position, and was staring at him with cold, angry eyes.
“Endek?” The demon’s tone was both angry and incredulous. It was not a creature that particularly liked surprises. Certainly, any being that was newly born into such extreme supernatural powers, would not enjoy any sign that there were forces still beyond his control. Still, the anger faded quickly and the beginnings of a smirk were born at the corners of the wicked creature’s mouth. “My own brother--?”
From beneath her hood, Sister Elara Fiortu watched with a sense of trepidation and pride as Endek answered the thing’s challenge. His voice, deep and beautiful and always booming no matter how softly he tried to speak, betrayed nothing of the conflict that she knew he felt concerning the creature. “No. My brother is dead, murdered by an assassin. You are an abomination, an unclean thing risen in his body by some vile power. I will visit retribution on both once I have dealt with you.”
“Oh, it is so very nice to see you too,” Erek’s smirk grew into a full fledged grin as he crawled across the circle, drawing as near to the man that he recognized as his sibling as he could. “What game are you playing at, Brother?”
Endek’s lips thinned, and anger stole onto his face. The demon’s determination to acknowledge their former relationship had achieved the desired effect of getting under his skin. However, as much as it infuriated him, he would not rise to the occasion and allow his temper to be trigged. Elara had spent hours preparing him for this, and though she was worried for a moment, she was reassured that all would be well when he met her eyes over the demon’s shoulder and gave her a slow nod.
To her credit, she thought, she did not smile.
“This is no game, ’Brother.’” Endek was saying. “I merely wished to have a look at the thing that you have become… to look you in the eye before I end you. Our family has suffered enough shame--”
“--because of me?” Erek mocked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He raised a hand to his chest for dramatic effect as he cackled. “Please. This isn’t about honor. It’s about guilt. You’re pissed off because somebody else manned up and got to me first. Isn’t that right? Dear Brother, our family remembers me as a hero! They don’t know the things you know about me, or how you spent years condoning my every… heh… sin with your silence--”
“Your lies--”
“--from the very day I murdered dear old Dad and passed the blame off on that idiot, innocent girl.”
“--WILL NOT SWAY ME!” Endek bellowed, and Erek laughed at him. Elara watched them closely. The slightly sick feeling in her stomach told her that there was something to what the demon was saying. Too raw was the nerve it touched, and took quickly had Endek reacted to deny it. No amount of awareness or preparation for what would be said could prevent such words from getting under a man’s skin. The truth was like that.
But, Elara chided herself, what truth? A creature such as this could take something relatively minor, even innocent, and twist it into something as horrible as a person had ever heard. She knew this, and she would not judge a man that she had come to… admire as much as Endek on the word of a demon.
Erek had fallen back, his writhing, nude body arched while his knees and shoulders touched the floor, and was laughing hysterically. It was more than unnerving. It was vile. It was repulsive. His amusement was the wretched sound of every found villain in every story that Elara had ever read cheering in unison. “It was you! All of it! This! The Angry God!” The demon interrupted his lewd display to say. “You remembered that I was so, so, so afraid of those stories as a child, so you found a local chapter and came after me! You took Bawo! Heh… haha… heh… is he still alive, by the way? Not that it matters. I hardly need him anymore.”
With his eyes narrowed and full of spite, Endek growled his response. “You arrogant fool. An abomination such as you needs all of what help it can find to shield it from the power of righteous--”
“Why, O Brother-mine? What, are you going to sic another minor deity on me?” Erek’s tongue, forked as a snake’s, flicked out to lick at the tip of one of the sharp, black and gleaming talons that tipped his fingers. “I suggest you come up with a better plan. I tasted real power recently, so raw and monumental that it made the Angry God’s little light show look like a cheap carnival’s fireworks.”
“Big words coming from a demon,” a voice from somewhere in the circle muttered. Elara winced. While not strictly forbidden, they had agreed, going into this, to allow Endek to handle as much of the interaction as they possibly could. It was etiquette. This thing used to be his brother, after all. “The Angry God--”
“--never broke an entire planet, and doesn’t taste nearly as sweet.” Erek was looking at the person who spoke, a young man by the name of Maldo, and licked his lips menacingly.
“I have plenty of options still open to me,” Endek interrupted the exchange before it could continue, shooting a brief and venomous look at the young man. “You know this. After all, was it not I who made our years as mercenaries not only possible, but profitable? You--”
“--’would never have managed to kill even a Dryad if not for me.’” Erek mocked his brother with a falsetto voice, bugging his black eyes and bobbing his blonde head from side-to-side. It was as comical as it was horrific, the nature of the being making this joke making it seem out of place and unnerving. It made Elara’s skin began to crawl. “So there it is then. You’re real problem isn’t with anything that I did as a mortal, nor with what I have become. You could adjust to the latter as easily as you did the former. What really bothers you, what gets under your skin, is that I don’t need you anymore. You know that you can’t make it on your own without your charismatic brother to sell your talents.”
Elara’s heart went out to Endek for the indignation and, yes, hurt that crossed his face. He was proud of his work his brother, of his contributions, and though he knew to expect no kindness from this creature it still stung him to hear these things spoken in Erek’s voice.
“I really can’t wait to kill you,” was the only response the still mortal brother could muster.
