Dark Waltz

“It’d be easy to just fall right now. Wouldn’t it?”

Umshaes stood with Aynur atop a stone bridge, beyond the safety of the cobbled rails. They stood precariously upon a crumbling edge. The slightest misstep and they’d fall into the raging waters and be dragged under, never to be seen again, at least alive.

A gust of wind picked up and blew back his raven hair, splattering his face with bitter cold water droplets carried in the turbulent winds. Umshaes felt alive, he could feel his heart thrum hard against his chest fuelled by the rush of the unknown. His face bristled with an icy chill and the afternoon sun hit his back with a heated warmth. A grin crept upon his pale face as he turned his bi-coloured gaze to Aynur, who still wasn’t entirely aware of her surroundings. Doped up out of her little mind. He wondered if she had heard his question. She stared listlessly beyond, unseeing milky eyes focused on nothing but the darkness that she was ever shrouded in. Her lips parted and she spoke softly, barely audible over the rumbling from below. "Before you, I was ready to die. A part of me still…” She trailed off.

Umshaes half expected her to jump then and there, it’d be an anticlimactic end to her miserable life, but it’d be a graceful one. To see her pale form draped in a white summer dress tumbling down. All it would need is the mournful plea of a lover to signal the final curtain call.

Unfortunately, she exhaled slowly and leant back and away from the edge, her tiny fingers fumbling behind to grip the sides of the stone wall behind her tight. It was the opposite of a finale, it was a lagging attempt to cling to her little sob story of a play.

He frowned.

How utterly pathetic. “You know-” He reached out and pushed her, Aynur gave a startled yelp but before she could tumble below Umshaes caught her hand. The two hung precariously over the edge of the bridge, Umshaes malformed and blackened grip the only thing between them, and the even blacker grip of death.

“W-What are you doing!?” She cried out as she gripped him tightly, her voice rising in hysteric panic. “P-Pull me up! Damien! DAMIEN!”

Umshaes felt both sickened and elated at her reaction. “You’re such a filthy liar.” He spat. “If you were so accepting of death, and ready to die you’d let go of me. You’d be washed away into obscurity, you’d have died with some sort of dignity. Instead-” His lips turned down into a disgusted frown. “You’re clinging pathetically to a miserable existence.” Umshaes shook his arm and she screamed again, turning her body to claw at him.

Umshaes hung there, tempted to shrug her off. To watch her fall. Many times during the past few days he had been tempted to rid himself of her. Yet he found her so easily to manipulate, throughout everything, she was still so woefully trusting. The man heavily sighed and pulled her forcefully back onto the tiny ledge. He helped her back over the safety of the rails before hopping over himself.

She had crumpled to a heap on the floor, shivering. “P-please don’t do that again...please… please Damien…”

It seemed like the adrenaline shook the sedation of his drug, she’d be a little more difficult to deal with. “Now, now. What did I just prove to you?”


“I-I-I don’t know....” She spoke between heaving sobs.

He snorted. “That you clearly, are not ready to die. Little Aynur.”

Umshaes reached into his jacket, pulling out a small pipe and tin. He began to pack it with a purple colored herb. The same thing he used to sedate her, and the same thing he used to quell the voices in his head, and the constant ebb of his headaches.

“Question is…” He paused as he lit the pipe then threw the match carelessly behind him. Umshaes took a long drag of his pipe and knelt down. He roughly grabbed her face with his blackened hand and tilted it up toward him so he could blow the thick, perfumed plume into her face.

“What to do with that knowledge? Will you continue a pitiful existence, or will you throw yourself into the unknown?”

She coughed and tried to wrench her face free from his grip, it egged Umshaes on. He gave her a predatory grin as he held her fast, inhaling then exhaling more of the smoke into her face. “Don’t you feel that Aynur? Don’t you feel your heart beating hard against your chest? Don’t you feel so… very… alive?”

Umshaes shoved her face away, taking another long drag of his pipe. He didn't care to hear her reply. He just wanted to shut her up.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

“Good show”, Gwaine said, leaning against the cobbled rails of the bridge, on the opposite side of the pair who had put up a most magnificent performance.

His claps were extremely heartfelt, and would have to substitute for the hidden expressions of delight beneath his thick cowl and heavy hood. Gwaindir Ygrainne appreciated the public demonstration of the humanity’s callousness and its nonsensicalness. He appreciated most demonstrations of the darker spectrum of the psyche. Darkness and the mind was his chosen area of specialization as a scholar, and he intended to breach every aspect of this specialization.

