A Devastating Blow [Erasmus]

[Chaeli Snowsong]

51 Winter, 511

She was not sure exactly where she was, except that there was a surpassing number of things in the room. The desk and chairs said it was an office or study, but the sheer amount of books and other little trinkets made her consider that it might be a shop. She had never seen the city but for the Nest and her deathbed; she did not know what peculiarities governed how these people lived. Whatever it was, Chaeli did not care. She was only concerned about the mischief she could make here, the chaos she could cause, without anyone to see.

It had taken decades to find the strength in her intangible body and the will in her lost mind; so many years lead to reaching this place, to getting this far. And now that she had accomplished this great feat, she was a child again in petty rebellion. There was nothing to stop her but the bounds of her own creativity!

She picked them up with nearly invisible hands, judged whether she should spare them with laughing eyes, and never did. Sometimes she threw them, sometimes she pushed them, and sometimes she tried to crush them between her own hands. She relished in the noises they made, these little figurines that crashed and clinked as they collided with the floor, these thin pages that whispered futile protests as she ripped them from their spines. The best part was that they were all so fragile. Chaeli wondered if those people were as breakable as these things. It thrilled her to think that they were, even though she knew they were not; he had been so strong, and she remembered that someone, or something, had restrained her...

Her soulmist swept out in every direction as her attentions wandered. It stretched her thin and imbued the room with cold, but it lulled back to her every time she made a new noise or broke a new thing. She had lost track of the time, but time did not matter to the dead. She was tireless in her amusement, or so she thought. She did not notice that her air seemed to come heavy in lungs that did not breathe, or that arms that could not ache seemed to move slower than before. Chaeli had already decided she was unstoppable, so how could a few idols and paper holders defeat her?

Just as she began to sense that peculiar fatigue which she had not felt in so long, Chaeli heard the door open. She gave a shrill gasp, but could not think to move. Her large Vantha eyes stared panic from within a translucent face, and the last of a little porcelain scene shattered into the mess on the floor.

[Erasmus]

Erasmus was in a sour mood, although his face didn’t near even touch and make tangible the parched wastelands of his excruciatingly restless soul. His tattered and fire-engulfed state of mind left the man with nothing, as if he were no better than a beggar with a bone-dry mouth, crawling in the sand like a legless lizard to find any source of water, when he already knew the well of which he sought had dried up long ago. So why was he wandering around odd places he didn’t have any business of being in? To sulk, to bask in self pity perhaps? Honestly, he didn’t have a good reason, nor did he try to rationalize his aimless actions. He sat in a bleak corner of a little dark but homely place, his legs drawn to his chest as his forehead lay tightly pressed to his knees. His shoulders were hunched, and he seemed to be in a deep and serine state of sleep. One could hardly speculate the daily whereabouts of such a strange and reclusive individual. None really knew, or cared enough to ask yet, exactly where of which he escaped on various unaccountable occasions. Erasmus changed his ‘meditation’ sites far too frequently, anyways. He didn’t like to be bothered by voices, footsteps, sounds of breathing… sounds of life. Nowadays, the world was bothersome, even in his beautiful, beloved Kalinor. There was supposed to be no others in his new recess. Sounds of foreign items shattering in an opposing study aroused him from his slumber, informed him of his misjudgment, and stirred up his irritation… better known as ‘curiosity.’ To see who was disturbing his placid paradise, the full-blooded symenestra slowly rose to his feet. His muscles were still stubbornly stiff, and he had to rub the sleepy haze from his vision as he yawned. His ebony hair was messy, his vermillion eyes still dulled with the weariness of a dreamless catnap. His footsteps were solicitously muffled by the resonance of ruin. How thoughtful of sound, to cushion his approach in such a caring manor. Erasmus stood at the door for a while, just to listen to the seemingly relentless tornado coming from within. With a defeated sigh, he realized this thing, man or beast, whatever it may be, was not going to leave well enough alone any time soon. Besides, if he didn’t catch the culprit, then when the owner of this building discovered the mess they’d probably suspect he had something to do with it. (Although he didn’t have much to live for, Erasmus definitely didn’t want to be seen as a criminal in the eyes of the only Mizahar city where he didn’t look Completely out of place.) Stretching his arms out in front of him, Erasmus had only to lightly touch the neighboring door for it to sway open, as if it were a hand shy hound bidding to its master’s violent commands. The intruder’s unexpectedly transparent appearance seemed to stop the young man in his tracks, but in due time he crossed his arms and shook his head. A sardonic smile crept across his face, as if saying, ‘Huh, I’ve never see a ghost before.’ Erasmus put forth an effort to conjure up every scrap of comprehension he retained that regarded ghosts. He didn’t come up with much… but it was obvious they had potential to harm other things, fleshier, spidery, pulse-infected things, if they so desired. Or… perhaps they had to work their way up to destroying people? He cursed himself for knowing so little. It only added to his infatuation. When Erasmus met something, or someone, that he could learn from, he didn’t take the opportunity lightly. Should this ghost decide to harm him, he really wouldn’t be leaving much of anything behind… nobody would miss him in his absence, and he didn’t have anything but his sorry excuse of a life to lose. Decisively, Erasmus pulled out one of the desk chairs, brushed off debris, and sat down to make himself comfortable. Couldn’t a ghost sometimes posses people? Ah well. He was an empty person anyways; it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Erasmus tried to make out a solid appearance from the scattered picture of a feminine figure. She wasn’t symenestra, that he was certain. He plucked a torn page off the floor and inspected it with a frown. Though his 'common' vocabulary was a little insipid for his taste, he figured she wouldn't know much symenos. Therefore he spoke in Common, despite his repugnance for its bland-sounding volumes. “Let me guess, you were murdered by… books, and office supplies? You’re sure showing them the wrath they deserve. Why, I doubt that little figurine you crumbled to bits will think twice before messing with you again, yes?”

