Who: Xiaoli Fa & Divina Marcos What: nightmares Where: the Feywood When: July 25th, around midnight Rating: pg-13 Status:complete
This time, she could not break free. Her breath held, her limbs bound—resistance only meant wasted oxygen. Still, she struggled. It was futile. Her body rebelled as she rebelled. It demanded that she breathe. But she could not breathe water. To fill her lungs with such was sure death.
She struggled. Her enemies’ laughter bubbled up from underneath the dirt. Her body demanded that she breathe. Her lungs trembled violently.
Inhale.
She gave in. Water rushed into her airways. Her throat closed up. She could feel the water filling her stomach. Her temple was throbbing. She thrashed at the pain of it. The skeletal hands did not yield. She struggled. The skeletal hands did not yield. She struggled—
"Divina," a distant voice called, warbled through the water’s currents. Two hands framed the sides of her face, flesh upon flesh. Warm. They pulled her free from the skeletons’ clutches, and when she broke past the confines of water into air, the voice rang loud and clear:
"Divina, wake up," Li said, nudging her once more. She gasped as he did so, her eyes fluttering open. Her breathing was coming on fast; greedily, she lapped up the fresh air. A few clumsy motions had her sitting up, her weight rested on her elbows behind her.
It took her a moment to reacquaint herself with her surroundings, their mission. Hastily, she groped for Deathbringer. "Is there trouble?" she asked, quiet.
He glanced at her sword, then shook his head. The movement distracted from his faint smile. "No," he replied, and sat back so he was no longer in her tent, now visible through its open flap. "Nightmares?"
There was a moment of hesitation, but she saw no reason to lie to her mentor. "Yes. There has been some frequency." Divina pulled torso upright so that she was sitting cross-legged. "I didn’t think it would affect my performance."
Her choice of words revealed enough, and Li rocked back on his heels, standing up smoothly. "I see," he said, and went back to tend to the fire nearby. The renewed crackle of flames swallowing tinder did little to obscure his following question, "And what do you dream of?"
"Drowning." She stared into the fire, and its dancing tendrils were reflected in her dark eyes. Had it been any other person, the matter would have been left at that. But with Li there had always been a strange sort of candor, as if by inducting Divina into the Dark he had also taken some part of her for himself.
Her words rang out dully. "I am swimming in the Dark. The undead hold me down. When I break free, I am one of them."
Li hardly believed that her nightmares were fueled by water. Instead, he recalled her questions of the undead after they had shown up in the city. His mistake then, for believing the matter had been settled so easily. "Do you fear death," he asked, hands hovering a safe distance away from the fire to feel warmth, "or are you afraid of what defies it?"
Death itself was as horrifying a thought to Divina as it was to anyone else. The majority did not want to die; she was no different. Why should she desire her end so soon? But, like the majority, the time limit that hovered over her head bothered her little. Her life was lived from day to day.
It was always what came after death that haunted her. In hours both waking and sleeping, she could not escape thoughts of whatever awaited her in the next realm. The fires of Hell. The waters of the Dark. Unthinkingly, she took another deep breath.
"The latter."
"So you think the Dark condemns you," he established, and waited for either an affirmation or correction.
Were it not for the respect with which she regarded him, she might have scoffed. "That’s what they say, isn’t it? We’re heretics."
"Indeed," Li agreed—with her statement, not with the people she spoke of. "Good and bad are defined by people, but the world is ruled by balance," he said, gazing at the elements around him. The metal of his sword glinted at his side, earth steady beneath his feet as the wood blackened and the fire flickered, its light rippling across the water set aside in a bucket. "Without the Dark, there is none. People can define death, but we do not control what lies beyond it."
He turned to look at her. "It’s pointless to dwell on it."
"Balance," Divina echoed. And her eyes followed the circuit his had taken: the elements, in their places, and around them all the darkness of the evening. She almost imagined half-rotted knights and mages lurking in the shadows. Did balance mean she had to join them?
But Li was right. There was little point in speculation. Still, another question pushed its way past her lips: "Has it never bothered you?"
"No." These things had bothered him once, years ago, when he was in Divina’s position and just learning what it was like being taken by the darkness. "I had nightmares when I first began killing people using the Dark, of drowning in it. I thought that was what was waiting for me once I joined them."
Divina had never asked about Li’s previous exploits, and she would not do so now. Everything she needed to know, he revealed to her in time. The notion that he had once killed people was not foreign to her. Neither was it pleasant or distasteful. It was simply a truth she did not care to think about. Any moral reprehension was defused by sentiment.
So, without flinching, without hesitation, she went on to ask, "How did you overcome them?"
By sharing his bed with someone, was his first thought. His mind strayed toward Aspel, but returning to the question, he supposed that wasn’t an appropriate answer to tell his mentee. "By growing numb to it, but that," he paused, and searched for the words, "isn’t suitable for everyone."
Heretic wasn’t the only thing people called him. "But there is some clout held in facing one’s fears. Did anything change when you faced the undead again?"
"No," she admitted. "But I expect I shall be numbed in time, as you say." There was a part of her that was aghast at the idea. To become comfortable with selling her soul… Perhaps she was already less human than she’d thought. "I suspect what harrows me most about them," Divina continued, "Is that they cannot be defeated by our means."
Li almost laughed, and couldn’t keep the mirth from filling the spaces between his words. "I should hope not, why blunt what gives you your edge. With old age, yes, but for now your fear is to be used to your advantage." This, he would teach her another time, when they could exchange more than words.
Until then. "It is just as well, nothing should be all-powerful," he said, still occasionally lifting a stick to move the firewood around. A reminder of balance would go well here, but he opted for another one. "Were you able to defeat them through other means?"
"Of course." Divina was arrogant about her abilities only because she could afford to be. There was nothing else to it. Such things as ambition were too much to ask of her. She had no desire to be the best or the most renowned. But there was naught she craved more than the feeling of a weapon in her hands, the adrenalin thrumming through her veins in the thick of battle.
"To prepare, I had been revisiting my first class with Finch." After a beat, she added, "And Monaco."
"So you are not only defined by your affinity to the Dark," Li said, guiding her back to the point he was trying to make. "You are becoming more balanced, and have other skills to rely on, should you face an enemy against which the Dark is rendered useless."
He supposed he should humor her efforts, having heard something about positive reinforcement once, so he added, "Good choices, both of them."
Divina took that as the only further clarification she was going to get for the evening. Or ever, even—perhaps he had told her all she’d needed to know the first time they had discussed Li’s former comrade. And so the topic was easily put aside. Bringing it up had served her purpose. Li was now aware of the association, and it had been met with approval.
That was always enough, Li’s approval.
"I will endeavor to be more aware of such," she said. "In that regard, I had been meaning to ask if you might instruct me in Cure."
"Of course," he replied immediately, tossing the bucket of water to extinguish the fire. Over the hissing, he stepped back from the smoke and said, "We shall begin tomorrow."