Brother, Sing Your Song

[Duffy]

Closed to Silence Sei.

An unfamiliar field, somewhere in Alerar. Rocks strewn randomly by wind and ruination. To the east, jagged peaks, marked by landslide and cannonade. Crumbling edifice in a ruined heartland. The land reminded the wanderer of the dark elf spirit; bitter, gruff, and resolved to war.

“Trust the monks to put me here,” he grumbled.

He ran index fingers along the curves of his new ears, elongated and Fae compared to the elephantine protrusions of a previous life. He was an elf now, and though this was an elven land, he was far from being ‘home’. Alienated by age-old misconceptions between the two peoples, Raiaeran and Alerar, the wanderer turned on the spot to take in his surroundings.

“It’s like they’re punishing me.”

“You?” Ruby spat. “Don’t be absurd.” She bit her lip in contempt. The wanderer got that impression from her tone alone, never mind the tapping foot and folded arms. “You’re a clear conscience in a sea of sin.”

The wanderer turned to face south and the distant citadel. It stood at range’s end, impregnable, isolated, and triumphant. The wanderer wished its walls protected him, but Ruby Winchester’s wrath could slay gods; what good was brick and mortar?

“If that were true, I would not be here.” He turned back to face her, red hair ablaze, mocking her nomenclature. “You would not be here to watch me.” Doors a hundred feet away creaked open. “And he would not be here to torment my failures.” He pointed at his opponent.

[Silence Sei]

“It’s good to see you too, old friend,” Sei Orlouge spoke with a sarcastic ‘tone’ to his voice. The sight of Duffy Bracken brought with it a conglomeration of feelings within the mute. This was a man that the Mystic fought against and alongside, defeated and was defeated by, an ally and an enemy, very few people shared a relationship as close as Sei Orlouge and Duffy Bracken.

“Ruby, you look as lovely as always,” Sei walked towards the woman next to Duffy and gently took her hand and gave it a kiss. The woman’s eyes shied away a bit at this gesture, though Sei could not tell if it was due to embarrassment or something else entirely. He bowed his respects to the Lady of the house of Winchester and straightened himself up.

Duffy begrudgingly extended his hand and Sei took it with his own only to pull the former thief in for a hug. The Mystic closed his eyes and bit his lower lip, afraid to show off his tears for the man he embraced. He could feel his nemesis try to shift away from the emotional greeting, and the mute finally released him from his hold. This was a man Sei gave a eulogy for, a man he thought after cheating death over and over again finally came to his ultimate demise.

His hand wiped at his still closed eyes in order to shed away the tears. When he opened them again, he took in the beauty of the nature that Alerar could produce. In a country full of technology, there was the occasional field that could sprinkle the land and remind the strategist that nature always finds a way. Sei stood up and took a step back, his flowing white strategist robes a symbol of how serious he took this encounter.

“You have been missed old friend,” Sei said as he cracked a smile at the Tantalus leader, “but I have to say that I absolutely adore what you’ve done to your ears.” The Avatar of Alerar was still alive and well in his pride for the dark elf people, it seemed.

[Duffy]

“An unfortunate side effect of reincarnation based entirely on which gullible twerps need me most,” Duffy replied glibly. He conjured his cane and leant on it. Hanging into the wind, the bard toyed with his piercings cheekily.

Though it had been half a year since his revival at the hands of Alydia Ettermire, his elven lineage was still a bull in a china shop. It crashed around in his wake, reminding him of his failures just as much as Sei’s presence did. Forgotten allegiances reared their ugly heads. Old sworn bonds retied Mystic and Monkey Man together.

“The Grandmaster invited us here,” Ruby said. Her guiding of the conversation allayed Duffy’s discomfort in the path of Sei’s emotion, and encouraged Sei to for once in his life, get down to the point. “Did you receive a letter?” Buxom, and vibrant, the no-longer-red-headed spell singer folder her arms across her chest. She too, it seemed, had died since last they had met.

Mysteries within mysteries kept pulling strange fish back to the old pond.

When Arden asked me to kill him in earnest, I expected something was wrong. Clues lead to clues, and clues to a letter. Sei frowned. Who sent it, if not you?

Alerar’s wilds continued to remain bleak and unchanging. Though the wind whipped sand into the air, and the clouds, swollen with threatening rain rolled overhead – nature remained in vacuum. Duffy ran a finger along his ear a final time to illustrate his feelings towards them.

“Someone is protecting our interests, it seems.” He turned to Ruby. Examining her frown lines brought feelings of sympathy and regret. He took a deep breath. The air smelt like tobacco, sand, and sin. He turned east, to the mountains, and picked at every detail. It felt familiar, somehow. Yet, he swore he had never been here in any of his lives. “Oh well.” He turned back to the Mystic. “Shall we?”