[Chaeli Snowsong]

She saw his face, and she hated it. The high arch of his cheek, the smooth perfection of his skin, the hot jewels in his eyes were each a testament to everything that had hurt her and everything she feared, everything she wanted to hurt and make afraid. She did not know why she expected to be interrupted by anything else, but in the moment of panic that ensued, she wished it was not him. The Symenestra were too beautiful, she thought. How could she want to destroy something so beautiful?

And then he spoke. Liquid satin spilled from his mouth, even on the rustic language which they were forced to share. For an instant, she was seduced, but then his words slithered into her ears and she understood. Smug, was what he was. Arrogant. Vain. She saw through his charade, his teasing incredulity, like he could see through her body. He was going to deceive her, if he was not going to belittle her. She would not let him. She was powerful, whenever she remembered to be.

“No,” she replied indignantly, unable to think of the words she wanted. A heavy frown twisted on her face, one that might have once been pretty when it was full and colored. She glared at him for a short moment, and suddenly she disappeared.

The soulmist that remained began to collapse where she left it, a slow and lifting whorl like down feathers in a breeze, but then it animated just as quickly; drawn like a magnet to her reappearing form, it reeled around her in anger’s tumult, a manifestation of her unstable mind. She had blinked to the door behind him, and with a loud bang she knocked it into its frame. Just as the chill of her proximity was setting in, she blinked again, to a bookcase on the far wall, where a few large volumes still sat. They had been too heavy for her to lift, before; she did not know why she thought she could then. As her hands materialized, the rest of her body thinned with the effort.

She huffed and struggled, glaring her intent to bludgeon him with the tome, and her soulmist flailed against her breaths while real air stood unmoved. She got as far as to knock it from the shelf, but she could not throw it. Her failure filled the room with her screams of frustration, embarrassment, agony. She had not felt pain in so long, and the discomfort of fatigue was almost novel to her intangible muscles, her imperceptible bones. “No!” She repeated, fickle fury wrought on her half-singing tone. Her soulmist was tinged with red emotion, like her eyes would be if she lived, in Avanthal. “I... I... I was practicing! For you! I will break you!”

