How Did It Ever Come To This?

((Closed to Malagen. This thread contains scenes with explicit sexual content.))

“I can see a frozen point in time
That is easy to retrace
Light and darkness are both intertwined
And the elements are in their place

With one motion of her wanting mind
The real world begins to fade
And all the hateful things I have become
Temporarily go away!”
Celldweller – Frozen

It was getting late.

She had spent more time within the walls of The Citadel than she’d originally thought. Though it was not yet dark the sun was setting on the land of Corone and the sky was being set on fire with an artists paintbrush. Blue was suspended as orange and red took over setting the day awash with a sense of awe over something so naturally beautiful. The Calerian could have stood there for a long time and watched as light slowly faded from the sky and left the city in darkness, she could have. But someone bumped into her from behind, sending her stumbling forward on the city steps. Turning around, she glared at him, promptly receiving a very impolite grunt of an apology as the person moved on. Another wannabe warrior with no manners that didn’t understand how the world operated outside of the walls of The Citadel. She ignored him; he was not worth her time, nor a place among her thoughts.

Taking a deep breath, Ira slung her rucksack over her shoulders and headed out into the city. Even though it was getting late the streets were still filled with activity. People went about their daily business and children were still crowding the streets with their carefree laughter. Windows held warm, comforting light from deep within, setting a yellow glow to reflect upon the cobbled streets of the city. Voices could usually be heard if one paused long enough but she was above eavesdropping on strangers in a strange land. And this certainly was a strange land. Here, it was never truly dark, even in the latest hours of the night. Lamps and lanterns burned deep into the night and guards patrolled the streets giving some semblance of safety to the citizens within. She did not understand what the guards were protecting the citizens from; after all in Astaka crime was nearly unheard of. But here in Radasanth, there were areas unfriendly to anyone, foreigner or familiar alike.

There were roads and alleys not meant to be walked through and she didn’t know it but she looked like the best target out there. She was a female for starters and here in Corone being female did not hold the same respect as it did in Fallien. Here men viewed females as weaklings they could easily overpower. And in the fading light of day she looked like a prime target, dressed in foreign clothes with not a single piece of armament upon her body. That they could see. One need not display their weapons for all the world to see. Not in her mind, but the outside world was much different than the one she grew up in.

Before the Calerian realized it she had been walking for some time. The sun was no longer in the sky and she was merely being guided by the streetlights. And she was lost.

“Katsam…”

Stopping, she turned behind her and looked the way she came but she’d been so lost in her thoughts she couldn’t even recognize the street. There were doorways and darkened windows and little chimneys with puffs of smoke rising from within. Yet ahead of her were also doorways with darkened windows and puffs of smoke.

This was just perfect. She’d managed to get herself lost in a foreign city and with not a stranger in sight to help her. Why is there never anyone around to help a girl when she needed it? Shrugging, Ira turned and continued on ahead. If luck would have her then she may run into someone who could give her directions to the Inn she was staying at. If not, well, good thing she didn’t have any plans for the night. Luck didn’t appear to be rearing its beautiful face any time soon, instead curiosity emerged and Ira found herself walking by what she thought was a park. However, when she got closer to it she realized there was a metallic fence surrounding the entire place and grey stones were sticking up out of the ground. Curious, she opened the gate and walked inside. Reaching the first stone, she knelt down in the grass to try and read what was carved into its surface. It was difficult, she had to use the light of the moon and her body kept shadowing it, not to mention she was better at understanding common in spoken form than written. It soon became apparent to her that it was someone’s name carved into the stone and what looked like their age.

Realization clicked somewhere in the depths of her mind. This was similar to The Valley of the Dead they had back home. Standing up, Ira walked deeper into the cemetery and stood before an extremely elaborate stone that depicted a winged human staring up at the sky. A look of content was upon its face. Looking at the carving, Ira read aloud to herself.

“Here lies Jonathan Davis in the twentieth year of his life.”

Here lies…?

Looking down at the ground below her feet, the Calerian let her eyes wander the row of neatly arranged stones. The meaning didn’t take long to follow her confusion and Ira quickly stepped away from the front of the stone. Why would people bury their deceased in the ground!? Why wouldn’t they burn them? Did it not take up large areas of land in order to bury so many people individually and would they not smell? It made little to no sense within her head and she couldn’t grasp the meaning behind using such valuable space for the dead. Their souls lived on, their bodies need not remain in such a way. Their names should always be remembered, always carved into stone, but why would they keep the body?

Shrugging off the thoughts, Ira looked up to the half full moon above her. In Fallien the night sky would be filled with millions of stars, but here with the lights of the city they were somewhat dimmed to her eyes. She could still see them and they were still a beautiful sight to behold. But the desert truly had the darkest of nights.