Without further introduction, explanation, and revelation Duffy pounced. With one hand, he unclasped his cloak. With the other, he cast away his cane and produced from nothingness an old and unwelcome friend. A black hilted katana. Ruby skipped back, dress rhythmic and flowing like a spring tide as she put distance between the coming storm and her dashing good looks.

Always.

The bard began to sing in high-elven as he entered a strange pattern of dance steps, leaps, and dodges of nothing. His katana would cut across Sei’s midriff, when they entered one another’s reach. With guile and tact, and a half-cut gut filled with gin, Duffy Bracken came kicking and screaming back to life.

[Silence Sei]

“You’ve grown Duffy,,” Sei closed his eyes as his rival speculated what hand moved the proverbial pieces into place. The former bard struck first, a sword slash aimed at the modest midriff of the mute Mystic. The telepath grabbed at his hip and unwrapped the bladed ring at his side with the dexterity of a master thief. He raised the weapon just in time to catch Duffy’s blade with the chakram and threw it’s trajectory directly upward.

“We shall see if death has dulled your blade at all.”

Sei looked to Ruby for just a brief second as memories began to froth in the Mystic’s head of all the dinners he shared with these people. His sentiments did not belong on the battlefield, and he was perfectly aware of this fact, but he also knew that it was a long time since Duffy and himself engaged like this. He wondered where ruby’s husband, the egotistical and bird-obsessed Leopold Winchester, was at this moment and what his reaction would be to Ruby watching a former lover fight a former crush.

His foot lifted up and tried to find a home in the gut of the reformed thief. He needed to gain some distance between himself and the newly revived elf. There was something strange to the mute about fighting a dark elf after he spent so many years as the Alerar Grand Strategist, defending the shade complexion people. He tried to regain his focus, unsure of whether or not his kick actually found its mark, and followed it up with a toss of his chakram.

The weapon was aimed for where the orange haired warrior last saw his friend’s abdomen. With any luck, the intensity of the battle would rattle the strategist out of his current mental state. So much had happened since Duffy’s fall that Sei needed to get his head in the fight rather than this swirl of emotions he found himself in.

[Duffy]

The swirl surrounding Sei swift turned to an onslaught. Unleashed at last, Duffy let all the raging talents of his past lives swell to the surface. Chakram clashed with katana. Chakram nicked cloak and sliced flesh. Katana chipped bright tabard and clipped wings. Only when the bard bounced back to catch his breath, feet parsed, eyes widened, did he realise that the Mystic had opened a two inch gash on his upper left arm. Mid pirouette, elven arrogance had left the mute an opening. Aggression, anger, and misplaced feeling took advantage of it all too readily.

“What’s wrong?” Duffy cocked his head to one side.

“What’s always wrong with him?” Ruby counterpointed the bard’s concern with scathing sarcasm.

The katana flipped to a reverse grip. Duffy bent his right knee to lower his stance to match the diminished confidence of his former mentor. Understandably, his appearance in the arena had shocked the Mystic. According to Leopold Winchester, Sei had given quite the emotional farewell when Scara Brae gathered beneath the branches of the White Tree.

“He cares…,” Duffy whispered. Sei read his lips and tried to smile. He spiralled his chakram around a wrist, tossed it skyward, and pirouetted. He caught it perfectly, and used the momentum to throw it with an eagle’s aim.

“I didn’t quite ca-” Ruby continued.

The spell singer stayed her verbal onslaught. The terrain trembled. The sky roiled. Drawing on strengths of friends, Duffy vanished as he borrowed the silent swordsman’s latent ability to teleport.

“…way too much,” Duffy continued as he re-appeared.

Ribbons of blue light spiralled around his limbs, illuminating woollen attire and battle-scars gathered as war trophies deep in the red forest. Fighting against the creatures twisted and warped by Pode’s Curse had taken a toll, even on him. He found his own mind wandering. Losing integrity and focus to a sea of ineptitude and indecision, he grit his teeth.

“Is that it?” he snarled. His eyes narrowed. His hair danced erratically, unkempt ribbons of flame.

Sei calmly waited. He held out a hand, threatening to use some unseen force to end his foe. Duffy narrowed his gaze, trying to work out what the man was doing. When he realised, he tried to turn to deflect the projectile that had nearly killed him. Like a boomerang, it looped back to its owner. Ignoring the obvious was a foolish mistake made by a fool.

“Duffy!” Ruby screamed. It mixed with the wind, and made a banshee’s howl of nature’s wail.