And so she tried, flying for him with outstretched arms and grasping fingers.

[Erasmus]

Erasmus watched in silence (for silence was this symenestra’s most contiguous and adored comrade) as the lady ghost shut the door he had left open. The air grew colder, as if a winter breeze had found its way down to the enclosed city of silk and the silver-tongued, spider-like species. She vanished before his eyes for the second time, and again he respected her efforts to frighten him by simply staring, expressionless like almost always, refusing to smile or laugh as he watched her fervently attempt to bash in his head with a book. His eyes followed the hardback as it fell to the floor, a few feet away. He looked back to her, listened, and sighed. “Me? What did I do? Please, tell me if you so happen to be privileged enough to know, for I am not so lucky. I have done nothing. Why would you waste what energy you have left to try and taunt me, miss? I, so little a speck in the world you intend to loathe. I am only a mere raindrop in this ocean of your demise. Look at me, darling, and say that you even know my name.” Erasmus lifted his chin so she could get a good glimpse at his face, he held out his arms and his eyes glimmered with a hint of frustration. “You cannot, poor restless soul… you cannot bear to judge me solely on appearance, can you? Is that method not a tad prejudice? I would expect more from a restless non-symenestra being.” He narrowed his eyes, detecting a frown, or what seemed to be one, on the translucent face. Any woman who wasn’t a symenestra in Kalinor, save for a pinch of extremely rare occurrences, was a surrogate instead. She was obviously dead. The ghost looked as if she could have once held an air of prettiness about her. The voice seemed to echo off the walls and reverberate through the room, but he could detect an accent not at all like his own. She seemed to listen and think over his few spoken words before convincing herself to hate him. He drew his own conclusions. “Ah,” said he, with a lower tone. He spoke as if thinking aloud to himself. “But one of our porcelain-skinned ‘raindrops,’ they must have rubbed our race’s distasteful habits off on you, yes? You’ve become no better than the ones you hate, is that so?” His smile was pleading friendliness between them, and though his words were of a mocking nature, his manner was sincere. “If I weighed less than that book, miss, I would indeed be quite frightened. Now do calm yourself, I may be extremely vain, but I’m still not one for confrontation. Perhaps you should try wounding me with words, instead? Or perhaps you could ‘practice’ somewhere else, where I’m not trying to nap? I did not mean to anger you, and I never hurt you. If I did, I don’t remember. But I’m nearly positive such a display of vengeance would not be constructed on My behalf.” It was obvious, from the way he studied her floating shape, that Erasmus was trying to figure out her story, very much intrigued with her. It was a child-like expression, and his youthful face showed no hint of malice. She knew of the symenestra tricks though, no doubt, and he dearly hoped she wouldn’t be further angered by his display of ‘integrity.’ He guessed she would anyways. There isn’t much one can do to seem pleasant, when the reputation of a merciless, disgusting killer is branded onto both your very appearance and language. He guessed it went a little like every other surrogate’s account… unsuspecting, until it was too late, and then there was nothing but the Nest and a painful death, with no compassion or tears shed in commission of her pain. Treated like an animal, thrown in the depths to be devoured by hideous creatures, never to see the light of day… never to hear the laughter of the child they carried for nine months. He, too, had no pity for her suffering; he understood the reasons behind the harvest. He respected his race. He was, indeed, part of a much larger picture. But then again, when he approached the debatable subject of the symenestra’s ‘habits,’ there was something inside him that screamed words he couldn’t make out… as if this tradition was in some way extremely detrimental to him, or had been at one time. He couldn’t remember. He ignored the feeling. Focus on the ghost, Erasmus. Without warning, the figure lunged for him. He inhaled a deep breath, bracing himself for the unexpected with his vermillion eyes staring straight ahead. He put out a hand as if to block a strike, knowing it wouldn’t do much, if the action did anything at all. Maybe she had been fooling him? Perhaps she had more strength than he’d thought. If he was about to die, which he still doubted (though, less so, now that she was flying At him, instead of unsuccessfully picking up a novel…), he hoped his life might flash before his eyes… so he could see what he’d done before it all ended. Wouldn’t it be so wrong if he died Still not remembering his life? That would, again, probably be his luck. Ah, such is life… or death, or both. Life and Death, they seemed to walk hand in hand at times.

