Post #2387936 in The City of Chains, a roleplay on RPG

They had two paths to choose from, and they chose the door on the right first, the Warden leading the way in their search for Feynriel. When she opened the door, however, her companions presence in the Fade wavered momentarily, before they were soon blocked from the dream entirely. They had not been removed from the Fade, merely pushed out of this scene Feynriel's mind had constructed. Perhaps he felt the most comfortable with her out of the four of them (certainly not an unlikely possibility), and chose to only allow her to see this. Perhaps more strange, however, was that Nostariel took on the appearance of Feynriel's mother, Arianni, as the door closed behind her.

"That's it, Feynriel. Hard on the downstroke, then lift. Good!" his father said, looking over a young Feynriel's shoulder as he learned to write. Feynriel set the quill down, satisfied with himself.

"I'll have you scribing all my letters soon," Vincento continued. "If I'd known you were such a bright lad, I'd have brought you into the business years ago." Feynriel glowed at the compliment. "Does that mean I can come with you to Antiva, Father?" he asked. "Mother said maybe this summer... right, Mother?"

Nostariel glanced back at the doorway, but it seemed to be blocking the other three, and she frowned. Well, it was Feynriel’s dream; there wasn’t anything she could do about that. She happened to glance down at her own hands, noting that though perhaps the same size, they were certainly not hers. These were softer hands, and lacked some of the small nick-scars hers had acquired over a lifetime of wielding the power of the elements. She didn’t know who she was, but here at least, she was not Nostariel.

Noting the presence of Vincento, she had a decent guess, but chose to leave it aside, approaching the scene with cautious steps. There was little doubt that whatever had taken the form of the young man’s father did not mean him well, and she had to stop this. Now, before he inadvertently made a deal that would destroy him. “No, Feynriel. You mustn’t trust him. Remember what you told me? Your father never wanted anything to do with you. That’s not him.”

Feynriel seemed inclined to believe his mother. "Why are you lying to me?" He questioned Vincento. He shook his head in frustration. "Don't listen, Son. She's always been ashamed of you. She wanted you gone so she could go back to the Dalish. I'm the one who loves you." Feynriel looked like he wanted to believe him at this point, but couldn't.

"But... why can't I remember you?" he asked. "Why... that's right! I spent my whole childhood waiting for you." Vincento threw an arm up, growing angry. "Your mother never allowed--" but Feynriel cut him off. "My mother loves me! She showed me the letters she wrote you. You never wrote back. And it was Mother who taught me to write, not you! I've never met you before! Who are you?"

The illusion broken, Vincento began to glow with arcane magic. "Don't... question..." A flash of light later, and he had transformed into the Desire demon masquerading as Feynriel's father. "... me." Feynriel yelped in terror, turning to run, and when he reached the wall he disappeared from the Fade here. Nostariel had returned to her self, and her companions appeared behind her. From the lack of surprise registering on Ithilian's face, he had been able to witness what had just occurred, but not do anything to take part.

"You!" the desire demon said, pointing an accusing finger at Nostariel. "You turned him against me."

"Did I?" Nostariel asked mildly, but her glare was withering. "I was only trying to help, honest." Her jaw tightened, and she drew her bow from its place on her back, nocking an arrow to the string. "Take away my pets, and I'll take away yours. How loyal are these friends you drag into the fade?" She puzzled, clear in her intent to find out.

The desire demon then morphed in front of them once more, although this time it wasn't Feynriel's father. The girl that now stood before them was hardly out of her teens. She was an elf, her petite ears sloping into a fine point, protuding from under the cover of soft chestnut hair. Her features were delicate, her mouth and nose small though pretty. Her large round eyes were hazel with flakes ago. And though this was the form the demon had taken, she would be recognized by none, save Ashton.

The hunter was taken aback, taking multiple steps away from the demon. His face dropped and what color he retained in the Fade quickly drained. His words were quiet, surprised. "Y-you? What kind of game are you playing demon? Where... Where did you see that face?" He asked stuttering. Clearly distraught over the sudden change in appearance. It wasn't a face he ever expected to see again.

"Ah, so you do remember her. I thought you might have forgotten. But no... You can't forget, can you?" She said, taking a calculated step forward, which in turn sent Ashton a step back. "She's in every one of your dreams, is she not? every one of your nightmares. No matter how hard you try, you can't ever wash her face out your mind, can you? She sits there, like a devil on your shoulder, reminding you of your weakness, of your cowardice." No, he couldn't forget that face. No matter how many drinks he had, no matter how many shots of whiskey, not even all of the alcohol in Kirkwall could kill that memory. He'd never forget the ghost that stood in front of him.

"It's your fault, you know? That she's not a free as you are, as your friends are. All it would have taken was a simple action on your part, and she would have lived, and not only in your nightmares. It's your fault. She repeated, her delicate features turning angry. That anger twisted the knife further into his heart and his world was giving away from under him. "You were a selfish coward, and you couldn't help her because of your fear. Instead of helping her, you ran. But that's all you're good for, isn't it? Running? You're still a coward, aren't you? You still try to run, even now. Run as far and as fast as you can, it never helps does it? She still haunts you, doesn't she? You can't run from her, and you can't run from yourself."