Sei caught the chakram and dropped it to his side.

“Fuck me sideways,” Duffy sputtered. He dropped heavily to one knee. The chakram sliced open his left lower calf, cutting muscle and time in half.

I might care about you, Duffy. Sei raised his chakram for a return throw. But that does not mean I won’t hurt you.

Duffy’s eyes sparkled with realisation. They watched the ring lift, and matched its rise with a defiant stand. He clicked his fingers, conjured his cane into his left hand, and put his weight on it. He left his left leg cocked, so that the injury would only hamper him, and not cause him to bleed out in minutes.

“I only need one leg to send you back to the castle, wings between legs.” Duffy snarled again, but with aggression and control, not an outburst of pain.

Gobbets of spit darted from his pierced, bloodied chin. He held his katana expertly in his right hand and took on the mantle of the Bladesinger Lysander. If the boy who wielded fire and ran rampant through the streets of Scara Brae centuries ago could not best Sei. Perhaps, just perhaps, the elf ended the civil war in Corone, centuries ago could.

[Silence Sei]

Sei sighed as Duffy continued his prose and showmanship by tapping into his life as a retired actor to relive the life of someone else. While this ability seemed simple, the mute knew that his friend could use more than just character traits to his roles. Lysander Brandybuck was a member of the Tantalum that the Mystic was not too familiar with, so the limp of the warrior threw him off guard.

His eyes began to focus on the cane that suddenly appeared. His eyes took in all the properties, both magical and physical, that made up the walking aid. Duffy charged him once again, this time slower due to his method acting, but Sei’s eyes did not leave the cane. Two thin lines of distorted air seemed to connect the mute’s retinas and the magical stick itself, something Ruby would likely notice before Duffy.

By the time ‘Lysander’ raised his arm to strike at his opponent, his came had burst into flames. The faux cripple seemed stunned at this new revelation, which gave the Mystic enough time to act. Sei raised his hand and as he did so, two long strands of what seemed to be seaweed shot out from the grass and left the smaller green blades to gently glide to the ground. The long emerald strands attempted to wrap themselves around the wrists of Duffy to keep him in place. This was the start to Octopuses Garden.

“I’ve become a bit more callous since last we met, old friend,” the Mystic took several paces back from his opponent, “how many times has your family watched you die and come back, Duffy? How often does Jensen get to die and just return as though nothing happened? How many people on this planet can be stabbed in the neck and simply phase through it? How many of those people should have been Kyla?!”

Sei’s eyes filled with tears as the storm began overhead. Dark clouds that were not in the azure sky mere moments ago swirled with the fury of a tornado. Large rocks began to pour out of the clouds, the size of volleyballs and with enough speed to decapitate a grown lion. All of the miniature boulders were centered upon Duffy Bracken, ready to separate his limbs from his torso.

“You’ve spent years falling on my blade to try and get me to learn what needs to be done. And all it actually took was one foolhardy girl…”

[Duffy]

“It’s the people we expect nothing of that do the most amazing things!” Duffy struggled against the bonds beset by his former mentor. He knew futility all too well, and needed no bonds, mental of physical, to remind him.

The maelstrom above reflected the darkness in both men’s hearts. Failure, too, crackled in the fire and brimstone. A swirl of hot air, churning the illusory palisades of cloud into a whirlwind and a thundercloud. Duffy had requested an arena to show one another their true worth – they had not disappointed.

“Don’t hold my immortality against me, though…” Eyeing the impending cavalcade of meteor and madness, the bard tightened his diaphragm and, with a belt and whistle of a high note, drew on Turling, ancient and harmonic. “I am bound, bested, and broken,” he sang. “I am fortunate in reprieve,” his melody turned to a thunder of his own.

A light…fractal, snowflake like, and full of wonderment began to scintillate around the elf’s broken body. The sheath at his hip glimmered. His hair danced, life-like the fire within his sister, Ruby Winchester. His skin darkened, a pallor belonging to heroes who fought too hard to save themselves from the Fates.

“I am bent, brought low, and bested!” he lifted his voice, and his heart along with it. As his first verse crested into a tumult of song, music burst into the arena. Drums. Temba. A rattle of symbols.

The pallor drew into his eyes. His limbs tensed. Muscles snapped. Bones creaked. An uprising, forged ages ago in steel unbroken, poured into his larynx. His song, like the Lysander that fought Apotheosis long ago, sang on and forged stars.

“I pledge to die once more for the future, for the friends that I seem to forsake!” He pulled against the seaweed one last, futile time. In futility, he found strength. Like every hero about to succumb to his nemesis, the first thud of rock into the farrowed ground jolted life into the old dog. “Let it go, let it die, this life never bothered me anyway!”