[Chaeli Snowsong]

He did not move, the fool, the brilliant fool, who could not have known how her cold would hurt him, would bury the stench of death in his bones like the weight of compacted ice beneath layers and layers of soft, feathery snow. She would kill him if he stayed where he stood, because she had the essence of it in her, which outmatched any unresisting morsel of warm flesh. And yet there was wisdom in his foolish bravery, the taunts and the twisted logic. Perhaps, if given time to think, she might have found something pitiful in his pause. She might have thought to spare him.

“I am better,” she insisted, in a voice like shattered porcelain. She went straight through him, filling him with the sight of smoke and the terrible chill of death for an instant. Then she lurked behind him, at the door, as her soulmist pooled around him. She did not kill him. She could not, not yet. She wanted to frighten him more than she wanted to hurt him, but sometimes she had trouble telling the difference. “I kill the men who would kill, who would violate the innocent, who would not at least mourn the destruction they cause. Do not mock me!”

The red in her had since faded. Tendrils of sad blue began to replace it, to match the twisted despair on her face. She sobbed. “I was married, you know. Nobody says the name of Icol Whitevine, or Chaeli Snowsong. I would make more than one child with him. More than one miserable, poisonous Spider.” She was surrounding him, embracing him, pushing on him, as she had once learned. She did not seem to realize how she neared him as she spoke; her eyes looked through him, as if she were seeing some other face behind him. She tried to imagine the man who had broken her, who had tricked her into betraying her betrothed. But she could not remember him entirely, except that she had thought he was beautiful once, and that she had not thought the same when he was finally dead.

She did remember his name, though... his name, which this fool seemed to believe made one person know another, made killing them any more or less terrible.

“Lividus Nerium had forgotten my name, by the end. It did not make my death any less certain...” She spoke outside of him, and yet within him, as she tried to stretch and match her form to the lanky, fragile thing beside her. Any ounce of resistance would thwart her, but a few more seconds would render her soul beside his, within the corporeal shell he called a body. “...Or his.”

[Erasmus]

