Skandra Tyullis (roll_the_bones) wrote in caeleste, @ 2009-08-14 12:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | chosen, npc |
scream (narrative)
"I said what you wanted me to say," Orb protested quietly. "But that isn't possible. He would never do something like that."
The room was dark enough for ten night skies. Orb preferred it that way. He said the light hurt his eyes. If his line of reasoning was followed to its natural conclusion, however, he had no eyes and all of this was nothing but a fairy tale living in one god's mind. Since Scythe did not believe in such stories he didn't credit them with any measure of truth. Therefore Orb in his mind was nothing but a charlatan. A wide-eyed fool of a charlatan who could not even keep his own lies straight in his head. Scythe felt certain that, if his entire discourse with other persons consisted of falsehood and vague innuendo, he would establish a system to make it sound at the very least consistent. Oa did not seem disturbed by this. She was tapping a fan against the palm of her hand, imitating a lady that they'd seen earlier in the day. That one had died screaming for what she knew. What she knew was the current source of debate. And one that Scythe did not especially enjoy having - the reason for his relative silence.
The other two went on and on.
"The Allfather has a great many tricks," Oa told him in annoyance. "Not all of them are as plain as you seem to assume."
That debate again. A world that was nothing but a dream, an illusion, could not have fate or chance in it. Orb denied that possibility as certainly as he denied any other. His mind was most assuredly broken, and Scythe questioned his worth to their group - internally, at least - but the rules were imposed from above. Several of the rules were unbreakable. Orb's survival was one, as was Gola's, and that was the only reason that he did not seek out the little fellow with madness in his eyes and put a sword between those harried creatures living in his sockets. Oa seemed to sense his mood; the look she cast him was loving but reproving all the same. Orb merely stared in confusion. He did not like the black armor. It prevented him from seeing into the illusion, as he called it, and changing whatever he saw fit. They were an odd people, these Twelve, but they were reflections and refractions of Ao. In the same way that he and Oa were reflections and refractions of...
"Ao never took a hand in this world. From the beginning he's watched it flower. Now that it wilts he still cares nothing - it's a game to him. A dream, that is all."
"You're wrong," Oa told him simply. "Scythe, explain it again. With the caveat that further argument might result in losing something important."
"My life is no life," Orb told her with rotting blackened teeth bared in a smile. "I have no use for it."
"The creator," Scythe told him. "What he controls is not a power or a thing. He does not direct the growth of life. He merely twists as many factors as he can, alters as many controls as he can, until luck itself does the work for him. Therefore he is a creature not of power and of terrible might, with a heavy hand to sweep away the world. He could be that, if he chose, but instead he is one of fortune and chance. The race he fostered on this world has the same power, albeit diminished extensively from their long absence and interbreeding - a necessity but no less of a hindrance for it."
"And you're saying what? That he found one, somehow, that could understand him?" Orb scoffed. "Don't lecture me as though I'm an idiot. I was born of his essence, not that emptiness you follow. If he would do this, I would know."
"Is it so difficult to believe?" Oa asked in annoyance. "Breed a donkey and a horse, and you will get a mule eventually."
"You're saying-"
"An anomaly," Scythe finished her thoughts with the same patience as before. "Wholly unexplained by this dream nonsense of yours. The factors which led this to be are-"
"Fine, fine, and I told the dragon. What do you want to do about him?"
Orb was not convinced, but it did not matter. He was there merely to do what could be done against this mule of Ao's, a fellow strong enough - the story went - to take down one of the Twelve, who were Scythe's equals. In theory. Like as not Ao's inexperience in contacting a fellow of flesh and bone would scramble into nonsense whatever messages he chose to convey. This fellow, this Skandra Tyullis, was probably swimming in a mess of chaotic dreams and half-understood phrases and desires. No idea what was controlling his wants and needs, no idea what was pulling him. Scythe could understand that. He had the same trouble if he let himself go on and on. Then there was the matter of this dragon, wholly separate yet still worrisome. The main thrust of their plan was the one which had been attempted fifteen years ago - albeit with less success due to a lack of force. Slay the tree, to which all things living were linked, and they would die all at once. Scythe wondered how many screams would come from such a thing. This dragon proposed to restore the wound that had been caused. Scythe did not think such a thing was possible, at least not without utterly destroying the world as it was now. How could something like that come to be? There was too much he did not understand about these new gods.
Would he still hear them?
"I know you have a hatred of Bahamut. If you want this servant of his, you are welcome to him."
"Very good," Orb licked his lips unpleasantly. "And for the other?"
Scythe felt a surge of excitement beneath his armor. They said that this man had fought at the World Tree, fought with the same viciousness that Scythe himself employed in battle. In all of his experience - which was and was not his own - there had never been a fighter. Each time a voice had come to him, a voice a reason. It had come to her. And each time the voice was consumed in death. The voice of this one was steel, a curious weapon but no less dangerous for all of that. He would be the one to challenge Scythe's own theories on the world. A scream was a sound torn from the soul. It was the height of emotion, the height of life, and therefore the height of power. Could he make this man's voice explode from his throat in terror? In pain? In agony? Such a scream would be a delicious thing for the power that hid behind it. He felt his hands closing into fists - heard the grinding of the heavy black iron that covered his body. More than iron, and less than iron, just as he was more and less than human. Oa had made it so.
"I will do for him," Scythe's voice echoed inside of his helmet; to his ears it sounded cacophonous, as though a thousand of him had answered the question at once in the ugliest sound possible. "Don't try your tricks on him, Orb. He is ... not as weak as you think."
"It is very interesting, though," Orb said quietly. "The covenant was the most important thing we were taught. That he would break it-"
"Signifies his desperation," Oa's voice showed no emotion, but her face was tight, with that mass of black hair falling around it in waves. "He will learn."