“You break my heart.” Erek giggled, and climbed to his feet. His jovial manner did little to hide his contempt for the man facing him. “I’m wounded. Hurt. If you insist on being rude, I believe I will take my leave.”
“And how will you do that?” Endek countered, indulging himself in a small, cold smile. “In case you did not notice, you stand in the heart of a confinement circle.”
“Oh, my poor, sweet, stupid Brother. You are in so far over your head.” Erek cooed at him. “All of these extra people, all of their faith, doesn’t make it anything more than it was. We used these circles to capture stray slepy, and to prevent the occasional magician from throwing charms while being properly executed. But those magicians never did more than scare a few peasants, and a slepy is a minor demon.”
“As if you are something so much greater…”
“Ah, sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Brother. You’re not clever enough for it. That is, of course, part of you charm.” Turning away from his fuming brother, the demon walked to the opposite side of the circle where Elara sat. Her heart hammered in her chest as he knelt before her, and met her blue eyes with his deep, deep black ones. “Isn’t that right, Elara? That is why you went to him last night, isn’t it? Because he’s charming.“
That the devil had divined her name was not unexpected. It was, in fact, common. These kinds of creatures always attacked the people who tried to contain them on a personal level. That was part of what made them so dangerous. They could manipulate people into doing things, terrible things, and fed on the emotional fallout. It would use everything and anything it could glean from the surface of a person’s mind against them. With that in mind, it perhaps should not have been quite so surprising that it would hit on her tryst with Endek, but she was stunned all the same.
“LEAVE HER BE!” Endek roared from his side of the circle, his voice stern, concerned, but largely impotent. So long as he intended to maintain the circle without banishing the creature from their sight, which would be dangerous in and of itself, he had to remain where he was. They all did. The most he could do, really, was raise his voice, and everyone, everything, involved knew it.
“To think,” Erek spoke smoothly, confidently, as he casually examined one of his talons. “You’ve always been such a good girl. Steering clear of trouble, staying true to your vows, protecting your virtue…. Well. Right up until last night, when a few sweet words was all it took to part your thighs.”
The demon’s voice was intoxicating. Like some kind of sweet alcohol, it went directly to one’s head and deadened their senses. Then, even the language used lost meaning, and the victim would be lost to the direct flow of whatever intention lay behind those words unless he or she had something powerful to cling to. Elara had heard of such experiences, but until that moment had never had one for herself. What brought her back was Endek’s voice. Big, kind, strong, gentle, complicated Endek and his loud protests in her name, demanding Erek’s attention. He had already lost so much to this monster, she decided, even before it took it’s present form. Her name would not be added to that list, not like this. She lifted a hand toward him.
“I can speak for myself,” Elara’s voice was loud, shaking but firm. It was a close call, but she had made it back to herself. Even so, she could still feel the demon’s hateful power, the very essence of all that it was, tugging at the corners of her mind, trying to unravel her once again. Locking eyes once more with Erek, she said this. “What passed between Endek and I does not concern you is very much none of your business, very much like whatever issue my God may take with me over my broken vows. It does not matter. Today, I will maintain my candle. But please, do continue trying if you like. You will find that this puppet’s strings will not be so easily pulled again.”
“Mmm.” The demon gazed at her, long and thoughtfully. That glimmer of actual interest that crept into it’s dark eyes was more frightening to Elara than anything else that she imagined it could have said or done in that moment. Still, however, she clung to her duty, to her Endek, and did not allow herself to be moved. She steeled herself. She could vomit later.
“You know, you really might be something special one day. I haven’t encountered a will quite like yours since my last visit with Geran himself. I would love to take you in hand so that I might spend the time and energy breaking you just to see what makes people like you tick.” His words were very serious, even solemn. However, the wicked, many-sharp-toothed grin that split his face a mere heartbeat later was not. “Too bad, though. It seems your old friend Toi, there, is not made of stuff quite as stern as you are.”
Too late, her gaze snapped from Erek to the figure on her right. Toi was a good man, the youngest son of a line of farmers that stretched back for several generations. Being the youngest of six children, five of whom were boys, he had never stood a chance of inheriting the family farm. That was how he wound up studying alongside the Attendants of the Angry God. Elara had never known him to be bitter or angry over that. He had always been bright eyed and hopeful, full of an exuberance for life that was unmatched by any of their Brothers or Sisters. She had even kissed him once, a long time ago, because she had become swept up in his excitement over the good work that their order was doing that it had seemed the right thing to do at the time. Everyone did.
That was not the person she found sitting beside her. Toi, whose last name was not given but to his closest of friends, had pushed his hood back, exposing his close cropped brown hair to the candlelight. His face was flushed, as if from shame, or possibly anger. Perhaps both. His eyes were swollen as if from crying. For a long time, he stared down at his candle. Then, finally, he lifted his chin and met the demon’s gaze.
“You told me the truth.” Toi croaked.
“I did, didn’t I?” Erek agreed, his voice full of pride. “You loved her all that time, you’ve been there for her, you’ve tried sooo hard, for so long… and all this sudden she gives it up to--”
“I heard.” Came the bitter, broken reply before the demon could finish. Taking a long, shuddering breath, Toi raised his candle and looked over at Elara one last time. “I-I’m sorry.”
“Toi, don’t--!”
“Goodbye.” He blew out his candle.