The symenestra nearly opened his mouth to respond with one of his clever and cynical remarks, he was full of so many words, you see… born with them already pre-stitched to his tongue. There was magic in a symenestra’s voice of silk; why else would they always be able to weave the most precious lies into strands of golden truth that slip into the sultry ears of the victims they persuade? Yes, Erasmus had many syllables ready to sharply spill, though unfortunately he did not get a chance to spit them into the air. The ghost, he knew deep down, would not be listening anyways. No, instead of speaking, his entire body was filled with a feeling of pure death. It took his breath away, as well as his soft-spoken words, and froze him to the spot. It was… in a word… magnificent. Magnificent, you dare ask? Have you ever felt the grasp of death? Erasmus couldn’t remember if he ever had, though to him the touch of this ghost felt like an assuring embrace of an old friend, as if he had known death once, if only briefly. Though this frightened him more than the prospect of dying, for this man was much more terrified of his past than his future, Erasmus did not want it to expel out of him as life repelled what should not belong. It did. It was a shortly lived feeling. She rapidly passed through him, the biting chill and acrid stench of death leaving a mark on his consciousness and nothing more. He felt his heart ache for just a second more of the frostbite-like agony… he hadn’t experienced that feeling of familiarity in such a long and forgotten time. He would have done anything to try and gain it back, to grasp what was so special about it… but he did not even have to ask. There her soulmist was, although he did not know of the word ‘soulmist’ at the time, swirling around him, kissing his fingertips and widening his eyes. The deathly chill inside him was so powerful, yet every strand of sense told him to break away and run. He could… in theory, he still felt he had control over his own body. I don’t want it to end just yet, he thought. But even his thoughts confused him. Which did he not want to end; his life, or this amorous feeling only to be known as death? Was he that sick? To be fond of the very dangerous and dreadful cold that settled into every inch of his nerves? It did not hold a certain kind of pain… it was a pain in itself, yet then again it was nothing of the sort. Whatever it was, it was no peaceful sentiment. He felt himself chocking on the mist, imagining boney fingers ripping through every shard of warmth he had left to spare. It was not that the sensation of this kind of death pleased him, it was that he somehow remembered something coupled with it… the thought of death brought forth emotions he could not describe. He had not felt such things in such a long time… he simply had to find out how to grasp them, but he couldn’t yet… so he waited, like a stupid, blind, deaf, unresponsive person with no mind he did not move! The bravery of this creature, no! No bravery. Just… a certain kind of numbness for the feeling of which he Should comprise: the feeling that he should care where he was at the end of the day. As she spoke with a voice that would wake the dead, oh… already awake, well- as she spoke, malice seeped through the air. He found it surprising that all her accusations and assumptions frustrated him. Never in his stay within the city of Kalinor had he denied the wicked nature of his race. He was proud of it all, or so he thought, but as this departed maiden labeled him he felt an unfamiliar resentment rise to the occasion too. He didn’t know which it was for… the ghost herself, or his race as a whole? “You don’t know who I am,” he found himself replying in a simplified voice. As he opened his mouth the mist poured deeper inside of him, stinging his throat. His tone nearly sounded defeated if not for his stubbornness to change her mind. “You only know What I am. Are you looking into my soul, or just my skin to call your judgments?” He watched her colors change, he listened to her sobbing voice, and he was startled by the compassion he felt in the room. She neared him only to pass through again and again, her eyes never focusing… always away, distant, but not imprecise. He felt the cold pushing and pulling at him, tearing into him and scattering, only to repeat notoriously. Why wasn’t he dead yet? He did not dare to move. He tried to focus on his fading memories… desperately attempting to grasp just one that the feeling of death brought to him, but alas he could not. Instead, he began to feel the ghost as she tried to merge with him… confused; a look of puzzlement entered his face and washed out all other fervent longings. What was she trying to do? He didn’t want to ask… so he listened instead. Finally he relaxed, dipping his head back to stare at the rounded ceiling above him. He released his fisted hands and exhaled, as if to try and give her more space to work with. He did not resist, not because he couldn’t, but because he had nothing more to lose… and he was curios, and he was, indeed, quite stupid. Who in the right mind would allow such a thing? Erasmus had never been keen to slip into a ‘right’ state of mind… he barely knew his name, let alone his hopes and dreams. Why not, thought he, why not see where this is going? “How do you see that I wouldn’t mourn for you, Chaeli Snowsong?”

[Chaeli Snowsong]

She crossed his body, and their souls mingled. While his blood chilled, her ‘mist wallowed in ephemeral heat; it was gone before she could feel it, and she was convinced that it was never there. She felt herself slow within him, as if she has crossed between smooth water and sticky molasses. His desire, however conflicted and brief, caught on her anger. For an instant, they were one.

But his will was not strong enough then, her intention too vague. Chaeli passed through him, and slipped into the door. She thought for a moment to brace herself, raised her arms and turned her head, but of course she collided with nothing, and for a moment saw only the blackness of the door’s interior. She returned to the room and swiveled toward him, embarrassed, but he was still facing forward, held in the invisible ecstasy of their coalescence. She lowered her arms, glanced at her hands. She had lived a second life in immunity to the corporeal world; she had learned not to care about its various obstacles. But he... he was sticky. If only for a moment, she had felt solid.

It was like bliss, and it was fading.

Quickly, she lunged at him again, and he did not even turn around. There she stuck, and she could feel the fringes of his willingness pull on her mist and align with her form. It was then that she recalled how she had done this thing before, and how it felt to be solid and heavy. He was much taller than she, but she could stretch herself all the same. The smoke that had surrounded him, had manifested in her sadness and resentment, permeated him with ice cold wanting.

And then he was alone, and warm again.