“Well, isn’t she a pretty little thing,” a voice slithered through the sharp shadow that a small mausoleum cast. The moon was hanging in the sky like a bleached coin, spraying its argent light all over the cemetery and adding a haunting note to the locale that evoked dread in the hearts of many. Not the pair of scoundrels that stuck to the shadows, though. Mikael and Quorn were small-time crooks, usually doing small mischief for a small amount of coinage and tonight was no different. Svarth Finnes, one of the most prospective Bazaar merchants, was buried today, together with a lot of his belongings. A lot of rather pricey belongings. Using the simple reasoning that the dead fat blob didn’t need those belongings anyways, Mikael and Quorn decided to liberate them from their earthy prisons. Until they saw her, that is.

“Hey, I saw her first. I get the first turn,” the second voice added, his eyes glued to the curvaceous woman that just strolled into the benighted graveyard, looking all foreign and too sweet to pass on. They both knew that she probably wouldn’t be overly interested in spending the night with a pair of grave robbers, but it wasn’t like they heard the word no before. And it wasn’t like they didn’t know how to change her mind. A bit of slapping, and bit of roping and they would bring out her pliability soon enough.

“Whatever. She looks more then enough of a woman for both of us,” the first voice again, accompanied by two hands rubbing against each other and a tongue passing over his jagged teeth and broken lips.

“She is,” the third voice said, emotionless, as chilly as the evening, coming from behind the lurking pair. “And she’s mine.”

By the time the horny pair registered the alien voice and turned around to connect it with the appropriate face, they were dead. A saber was lifted above them, momentarily catching the silvery gleam of the moon before it sunk back into the shadows and bit into their bodies. The first slice halved the hooded head of one of the prowlers diagonally, obliterating him before he even got a chance to utter a cry. His comrade managed a whimper, his face red from the spray of blood, his mouth filled with the gut-wrenching taste of the crimson liquid, but by the time he noticed a pale face of the devil that emerged from the darkness, he too was sent to meet his maker. A double movement of the sword first opened up his belly, then his throat, leaving the head connected with the rest of the body by skin and about an inch of muscle before he too collapsed to the ground.

Sparing only enough time to wipe the blood off of his saber, Malagen returned the sword to the scabbards in his left hand before he stepped out of the shade, a black specter in an illuminated night. He had been following Ira through the streets ever since she left the Citadel, staying out of sight, keeping his eyes on her and his retribution pending until the right moment. The right venue. And the tribal girl waltzed straight into it. If there was a more fitting place to end her life then a cemetery, Malagen was unaware of its existence.

There was no anger in the barbarian... or at least that was what his mind kept insisting on, canceling out all emotions as it usually did. But the truth deviated from his usual machine-like demeanor. Because there were some feelings involved, born back in the enchanted arena and feeding on every moment he looked at her. The Dram couldn’t define these emotions yet – they were such a novelty to his emotionless being – but there was a definite upheaval within him, screaming with desire to burst out. And Malagen wanted that turmoil gone. It was something that was trained out of him, something that did not compute, and the only solution he could think of was cutting it off like a gangrenous limb before it caused more damage. That was why he followed Ira. There was only one solution to this problem she caused.

Death.

Whether it would be his – highly unlikely, his mind stated confidently – or hers, it was something that was about to be decided. Either way, tonight this usurpation that Ira caused by her rejection was coming to an end.

“I hope you picked one to your liking, wench,” Malagen said as he approached the purple-haired foreigner, his gait steady and calculated, making each step monotonously similar to the previous one. His hood was drawn, but under the acute light of the moon it did little to obscure his face. “Because I’m about to put you into the ground.”

The thumb of his left hand pushed against the armguard of his saber, unsheathing an inch of the blade and announcing his intentions rather clearly. Death came to collect Ira’s soul in a place that was a monument to all those it collected already. And Malagen was its bringer.

She hadn’t been paying attention. So used to the safety of her home that the danger of this place eluded her mind. Besides, what was the point of keeping her senses open when this placed teemed with life, with souls? All she would get was confused and a huge headache with all the spiritual energy that was around her. Still, she was regretting it and she knew she should have been more careful, watchful of what was going on around her. Her training as a Calerian had dictated she be careful, but not in such a place as this. Fallien was too tame, she was too naïve about the world and her rude awakening could cost her a life she was not ready to leave yet.

The release of two souls pushed into her thoughts and she felt herself tense.

The souls lingered.

Their energy pulsed into the area like the overbearing beat of a heart. She remained still, waiting to see what happened next. And as she reached out she realized there was a third soul in the cemetery. This one was stilled locked within its mortal shell and it was close to her as well. Familiarity ran through her at its presence but she was not skilled enough to know what mortal it belonged to. Energy felt too familiar, one soul like any other.