"Learn what?" Orb asked with a raised eyebrow; evidently he thought there was nothing left for the Allfather to learn.
"That nothing is eternal," she said simply. "Except the end."
He had watched his home bathed in fire and death. As he saw through the slots of the helmet, as he witnessed Orb's departure, he felt another surge of rage. Him with a spear in his hand, whirling as a staff might, which had surprised more than one swordsman. Orb had never been blessed with a family. At least, not in the same way that Scythe had. He'd never been forced to watch that family die. Screaming. Those screams he heard whenever a peaceful moment came to him. In the depths of his soul he felt them, could mimic them, and give them to whomever would listen. Inside of the armor there was nothing but the screaming. Nothing but that endless horrific noise. Yet he was already immune to it, in a manner of speaking. The screaming did not touch his mind any longer. Could not sway him from the path he had chosen. Skandra Tyullis would hear screams, and then he himself would scream. They would be the same. Skandra Tyullis and Scythe would have that in common. They would be entities of nightmare, wholly divorced from this world, and before he took at last the life Skandra prized so highly the chosen would know. Know true pain, true agony, and know that it was his god that had chosen this fate for him.
"What did you do with the other?" Scythe asked quietly.
"To Tyrus. He's searching out the gateway."
He considered that quietly. This was an entirely new game, and one that he did not know as well. Destruction was easily brought when you could bring the full force of your power to bear. An entire world screaming and dying at once. How he longed for the sound, ached for it. Her lips were parted slightly when he looked to her - she felt it too, that desire, deep within her. Many were the nights she had flung herself on him, naked, taking whatever pleasure she could from him in an attempt to drive off that lust for death. It was never the same. When they lay spent she whispered hateful things against his chest. It was the only reason left to remove the armor. She seemed to enjoy the screaming, endless screaming; it only made her ecstasy more wild. Scythe would never have claimed to understand her. But he knew what would happen when she finally had all of her pieces in place. There would be fire and death the likes of which this world had never seen. Then she would stand, triumphant - and cease to be as she was. Perhaps he'd found the thought terrifying once. Now it only seemed a goal, and one that he could wait a while longer to reach. There were more screams to enjoy first.
"And he was at peace with his brother's death, at my hands?" Scythe asked quietly.
"That one had two chances to kill his brother," Oa said in disgust. "Both times he failed. He should be glad he still has a life."
There was nothing so dangerous as one of these creatures, though the twice-failed was unrecognizable as one of the Allfather's race any longer. Two chances was more than most received, but Olas' help in all of this had come at a price. A game, really, to lure Skandra Tyullis into the open. Olas had left enough clues behind him to lead Skandra to Tyrus. Yet Skandra had followed the stone. Yet Oa had merely laughed in her throat as her tongue ran down his naked chest, and whispered more spiteful longing against his skin. This world was soon to die. What did a stone matter? Olas had employed his old compatriots - whom Scythe had then killed - to frame Skandra Tyullis. Satharine had used her network to spread the word regarding the stone, and was allowed to add the stone to her collection of trash, which she seemed to value more than anything. Ensuring that if Skandra Tyullis heard of it, and heard he was supposedly guilty of it, that he would know where to go. Olas thought the draw of his brother would be greater than the draw of this stone. He thought wrong. None save Oa knew why Skandra wanted it so much - or why it was so important he never have the thing.
"I doubt he is so grateful as you think."
"If he finds the gateway, he might earn my trust."
There was nothing else to say.
Scythe could feel his heavy boots slamming into the floor as he walked, reverberating through the walls of the building. Tomorrow was the day. He knew where he would find the object of his desire. A fight with the one who had been chosen to fail. If he knew how fruitless the struggle, would he still continue? Scythe did not think he could in the face of something so enormous and unavoidable. That was the challenge, he supposed. Proving your faith to a god that planned to let you die. Was there anything more futile than that? In the darkness of the outside world he was unobserved. The black armor and its occupant simply moved, from shadow to shadow, nearly invisible, until they were under cover once more. Then there was nothing to do but wait. Wait for the scream that he wanted most of all. Peace? Who wanted peace from this world? Strife brought on the screams, and he needed those to know that he was still here, that he existed as something more than a shade against the full color and flower of the world. To take lives was not a game but a necessity. He thrived on that sound they made, vicious and soul-rending. This would sustain him for a long while yet. Then, when the end finally came, he would be ready for it.
Now he was simply hungry.
A single, armor-clad finger brushed the cheek of the lovely golden-haired woman. If he were another creature - like Olas, he thought contemptuously - he might have stripped the fabric from her body and had his way with her. There was no point now. She stared at him with defiant blue eyes, her mouth sealed shut. Scythe had enjoyed listening to her scream as he sewed her lips closed. The needle was large, and the thread itself was coarse, and she had only stopped screaming a few hours ago. Why bother with something so temporary as a gag? Every so often she would test her lips, to see if the thread might give, and that almost always brought another scream. Now she was resentment and superiority. Angrily Scythe stabbed a finger like a sword, into that raw red flesh where the needle had passed. She screamed again - and it was muted, muffled, but he still sighed. Long and shuddering and powerful that sigh. Her voice was more beautiful than her face. If she did not draw out a scream from Skandra, there were other methods he was willing to try, but this would be his first. Satharine ... did not matter, any more than her happiness did. If she had any idea what she had done, Satharine might give the stone to Skandra. Thankfully she was a willful woman. As for this golden creature.
"Don't worry, Lady Sita," Scythe told her with a blank helm as his face; the harsh sound of his voice made her wince. "I'm sure your brother the hero will come to save you soon."
She looked convinced. Apparently, she did not know a lie when she heard it. It was never about saving one person. Her death was as certain as the death of Skandra Tyullis - only sooner.