She heard him speak, though she could not see him. She pulled his hands up to look at the ashy pale of his palms, the black strength of his nails. When she responded, it was with his lips and tongue, but instead of the silk of his natural accent, it bounced like singing vellum. “None of you mourn. You say you do, you lie and say thanks, but in the end you do not mourn. A person who cannot live without killing is no person at all.”

Those nails of his had been wandering over the brittle hooks in his fingers as she spoke. In her anger, Chaeli pressed down on him, ripping a line of hot blood into the soft of his thumb. She could not feel what his body felt, but she could see it; if he did not gasp then, she would do it for him. She dropped his arm, moved his legs slowly and clumsily to a nearby table, where the shards of a broken mirror showed her what she had done. She picked one up with his injured hand, and showed them his face.

Her mind was frantic beside his, consumed in the power she thought she held. She did not think to share his body or investigate his soul, and still she gave him accusations from his own mouth. “You are nothing on the inside. I can see it. You are a shell filled with poison. You are pitiless.”

[Erasmus]

It was a fascinating but also unsettling feeling, being possessed. Words of the ghost stung his mouth with frost and arid aches of sorrow. She was so cold… so terribly freezing against his shell. He watched through his eyes as if in the body of a stranger. His hand involuntarily fumbled along… Erasmus didn’t give himself the will to try and concentrate on what lost memories death might have to offer. That might have given him back the reins of his body, and he was trying rather hard to be as agreeable as possible with the dead. He felt soupy and tired while crumpled up in a corner of his brain as the ghost played with his limbs. Shocked was the spider when a scarlet bulb of liquid ran from a cut in his thumb. You better believe he did gasp a little. Feeling the sharpness his symenestra claws against his own delicately thin, grey, spider-web-like skin was horrifying. So many things were floating through his consciousness; although, the feeling of power was also a trait of which he was thankfully aware. Chaeli was not yet strong enough to control an unwilling subject such as him. A small sense of relief could be noted in his reasoning to stay unsurfaced, if only for a few more seconds. He did not realize that a few seconds could mean life or death until it was nearly too late. Sluggishly, Erasmus felt himself lugging his weight across the room to a shattered mirror. The damage to the study had been grand, and only in the highlighted concentration of the ghost’s proud scope did Erasmus fully recognize how much things had been ruined. She seemed to, in a self-aggrandizing way, highlight the bruises on Kalinor she’d inflicted with a somewhat soft touch of his vision to each blemish. Was it inevitable that he would become the culprit of this mess? The evidence points to yes. Who would believe that a disturbed symenestra male had simply come in the little location to sit and ‘think,’ suddenly face-to-face with a ghost as it tore the random location to shreds and conveniently disappeared before anyone else managed to be a witness? Erasmus figured the odds were against him. This nearly distracted him from the act of plucking forward a shard of glass… but the monster that stared back through the mirror’s reflection was more terrifying to Erasmus than any amount of soulmist or faded images of weeping dead women. Again her words stabbed at him and made his skin crawl. This was enough! Without thinking, he fumbled ‘into’ his body in an agonizing yell of pure hatred. “It’s not true!” he gasped, wildly clutching at his scalp while collapsing to his knees. The glass shard shot from his hand, breaking into even tinier pieces against an opposing wall. Willing her frostbitten clutch to release from his flesh, Erasmus unexpectedly felt an overwhelming wave of fatigue as the act of allowing possession caught up with the armature. “Stop,” he commanded, managing to gain control of his voice and escalating it into a growl of anger. “I who have done nothing! You are no better than us, you snake! Try to kill me? Try to kill me… what made you so special as to kill Me, you loathsome thing! I did not look for your pity.” Inhaling a ragged breath, the widow coughed and examined his torn thumb with growing fury and heightening exhaustion. “I’m more than you’ll ever be, stupid girl! You fell for your killer’s tricks. You’re not alive. You’re just as empty as I! I who only wish I could be one of those people you despise so ardently. Perhaps you’ve inspired me to go out and create a couple more companions for you, Chaeli Snowsong… It hadn’t been on my agenda, but perhaps just for You I’ll make myself kill. If I am nothing, what more do I have to lose?” A wicked attempt at laughter sized him as he spat the words into the buzzing air. Erasmus could rely on the ghost not being strong enough to attack with much force… he managed to grip an edge of a desk and pull himself back to his wavering feet. Still closed, the door beckoned him to stumble in its direction, but he was so tired… it almost sounded better to slip into one of the desk chairs and finish a nap… His hand felt the cold knob and his wrist twisted the thing until he fell inward with the door as it swung ajar. Slowly he slipped back to the ground… looking over his shoulder to try and catch a glimpse of the creature he’d grown to secretly esteem. “I could have helped you get stronger. I could have come back, even… I could have become an asset to you. I’m weak, you know… and so terribly fascinated. So easy to use, Miss Snowsong. But I do value my life… and if not that, I’m just not quite ready to be murdered by my own stupidity yet. You could kill me much easier with more practice. It’d be a lot more fun for you, too. I thank you for being too insensible to notice that you’ve caught me in your own web. Lividus Nerium must have taught you well… how foolish of me.” From somewhere in the building Erasmus thought he heard footsteps approaching their small assembly room. It might have been his imagination; he surly was more than incredibly affected by the ghost. For a man of few words, Erasmus had used a whole year’s supply in this one encounter. If a symenestra’s skin could ever be paler, Erasmus had mastered the impossible. His eyes were weary, he was out of breath, and he expected a few more cuts and bruises before the day was over.