She stared out from the corner of her eyes, careful not to move, not to alert whomever was so close to her. But she couldn’t keep the charade up. Not when she perceived for the briefest of moments something flashing in the moonlight. The Calerian turned then and the form that stepped out of the shadows sent a cold shiver down her spine. It took only a moment for her eyes to pierce through the thin veil of darkness this region called night and look at his face. It was unmistakable and certainly not something she would easily forget. And the words he spoke erased the last sense of doubt from her mind.

But how…?

He must have followed her from The Citadel. This entire time, as she traversed through this city, lost, he had watched her and she’d had not the slightest clue. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared as the anger washed over her. But she quickly stamped it down and kept her emotions in check. Ira knew she was in a dangerous situation when it slapped her in the face and it was slapping, hard. Malagen had easily been able to overcome her in the illusionary world of The Citadel, a nuance she could ignore. It was after all a conjured realm and the dead would be revived. But out here the stakes were considerably higher and there was no mistake in her mind he was playing for the highest of all. He wanted her life. And the scary part was, she was unsure if she could stop him from taking it.

How had it come to this? How had a simple sparring match in The Citadel come this far that her life and possibly his too hung precariously over a chasm? What had she done to send him over the edge? Surely her rejection was not enough of a reason to end the life of a living creature. Was he that cold? She was not going to go down without a fight though. If her life was going to end in some far away land by the hand of such a thing as him she was going to take him down with her. But she had no intention of losing.

“I thought the one with the asthipajara would suite you perfectly.” An overconfident smirk, hiding her doubt, slid over her face. The mask was on, the battle was beginning and she knew she needed to win. There was too much at stake to lose. But if she won and she let him live would he just walk away and leave her be, or would he continue to follow her? The answer was not known and it gnawed at her conscience and at the pit of her stomach. She had always been under the assumption that, better her own life than the life of another. But putting this man into the equation possibly changed things. There were already two dead behind him. She could just faintly see their bodies in the moonlight, the shimmer of their blood the most prominent distinction. Their souls still lingered, desperately trying to reclaim what was already lost. There would be no second chance for them.

Her training and instincts as a Calerian dictate that she should take care of them. Her fingers were itching for her blade, for the final feel of the spiritual energy they emitted as their souls crossed over. But she couldn’t possible accomplish that while Malagen was before her.

Taking a deep breath, Ira calmed the fluttering beat of her heart and summoned her armour. She hadn’t used it within The Citadel, but every advantage was needed for she knew her skill was below that of his. It pained her to admit it but she did not live within a world of fantasy and she was above lying to herself in such a way. One moment she stood before him wearing nothing the deep purple and red robes that had adorned her before. Then as if it had been there all along armour covered her body. Brilliant in the light of the moon, is shone like that of mythril, pure and white and teeming with her spiritual energy, the energy it took to form it. And formed it was. Fitting her body like a glove was one solid piece of metal covering her torso from her chest down to her hips. Her shins were armoured as well and her entire left arm was covered with the mystic metal. Leaving her right arm covered only to the edge of her elbow. It was not something she found herself needing outside Purgatory often. But in a situation like this she was glad she had it.

Her hands did not remain empty for long. Her half swallows quickly formed themselves, Uriahd and it’s nameless partner held in her relaxed fingers. The thought of appealing to him, of asking him to stop this nonsense crossed her mind and was quickly squashed. She understood such a thing as pride and she had much of it. Instinct also told her that such an action would help her little here. Brute force was the only thing he would understand. She would not make the first move though, that was his decision.

He knew she wouldn’t run, even though fleeing was the course of action that many would’ve opted for instead of facing the murderous barbarian in this sepulchral locale. If Ira were the type of a woman that cowered in front of words and threats, Malagen wouldn’t have wasted his time with her in the Citadel. Instead of the usual mellowness that dwelled within most common women, there was might in this exotic southerner, the stubborn kind that reared its prideful head even more when push came to shove. It was what lured him into temporarily abandoning his regular foible and what ultimately forced him, the Dram messiah, to yield despite having the upper hand during the course of their battle. It would’ve been an impressive feat if Malagen was the type that had the ability to be impressed.

As it was, it was just a card up her sleeve that started to lose potency. Yes, she was a strong woman, and yes, in some obscure, half-emotional way he coveted her, but they played that game already and it led to nothing but words of deception and degradation. Most men would’ve collected their injured pride and let the whole thing pass. Most men would’ve walked out of the Citadel with a smug smile on their face, happy to trade a fraction of their pride for a chance to grope Ira once or twice. But Malagen wasn’t most men. Unlike their lax minds that were often neither here nor there, his operated with much more rigor, following the strict guidelines that led to the extremes. He wanted everything or nothing at all, and in case of the latter, he demanded satiation in one way or the other. Death did a pretty good job at that, especially if his victim begged for mercy before the coup de grâce.