"I wonder where she is now? Does she still yet live? In some Magister's tower tending to his every whim perhaps? I wonder, does she curse your face every time she closes her eyes? Is she haunted by you, by the man who could have saved her from that life? Or maybe not. Maybe she's dead. Maybe her breath was wrung out of her long ago like some discarded wash cloth. It'd be kinder if it was, she wouldn't have to suffer. It matters not, it's all your fault. You brought her into that hell," the girl said, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.

Every word crashed on Ashton's ears, driving him deeper and deeper into the pit of despair he had dug. He was silently shaking his head. He wanted it to not be true, he wanted to believe that all of her words were lies. But he couldn't. He knew they were the truth. "Wherever she's at, whatever she's doing, whether she lives or she doesn't. You can try to blame anyone else but yourself, but it's on your head, and your head alone. You had the power to save her, and yet you turned your back on her. That guilt you feel? You deserve every ounce of it that weighs down upon your shoulders, you pitiful coward. In a breath, you've doomed her, and damned your soul."

Ashton couldn't handle it anymore. He couldn't handle the ghost of his past standing there and throwing all his failures back into face. He had to get out. He had to leave. It began slowly, a couple of steps backward. "Look. The coward runs even now. It really is pitiful, attempting to escape the hell he's dug for himself," the girl taunted. That was it, Ashton turned and ran, and never looked back.

The demon’s shift was abrupt, and its words cutting. She would have expected more enticement, more false promises from it, but if its goal was indeed to rid Feynriel’s dream of those who sought to help him, then it was effective indeed. She tried to say something, to make her mouth move, but no words would come out. In all the time she had known him, all the confessions, small and large, she’d made in his company, she’d had not the faintest inkling that something of this nature lay on his shoulders. It made her feel like a failure of a friend, and more than that… she just felt… apart. Like maybe there was some reason she didn’t know. Like maybe he’d concealed it on purpose. How many times could he have mentioned this? And he never had. Perhaps she wasn’t the kind of person he could say things like that to. Maybe nobody was.

Her eyes tracked him as he left, but she made no move to stop him, setting her jaw and scowling. Swallowing thickly, her expression practically dared the demon to try something like that with her. For one reason or another, however, she was not the next of its targets.

Ithilian didn't know the man's story, but whatever it was, whatever the human's weakness was, Ithilian would not be surprised. It was but one more reason to hate a race he'd long since condemned, and if he ever learned the entire story, he had no doubt it would only reinforce his view. He thought Nostariel seemed bothered by his disappearance from the Fade, but it occurred to Ithilian that this may have been a necessary evil. Whatever the shem had done to this elven girl he did not know, surely the Warden wouldn't allow it happen to her now that she'd seen.

"And you desire much, brave hunter, do you not?" the demon said, wandering before Ithilian and drawing his eye. "You believe yourself to be free of your past, to have let go of what you loved. But what if I told you that you could have all of it back?" And as she'd done for Ashton, the demon changed before his eyes.

There were many faces he could not remember from his old clan, many names he held onto without knowing any longer what it was like to look upon them, but this face he would never forget, no matter how hard he tried. The exquisite violet of her eyes, the way her thick dark brown curls spilled over her shoulders and down her back. Her body was rolling muscle beneath her Dalish leathers, able to match him and more on any hunt, any run.

"You weren't strong enough to save her," the demon said in Adahlen's voice, causing Ithilian to visibly strain. It had been so long since he'd heard that sweet sound... he gritted his teeth, setting his jaw square and refusing to look away from her. "But if you only let me, I could bring her back to you." She took slow, cautious steps towards him, reaching out to touch his cheek with the back of her hand. He did not move, clearly using every ounce of his being to remain still. She continued forward, draping her arms around his shoulders and planting her lips against the base of his neck. The smell of her was almost overwhelming, as if it were amplified here in the Fade, only for him. But still he did not move.

"And not only her, but everything that you lost..." Ithilian knew what came next, but it made it no easier when it did. A second pair of arms, smaller and lighter, wrapped themselves around his torso, and he would not look at her. Tears fell freely from his remaining eye. She had her mother's hair, her mother's grace, but her eyes were bright emerald. He could not look into those eyes.

Only after what seemed to be an eternity did they relent, the demon banishing the illusions and returning to her true self, backing up to their former distance. She seemed irked by his decision, but not upset. "Have it your way. Unlike them, your regret will never leave you."

The demon considered Nostariel for a long moment, her lips turning up in a smirk that would have been almost pitying if there wasn’t so much contempt in it. “Oh, how many faces I could show you. His,” she shifted, until her form was that of a vivacious youth made of stocky muscle and tightly-coiled ginger curls, eyes so bright and blue they could have belonged to an ocean lit from below by the sun itself. They were crinkled with the force of the easy, pristine smile on his face, its gleam brighter even then the immaculately-polished armor. Tristan had not really been a conventionally handsome fellow, but his smile was lovely and catching, and his eyes were perhaps the most lovely color she had ever laid eyes upon, as though the splendor of his spirit shone right out through them. She swallowed quickly and looked down at her feet. He was dead. There was no bringing him back. She had… she had accepted that. He’d known the risks, taken them alongside her, with her, for her, and she for him. But he was no more, and she had to live with that, was living with it. As he’d have wanted her to.