[Chaeli Snowsong]

He fell, and she did not. He escaped her with the smallest fraction of his will, dropping away and taking with him every shred of hope and illusion of power. Even as he bowed at her feet, he had already won; his was life, and control, and victory, all of which slipped away from her like so many wisps of soulmist as they evaporated from the heat of his passion. Hatred like oil spilled from his mouth and burned on her defeat, filling her voice with the crack of tears.

“I would not... I am not...”Even as Chaeli tried to defend herself from his accusations, she could not deny the truth in them. There were times when she had remembered her humanity and spared a life she could have destroyed, but so were there times when she had not.

Lividus Nerium had not been one of the lucky ones. She could almost see his face in this man before her, a child in comparison. While the living one had a softer look, he had also more wrath—if only in contrast to the plain composure of moments previous. Lividus had been coy and, in the end, hopeless. Chaeli would never admit that she thought of him often, that she mostly regretted what she had done, and that those thoughts were her own way of mourning him. What hopelessness had once manifested in the man before her was long gone now, as he rose up from curious indulgence and retaliated against his violation.

“No!” Chaeli flailed for him, too weak to take him again and too distraught to do much harm to anything else. A part of her told her to apologize, to try and fix the damage she had done. Another part told her not to understand what he said, or to refuse to believe it and forget he had ever said it. But she did understand, and she did believe that he was capable of seeing through on his threats. “No! No!”

She pursued him through the wall and into the hall where he had collapsed again, and there she floated just beside him and embraced him with her coldness. “Live,” she demanded, stumbling over all the wrong words. “Live then, and fear. I will come back for you. And... and I will mourn.”

Chaeli meant to speak of the girls he had promised to kill, but there was another, unconscious thing on the edge of her promise. She looked in the direction of the approaching footsteps and emitted a low moaning noise. It began as a whine, but it turned into a song, mumbled in rich Vani lyrics on the hollow shell of a Vantha voice.

“I remember the sweet snow
and the dancing, singing pine trees.
I remember the North winds,
and the lights of Winter’s sky,
and the stories of the hearth fire,
and the kindness of the Goddess Queen!
I remember, I remember.
Oh, Avanthal, I will always remember.”

[Poison]

THREAD AWARD!

Chaeli:
Skills: Soulmist Projection 2, Possession 1, Intimidation 1, Singing 1
Lores: Acquaintance: Erasmus

Erasmus:
Skills: Observation 2, Interrogation 1, Persuasion 2
Lores: Acquaintance: Chaeli Snowsong