Quest Dark Compulsion (Victor, Seven)

[Victor Lark]

Victor’s heart was beating too fast, but that was just what happened when he ran. There was a chill in his blood, but summer nights must have often been cool in a coastal city like this one. The symptoms of fear were easy to ignore among those of his urgency, even as they pried into his every anxiety and insecurity and exposed them, raw, to the front of his mind. He was keenly aware of that looming promise of eternal nothing, should he lose track of the only man who knew what it was.

He followed the scent of the water, the salty tang that had meant certainty and constancy half a world away. He was not in Alvadas now. He could not pray that Ionu change the roads in his favor, but in his desperation he did it anyway. The words left his mouth a series of incoherent whispers, mangled by heavy breaths and mounting exasperation.

And then it became too much. Even a little fear was a novel distraction, and not at all as pleasant as Victor had always hoped. His chest ached and the bones in his legs seemed to have turned into kelp beer; he found himself stumbling; he fell against a wall and stayed there for a short moment, grunting at the strange and terrible dread that was only piece of what it could be. He could not know what it really was, only that he felt sick. It as hardly an excuse.

Ever resolute, Victor recovered from the wall. He continued toward the ocean, between the buildings he did not know and on streets he had not memorized, with only his sinking gut to guide him.

[Seven Xu]

Seven gambled caution against curiosity, but soon found himself compelled across the dock and down the stone stair before he’d time to draw. The boat groaned beneath him as he stepped in, knees wobbling, unaccustomed to balance over anything but solid ground.

“I don’t know,” the halfblood grunted, face twisting into a scowl as pale hands shot out to steady his second step into the boat. “You’re just familiar.” I’ve seen ghosts, he wanted to say, and I’ve seen shadows that move—illusions, but no less unsettling. Impulse tickled his fingertips: nagging protection that could flood his thoughts and his flesh and keep him from that terrible cold that spirits could impose on the living.

Seven’s nostrils flared, and his attentions went to the rope that committed vessel to mooring. “You lead me here,” he accused again, intent on answers to unspoken questions. “I’m not some sheep to follow without aim; there must be a reason I’m sitting here with you, under the poor moon’s light, rather than wrapped in the comforts of a tavern. Who are you?”

[Paragon]

Seven descended into the boat, feet tapping lightly against the wet stone steps, before he was carried onto the wooden surface. It was the wraith he followed. He gave the phantasm his questions, remaining stood in the boat, that rocked gently with the lapping waves. The dark waters of Mathews Bay remained relatively still here, but further out, near the Obelisks, they churned most unnaturally. “What were you doing with him?” FInally, the thing turned. The dark dress was unfamiliar. At least, the specifics were not known to Seven. In its hand was a single black rose. Beautifully dark. But it was the face that haunted - O'Ren - his dear sister. Kindred of the past. “What were you doing with him?” she repeated, arm rising, pallid white hand grasping at Seven's wrist. Her touch was cold; ice cold. It invoked so much inside him, as if all his fears and regrets that had dropped to the deep had now been stirred up in the darkling waters, bubbling to the unwieldy surface. In the moment, Seven had failed to notice the boat leave the dock, making its way out into the open water. But the touch had frozen him somewhat. Shackles gripped him, cold memories blossoming into the night like wintry puffs of air. Victor had followed the scent of the sea. Salt water was inescapable in the city of Zeltiva - the city of sailors and scholars. The docks were the lowest point of the city too, since much of the settlement was built on a sloping pass, and the foothills that encased it. As he arrived at the docks, his eyes fell upon Seven. His twin flame. His heartbeat quickened as he saw the boat drift out into the bay. Though there was nothing in the immediate vicinity, a few yards alongside were several other small boats, tethered up to their holds. In the bay, a nightmare began to unfold.

[Victor Lark]

There Victor hesitated. The very thing he sought was before him and escaping and somehow, he did not want to pursue it. His swift-beating heart hurt when he tried, but it seemed to sink into his gut when he turned away. Every choice was some version of the same, strange pain.

But as he stood amid the harsh ocean winds and watched the little white star of Seven’s head disappear in to the inky black distance, he tried to remember that he had never disliked pain. It was the result of so many angers and insecurities which he had discovered in others, and it more often made him feel alive than sick. He had never been afraid, or angry or sad, and it occurred to him that this disease might be some inexplicable miracle of emotion.

He had never been brave either, but that wasn’t so far from reckless.

Heart pounding furiously between the thrill and the mounting fear, Victor leapt into the furthest boat from shore and unfastened it from the docks. The only boats he knew were the canal-bound ravosalas of his home, but he also knew that the oars were not long enough to touch the ocean floor and so he rowed sloppily, shallowly, blindly over the churning water, toward the endless horizon and the stolen man between them.