His research had taken him down some shadowy avenues to some interesting people. He had explored the dark corners of the Istien University, been through the gnarled cursed forests of Raiaera, had met the worst of the elves and dwarves in Alerar, and seen the undead rise to war against the living. He hadn’t expected anything interesting at the edge of a nameless town in a peaceful part of Alerar. In fact, he wasn't sure what he was expecting. Nothing, probably.

Then he walked out of the little town where he had briefly stopped to restock for his journeys, and came across this interesting little scene. So of course he made his way onto the bridge while the man was pulling the woman up.

Clearly, some god is hard at work keeping life interesting for Gwaine. Gwaine thanked all the gods he knew with a quiet prayer.

The pair -- a man with a strange arm and the distressed woman -- were not done with each other. Gwaine watched in strange fascination as the man with the blue -- what is that? -- arm light his pipe and verbally step on the woman again. Why does she allow it?

There was a small lull in their conversation. For Gwaine, any moments of silence felt like an itch that had to be scratched.

“Please continue,” Gwaine said, ever the faithful spectator. “Don’t mind me. What happens next?”

Aynur wasn't sure how to feel. The last few days were a blur. Damien was much like Lucifer, he was incredibly kind one minute, and the next he almost seemed like a madman but there were stark differences between the two. Damien had yet to hurt her, he had yet to attack her or insult her. Damien offered her hospitality, new clothes, a warm bed in a separate room to his - he ensured she was bathed and fed... so how could Aynur possibly be upset with that?

Aynur stared down at the ground, not that she could see anything. She lifted her hands and wiped away her tears. "I... I think.... you're right..." She could feel her heart beating hard against her chest, she never saw the danger but she could feel it. She could feel the dizziness of the height, the cold air hitting her face. "I'm sorry..." She mumbled, "I just...I want to-"

Aynur was cut off and she stiffened when she heard the clapping of another, she instinctively reached out to tug on Damiens pants, a part of her feeling comfort from a familiar person being there.

"What happens next?" She heard Damien incredulously reply, "I've been asking myself the same thing... "

He shook her off of his pants, and stepped away from Aynur. She could hear his voice lower to a whisper, she couldn't hear the details of the conversation.

After kicking Aynur off Umshaes stepped over her and approached the man. His posture was tall and proud. His face and physique was hidden behind a thick cowl. The mans attire was neatly pressed, and looked as though not a single spot of dirt had ever touched it. He was clearly not a fighter, and clearly not aggressive. His tone held the jovial delight of either a madman, or a bored man. “I didn’t know we had company.” Umshaes murmured, scratching his cheek as he gauged what the man wanted.

A show? I see how it is. What a strange turn of events.

Umshaes took a step forward and lowered himself in a sweeping bow. “It is such a pleasure to know our audience is happy.” His tone was mocking, practically spat out at the other man. Umshaes straightened himself, then his jacket as he broached the gap between them.

Umshaes took a long drag of his pipe blowing the smoke toward the hooded man. He paused, revelling in the swimming sensation that enraptured his mind. “Our performance is near its end, I must say~” Umshaes lips twisted up into a fiendish grin. “I was just telling the girl about what it is like to be truly alive she was ready to die don’t you know? I found her on the streets, a filthy little creature all wrapped up in her own self pity.”

Umshaes stepped to the side, brandishing his arm as though he was showing off a masterpiece. “But look at her now! A marred fallen angel ravaged by the world around her. We are at the end of act one.”

Umshae’s lowered his tone to a near whisper, “And... my kind sir - what entertainer would I be, if I did not give the audience what they want. How shall we end the first act? A tragic death?” He held his gloved fist out to Aynur, and clenched it over the visage of her form. “A fade to black, or a mysterious hook to keep you on your feet?” He paused and stifled a giggle, “let’s tell you the hook! Little thing claims she has 9 months to live, why do you think that is? Do you find out? Or will it forever remain a mystery?”

Umshae’s turned his bi-colored eyes to Aynur. “Come, little Aynur.” He held out his hand toward her, signalling for her to come with a few clicks of his fingers. “She’s blind as a bat, and about as useful as one too.” He commented toward the enamoured stranger.

Umshaes watched as the waif pushed herself to her feet, swaying slightly. She carefully shuffled over to the sound of his voice, barely lifting her feet. Umshaes frowned, mumbling under his breath. “Damn this bitch is slow.”

When Aynur finally arrived at his side Umshaes blew another plume of the thick, purfumed smoke into her face. “That’ll keep you quiet. Woman.” He muttered.