The fire burst true into the arena. Another rock smashed ten feet to the south and sent clods and catastrophes skyward. Duffy, seeing his opportunity, send a single, poignant line in Sei’s direction. The vocals vibrated with the same, undulating conviction he had used to help forge the Blade of Light centuries ago. At least, the same belief that the Thayne he was born from wielded.

“But in learning to not fear death, we find meaning in living every day!”

A meteor replaced the bard’s outline. The thud of rock against sand cracked the illusory walls of the Ai’bron magic. A first, at least in a long time. Thunder shook the Citadel, Lightning burnt the sky. Bardic bones cracked. Bardic blood flowed. The song, the Last Song, filled the arena and carried all the memories of every death the avatars of the Thayne Tantalus had endured in the defence of freedom. In the defence of family. In the defence of friends. As they rushed into Sei, Duffy hoped his final bitter end would prove a light in Sei Orlouge’s dark grief.

[Silence Sei]

The rush of several different emotions rushed through the Mystic. All at once he could see, feel, and experience everything the Tantalus troupe had ever done in their multiple lives. For a normal person, this wave of different personas and combination of feelings would overwhelm the mind and drive someone to the brink of insanity. Sei Orlouge on the other hand was one of the most powerul telepaths on the planet. The 'attack' did nothing, short of temporarily making the mute forget his previous sentimental outburst.

Duffy fell to the ground with one of his trademark last words that were supposed to teach the Mystic a lesson. Perhaps that was why Sei enjoyed the company of the actor so much; there was always some sort of deeper meaning behind everything Duffy did. Sei began to approach the body of his friend, but paused for just a second and looked up towards Ruby. The woman seemed uninterested in the battle, despite the fact that her brother just channeled the amber haired vixen’s own personae.

It’s a trap.

Sei took several steps backwards as he looked at the faux corpse of Duffy. This was some sort of trick the mute was not used to, and in fact it was typically Sei that used the doppelganger trick to lull his opponents. The stone rain began to die down; the grass around the points of impact now uprooted blots of dirt and debris.

“It was a nice try, old friend,” Sei spoke with a smirk upon his features, “but that was a bit too easy. It would have made more sense for you to use Arden’s blink, or even something clever out of Lillith. I do wonder what this new ability of yours is, though. Mind giving me a demonstration of how real the double is?”

Sei did not wait for an answer, and instead reached for one of his two throwing fans at his sides. He opened the collapsible weapon and threw it without a second thought towards the prone body of Duffy’s doppelganger. If the fan, known as Shadar, managed to hit the body, it would leave on it a drowsy like effect upon the secondary actor. With his other hand the Mystic quickly sheathed his chakram and pulled out the long sword that was one half of his legendary weapon.

“Kyla would have enjoyed this, you humbling me. I just hope my little girl is enjoying it from somewhere beyond this plane of existence,” Sei spoke with the same stoic demeanor he was well known for, but even as the words flowed from his brain, twin streams of tears began to run down his face.

[Duffy]

Duffy appeared betwixt projectile and target. He dropped his true sword into its path, and knocked it with a portent ring to the ground. Every bone in his body sung with anger. Every muscle in his tired, beleaguered form was perfectly tensed and reposed. In the breeze, the bard’s black slacks and white blouse rippled enigmatically. His hair wavered charismatically. His piercings, on pallid, succour lips glinted mystically.

“Time and time again I try to tell you that immortality is not a blessing.” His words were half-hushed by his own fear. He turned to Sei, stared him dead on, and bit his lip with anticipation. He had waited for months before being able to call the Mystic here. Now that he was, his words threatened to fail him.

How is it anything but?

Duffy shook his head. He had sent every agonising moment of his own demise from the day Oblivion burnt his existence into the history books to the present. Every sword in the gut. Every fall from towering heights. Every poisoning, dragon’s claw, and every bitter blossom betrayal. He had lived a thousand deaths that had left a thousand scars. He remembered memories of a thousand unforgettable failures.

“This will be the last time I get the ‘privilege’ of tearing another little piece of my heart out.”

Tired and beleaguered himself, Sei dropped his guard for just a moment. Despite the bard’s pledge to simply fight in their next encounter, here they were, once again, whittling away the hours with words unwise. He tried to make sense of what was being said, but, as ever, felt in the need for more adequate answers. He waited patiently.

Duffy stepped forwards, up the rise towards his former employer, and still reluctant confidant.