[Seven Xu]

“No. No.” Seven tried to jerk away from the apparition’s grip, cold and steady as the brine that lapped at their small boat, but his body refused him and he sat frozen in place. It couldn’t be her. She was alive; strong, stable O’Ren, she’d fought for him, she’d loved him. “You aren’t ‘Ren,” Seven rasped, unable to look the thing in its eyes. “She’s safe, she’s home. Far from here.”

The halfblood’s voice faltered and his wits unravelled beneath her icy influence. Things best forgotten, things dug up and reburied were dragged to the forefront of his fear-addled mind. His father: pale faced and sweating, mouth agape with noiseless pleas as another opened beneath his throat in a wide red smile. Roxanne was with him, wailing for her life—but he’d ended that too, as easily as the first.

“She’s not dead,” he convulsed, his hands useless white meat at the end of numb arms. Though her question was repeated, his ears were deaf to it. “You need to get out of my head, you need to—aagh,” the thing tightened its grip and Seven cried out, that prickling cold plunging through him like knives.

Seven’s wide pupils had all but eclipsed those dazzling irises; abysmal black darted about in a sea of bloodshot white. He dared to search the figure again, head to toe. The only thing truly solid was the porcelain arm that had arrested him and the familiar face that accused him; the rest seemed to melt into the night. Seven’s toes curled against the hard soles of his boots and he swallowed in a vain attempt to calm his heart, thrashing about in his chest like a caged bird. The dinghy was riding soundlessly and swiftly on the outgoing tide; even if he could escape her, he was a terrible swimmer. The sea would swallow him.

“Please.”

[Paragon]

The dark waters of Mathews Bay seemed to swallow the tiny boat as it slowly drifted away from the safety of the city's edge. In the boat, Seven was paralysed by the face of his sister. But at the same time, he knew that surely it could not be her. As he pleaded, so quietly, so stolen, the face changed again. His thoughts twisted into reality, with Roxanne's face now staring so coldly at him. And yet, her innocence was still there, in the countenance that watched him. The black rose was still held in the thing's hand, but petals drifted from the flower, billowing, some into the waters, some falling to the boats floor. "You must face your fears, Seven Xu. You must face them, to let them go," announced the terrible voice of the past. The horrible memories came and went, ebbing and flowing, leaving Seven almost stupefied. And on the shore, Victor made for a boat. So many repressed emotions seemed to hint, tantalisingly. He had not felt for so long. He acted, sometimes without motivation, sometimes without purpose, unknowing of the consequences. But for whom did he now act? Why did he do it? Bursting onto the water, he rowed, turning this way and that, but bound for Seven in a roundabout way. Something drove him. Something unfathomable. As rain broke over Zeltiva, and a sudden gust of the bonesnapper winds came hurtling into the bay, he would try to work it out amongst the cold and strangeness. He began to make out Seven, standing, alone on the boat, yet seemingly wracked with fear. Victor could not see the phantasm. He got closer. Ever closer. The thing reached for Seven again, touching his arm. That awful, blistering cold ran through his body. "Speak. Speak now, or let the waters take you. I have seen you. I have sat beside you, round your campfires in the Wildlands. I know you Seven. You must tell me your fears."

[Victor Lark]

“Seven!” He yelled through the fog of rain and the screaming water that thrashed around their two little boats.

He was so close. Seven’s boat drifted into black infinity, but Victor rowed. The approach was swift, thin water and unfamiliar currents somehow pushing him where he desired, and just as painful in arms that knew little of labor. He needed to reach the man who had foolishly fled into the sea, especially as he recognized the foolish fear on his foolish face. He had memorized the shades of Seven, which were so much more than the blushing embarrassments of Syliran fabric shops. He knew in his churning gut that this one was the answer to each of this strange night’s questions.

But as the comfort of their proximity dawned in that darkness, Victor felt his symptoms wane. There on the brink, the fear fragmented and parted and slipped away from him, as that which he thought he feared promised to become but a memory. It was too soon; he had not discovered it yet, or understood why he felt it, or shared it with Seven.

It was not for his fool that Victor rowed, but for his fear. He had never been selfless. He would not lose it.

“Seven!” He echoed selfishly, hoping to be heard and seen.

His white knuckles released their hold on the oars. There he stood in the rocking hull, which had already accumulated enough water to submerge his toes, and tipped easily into the bay. The descent was soundless in the storm and suddenly he was surrounded briefly by the salt of an angry cold. He felt a certain serenity in that moment, as the chaos was muffled by stagnant wetness. He hated it.