“No?” the demon asked in his gentle baritone. “Then what about these?” She morphed, and suddenly, she was a lanky Dalish youth with intricate tattoos themed around the sun. Scarcely more than a child, there was something in his eyes older than most ever became, something almost ancient. “The boy who just wanted to go home?” Another shift, and now she wore the face of a dwarf, a middle-aged woman with a cockeyed grin and a noticeably-missing eyetooth. “The braveheart, who threw her life away for yours? No?” Nostariel’s breathing was increasing in pace, shallow and uneven.

“How about the rival? Who jumped in front of an arrow for you?” A woman, this time a redheaded human, grim and stern looking, wearing a pair of knives. “Or the silly little sot with his boyish crush?” Another elf, this one clearly city-born, who hadn’t lost his wide-eyed naivete, not even on the day he’d died. “Well, Captain? What will it be? Will you abandon them all, fail them again? Surely, the third time is one too many, even for you. Or can you tolerate more failure than anyone has a right to, hm? I could save them, one and all. All I’d need… is you.”

She would be lying if she said it wasn’t tempting. The opportunity to wipe her ledger of all her failures, to just go back to when she’d been innocent herself, their blood no longer on her hands. Then she’d not have had to spend years drowning herself in ale and the stench of misery. She could… what? Save them? No, no she’d already lost them. She couldn’t lose another. ”You’re right,” she said. “I can’t… won’t fail them again. But the only way to fail them now would be to waste the life they gave me as a demon’s thrall. Give me Feynriel, or get out.”

The demon sighed as if put-upon, looking at the shaking Warden with disdain. “How very dull you are. Perhaps there is yet one who will see reason.” Caress turned last of all to Amalia.

The Desire demon shifted again, growing taller, leaner, its shape resolving into that of a man built like a predatory cat: smooth, coiled musculature, beneath skin with more than a hint of sun. His features were sharp, aquiline, and easily describable as handsome, breathtakingly so, if one were inclined to poetry. His pitch-dark hair fell to his shoulders, and he wore a confident, subtle smile. His attire was much like Amalia’s: dark, fitted to his skin, with the crest of the Qunari emblazoned in deep red over his chest. ”And you, Ben-Hassrath?” He questioned, void-dark eyes glittering with some strange mirth. “Poor, scarred, damaged thing. Even the Ariqun doesn’t believe in you, not anymore. All you ever wanted was for things to go back to the way they used to be, before you clawed your way out of your own grave and dragged your forever-mangled self back to your precious people. But they never reverted, did they? Because the most important parts were gone.” His face softened, regarding her with something like pity, and for all either of them seemed to notice or care, there was nobody else in the room at all.

Amalia reached up, tugging her muffler down with one hand. The expression on her face was unreadable, but she stared intently at the figure, her own musculature tense. The demon took this as a cue to continue speaking. “So loyal you are, Amalia. You always have been; I would know better than any of them. Look at what you have endured for your Qun, what your loyalty has put you through. And how does it repay you? By sending you to this cesspool to watch the humans rot. You and I could have had so much more, you know. We still could. Come with me, kadan, and I will make it right again. You know I have the power.”

The smile that bloomed over Amalia’s face was bitter, acidic. “Nehraa maraas, hissra. Parshaara— ashkost kata, bas. You are grasping at straws indeed if that is the only face you could think to show me.”

"And yet it is the one you wanted to s—" the voice was cut off by motion, Amalia swinging the ringblade from her back and around in one hand, its movement constant but unpredictable. “It is not for illusions to claim to know my mind,” she hissed viciously. In fact, it was perhaps the angriest Amalia had been, visibly, in more than half a decade. The strange weapon whirled, slicing into the tough leather armor upon the man’s chest, bisecting the emblem there. Jumping back, he lost his shape, resolving once more into the demon, who bore a matching injury across her abdomen. It seemed that even hissra could bleed.

And if it could bleed, Amalia could kill it. Though... she was far from alone, and, completing the blow, she spun away, vacating the spot for whomever next wished to strike.

They had all given each other the chance to resist their own illusions, and now that Amalia had had enough of the demon, Ithilian took it as his cue to slay her and allow them to move on. His short swords were out in a flash as he darted forward in place of the backstepping Amalia, immediately pressing the attack while the demon was still reeling from her injury. Both his blades sank into her midsection and he let them stay there, letting go and drawing Parshaara as well, which he plunged up under her chin. He ripped the blade loose and sheathed, grabbing his two other blades as the demon fell backwards to the ground with a satisfying thud.

Ithilian turned to the others, satisfied that it was now the three strongest of them who remained. "More yet to go. Let's get on with it." If there was a time and place to discuss what they'd seen of each other, it was certainly not here.

Snippet #2387936

located in Kirkwall, a part of The City of Chains, one of the many universes on RPG.

Setting

Characters Present

Footnotes