“The rest of the troupes do not know I am alive.” He gestured to where he and Ruby had stood upon Sei’s entrance. “She was as much a part of my rouse as I.” He turned away to the sun, and took in the last of its illusory light before it went behind a thick, achromous cloud. Darkness loomed.

So tell them? It seemed simple to Sei.

Duffy shook his head. He conjured a cane and leant on it, the fatigue caused by summoning a simulacrum so real for so long as much a death blow to him as Sei’s meteoric storm to his glass-self.

“I am going to Raiaera, to meet with Madison Freebird.” He raised a hand to stay Sei’s objections at the mention of the plague lady’s name. “I do not need to explain.” He did not. His machinations in the Red Forest were of his own design, and for the greater good. He hoped. “I wish to call on you, one last time before I die.”

Die? Sei cocked his head. He had believed it once. He was not about to believe it again.

“When you, me, and Alydia Ettermire delve into a white tree temple in the heart of the Lindequalme only you and Alydia will return to the surface.” Only they would revel in the glory of their victory over the Forgotten Ones once and for all. “The act of defeating Apotheosis will shatter the ties between the troupe and the Tap. We will, for all intent and purpose, lose our ability to be born anew.”

This had been a long time coming. When Duffy had ‘died’ two years prior, Oblivion’s curse has almost broken. Trapped in the Aria, the bard had been given centuries to think and plan and plot his revenge. Finally, he could sleep a mortal man. He could fear death, just like any other. He raised his cane expertly, and sent away his blade. This final fight would be as their first – an old man desperate for aid against an old man desperate for forgiveness and meaning in a grief stricken daze.

Kill. Apotheosis? Sei’s scepticism did not need tone to be heard. It rang in Duffy’s head like a church bell.

The bard sighed. He looked around the drab, lifeless world. In the sun’s absence, the scenery drained of life. The colours once buoyant became twisted mockeries of life’s infinite tapestry. Duffy was sure the monk’s responsible for the arena were toying with him.

“Who else could protect Radasanth, but it’s Hero?” With a sheepish grin, the bard ran forwards on nimble, well-placed feet. His balance was perfect and his aim true. Cane rapped against chakram, chakram against sword, sword against legendary blade.

The two blade masters switched weapons and stances and modes with blistering speed, each one trying to upend the other and fight out the myriad complex decisions each had to make. Like all matters between the former leader of the Ixian Knights and its founding captain, it began, and ended, with the death of Duffy Bracken.

[Silence Sei]

He could not have been serious.

Not only did Duffy know where Apotheosis, a Forgotten One, currently rested, but he now requested the aid of Sei in order to slay someone the Mystic thought unslayable. Forgotten One’s were on par with the Thaynes themselves in terms of both power and intelligence. To be asked to help defeat Apotheosis was the same thing as asking the strategist to slit his wrists right then and there . The warrior was about to voice his protest when Duffy asked a solitary question.

“Who else could Protect Radasanth, but it’s Hero?”

Time seemed to freeze after the question was asked. Sei could hear his heartbeat as though it were in his throat. The fear became so real to the warrior that he almost completely dropped his guard in his even exchanges with his friend. Apotheosis alive meant that Radasanth, and in fact the whole of Corone, would eventually become a target. Xem’Zund and Denerbriel were each solely responsible for the near complete destruction of Raiaera and Salvar respectively. If Apotheosis made his way into Corone.

Sei’s arm came up and deflected a blow from Duffy, a move made out of pure instinct rather than actual thought. His face was now broken out into a cold sweat, each stream from the beads a new shiver down the telepath’s spine. Duffy Bracken, Sei Orlouge, and Alydia Ettermire were all the bard thought was needed in order to slay someone who, for all intents and purposes, was a God. Another arm came up, this time twisting the actor’s armed limb and twisting it around to force him to drop his blade. The Dragon of Drantrak turned to Duffy and starred into his emerald eyes.

“I swear to the Thaynes Bracken,” Sei’s tone was that of a protective father rather than Corone’s savior, “If you are using the three children I have remaining as a way to manipulate your way into my aid, Apotheosis will seem like a light rain compared to the torrent I will lay upon you. I have lost one of mine, do not dare jest that I may lose the others.”

Duffy came towards the Mystic’s face with a stout right hand. It slammed hard into Sei’s face and forced the features of the warrior to reel back, only to return to his gaze into his opponent’s form. Duffy tried again and found his fist gripped by the palm of the azure eyed father. His brows were furrowed, and Sei no longer had any reservations about ending the life of his general. As his gaze stayed on the bard, Duffy would quickly find his face getting warmer and warmer, as though the sun overhead were getting lower and lower…