Victor emerged spitting and with already exhausted arms he flailed toward the other boat.

“Seven!”

[Seven Xu]

“You know me,” Seven rebuked, his eyes trained on abysmal black where sea faded into sky. The challenge could have sounded childish, but desperation clung to a clumsy tongue and cold lips and made his words waver. She would know his fears, know his secrets; the possibility still swam in the back of his mind. “You tell me what I’m afraid of.”

The moment he dared look back at the woman was when he finally heard his name, cut through the sound of rain slapping against the sea on a harsh Ravokian lilt. His attentions snapped to its source. “No.” Seven’s heart swelled in his throat and his veins ran as cold as the angry brine that foamed white around those flailing arms; he wrenched away from the woman’s wet grip and cursed. “No! Victor!”

It didn’t occur to him that the eerie-calm face wrapped in roiling seawater could have been a trick, as O’Ren’s honesty and the Kelvic’s accusing stare had been a trick. The intricacies of hauling one’s self ashore against current and ineptitude were of no concern, either, but the frightened halfblood wasn’t in a mind to weigh his regrets as he forsook the dinghy and the lady for the prickling embrace of Matthew’s Bay.

Seven was out of breath long before he was close enough to reach out for a skinny wrist, but numb persistence saw him through. Victor was real, all gooseflesh and waterlogged cotton; for a moment, relief found that ghost-white visage and he lurched forward to close the space between them in a brief kiss.

The halfblood’s sobs were drowned in salt and rain and his nose burned, having inhaled in disoriented panic after his jump. Thunder rolled on low clouds. Seven’s mouth opened and closed as if he meant to speak, but the clumsy, looming crescent of Victor’s vacant boat came within an arm’s length and he reached to grab its bow.

When the nobleman and his fool were secured against slipping beneath the waves, two sets of arms clinging feebly to the bobbing hull, Seven chanced to throw a look over his shoulder.

[Paragon]

A moment of silence, suspended over dark water. Then, the shattering of tranquility. A storm broke over Mathews Bay, thunder roiling on sodden grey clouds, and the rain falling faster, heavier. Victor and Seven caught each other in the other boat, rocking gently on the dark water. But when they finally chanced to turn, they would see the boat Seven had been taken on empty. It sat eerily. And the water was darker than the night itself, tendrils of black reaching out like ink, hands, fingers, grasping for the vessel Victor had commandeered. There was a feeling in the very air - one they would both begin to recognise. Djed. Wild, untamed djed. The blackness reeked of it, practically crackling. "I know you. I, born of the storm, have watched you. I have followed you. Your fears are my food. Your shadow is my succour. Give yourself to me." The voice was frightening. Dark and demanding. The inky hands grabbed the boat, rocking it. A side panel of wood splintered, before breaking away from the main body. Water began to seep into the side of the boat. "And you shall not stop me," the voice screamed. Without warning, a single hand raised over the other side and grabbed Victor by the ankle. He was pulled at a wrenching pace, thrashing, spluttering, thrown into the water and pulled down and down through darkening water. "I think I would like to stay here, in Zeltiva," the voide said to Seven - calmer, "and I will stay with you. I begin to understand. I begin to comprehend." A fork of jagged lightning arced through the sky, blasting into the foothills that encompassed the bay. Thunder jarred, and the rain tumbled.

[Seven Xu]

Victor’s face disappeared beneath a thick mask of black brine, and Seven screamed.

Rain was falling in angry sheets that drummed against the watery bottom of his boat and stung his face; black clouds heavy with the storm clashed above his head; lightning seared through the night, freezing scenes of chaos within an eye-blink. The boat shuddered sideways and threatened to capsize beneath Seven’s careless weight as he plunged elbows-deep into the ocean, shouting Victor’s name. Those black hands clawed at him, cold, promising a similar fate. He balked.

“I’m yours,” he wailed his defeat, salt and tears stinging in his eyes, “I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours. Do with me what you will, just—please,”

His greatest fear was realised; Seven was reduced to sobbing, staring hard through narrow eyes at the black water, and speaking through hurried sobs. He couldn’t lose this man. He couldn’t. The knot in his chest grew tight, his heart pounded unremitting, and his stomach felt as if it were filled with roiling worms. Warm blackness teased the corners of his vision.

“I will give myself to you! Please, I beg you, bring him back.” The halfblood’s voice broke as he howled over the storm. Matthew’s Bay bled through the wounded hull. “By the gods, my will is yours. Take my fear, but don’t take him.” Seven’s voice dropped to a rasping murmur, and he choked. “I love him. Please.”