If there was some begging to occur tonight, however, Ira showed no intention of doing it. The initial surprise that his entry elicited on her face dissipated just as fast as it crept into her lineaments, replaced by the same smarmy, dominating smirk that crested her lips back in the Citadel. It was a trap, that cocky smile of hers, but it was also a mask behind which she hid her uncertainty, her weakness, her true face. As if to prove his assumption wrong, Ira did her little magic again, summoning metal out of thin air. This time it formed a plate of armor over her curves, the enameled metal clinging to her body almost skin tight, enveloping her entire upper body. Malagen allowed a smirk. All she really succeeded in doing was proving her own precariousness. Armor was for the weak, for those who felt unable to strike their opponent before they were struck.

“Perhaps,” he retorted to her words as his calm footsteps came to a halt, leaving some fifteen feet and three burial mounds as the only obstacle between them. Their eyes found each other in the gray darkness of the cemetery, so similar in color and yet portraying such different emotions when they collided. Which was to win tonight; his hauntingly calm void or her tumultuous storm? “But I’m not the one who’s about to die.”

Her curved weapons were called forth, but they were only a minor nuisance. It was all about the skill and unless she managed to miraculously discover some forgotten technique between the Citadel and the graveyard, he had more of it. Resolve, heartiness, stubbornness, they were all admirable traits, but they failed in comparison with true prowess. You could be a raging bull and you would still follow the rest of the stampede into the gorge. Not that Malagen was about to allow her a running start, or any kind of start for that matter. Play time was over. It was time for this wench to meet the beast she’d been poking with a really short stick.

“Farewell,” he said in a low voice, and with that word he exploded towards the woman. Unlike back in the Citadel, the barbarian unleashed his full power, accelerating from his stationary position to full speed almost momentarily. His feet stepped from one grave onto the other in three quick steps and already he was on top of her. His saber flashed as it left the scabbards, the metallic sound the harbinger of the diagonal upwards slice. His movement was fluid and impeccable, the initial attack followed up by a horizontal slice aimed at the neck. But even though they were perfectly executed, both attacks were still just a ruse, a preparation for the final attack behind which Malagen put all his strength. His saber came lashing at the woman’s undefended groin, aimed to tear both her tendons and femoral artery, thus bringing a quick conclusion to her resistance. Once she was down and bleeding, there would be plenty of time for begging.

Her heart leapt into her throat as she watched Malagen speed towards her. The organ lodged itself in the passageway and beat wildly against the walls, restricting her airflow. She knew the moment she’d seen Malagen that it was going to come down to this. She knew he’d been serious, but it was different when it really started. Gone were the safe walls of The Citadel, replaced by the desolation of land filled with the dead. She knew she should be doing something, moving, protecting herself but the whole thing felt like it was going by so slowly. It felt like she was trapped in sand and no matter how much she struggled she couldn’t seem to move. Yet even if she could her mind had gone blank. No moves came to her. No defensive posture, nothing. Her mind was rebelling against her at the worst possible moment.

The whole thing came crashing down towards her. The scene sped up as if she were merely watching some sick illusion and not actually participating. One moment everything felt so slow and then the next it quickened. Instinct alone saved her from the attacks. The hollow night was replaced by the sound of metal impacting against metal as she deflected Malagen’s first blow. The second she merely stepped back away from, out of range, out of harm. But the third came in too fast. It cut through flesh, muscle and tendon. And that was all it took, one split second. Her leg buckled under her weight and threw her forward, her knees impacting on the hard dirt and sending shocks up her body. Her half swallow sank into the dirt to help brace her as she fell. In one simple move he had cut her down. All her years of training, all the battles she’d fought had mattered little. All in one move.

Shock set in first, leaving her mind disbelieving. She tried to move her leg but it wouldn’t respond. No matter how much she willed for the limb to do something the muscles wouldn’t move, not the way she wanted them to. Then the pain started. Dulled by the adrenaline, she could barely feel it at first but it quickly grew. In seconds it felt like Malagen had cut off the entirety of her leg and the throbbing and stabbing did not appear to be subsiding anytime soon.

Releasing her death grip on Uriahd, Ira placed one of her hands over the wound. She needed to apply pressure to it; she needed to stop the bleeding even if her mind told her it was futile she had to. The blood flowed quick and thick through her fingers. When she pushed her hand against the wound harder one of her fingers slipped deep inside. The sudden pain came out as a strangled cry. Nausea set in from it and bile rose in the back of her throat, it’s acidity burning all the way back down. The wound was right where her thigh met her groin and it was deep. It had severed major arteries and because of it she was probably going to bleed to death. But she wasn’t going to give up that easily, no she couldn’t. She’d been in helpless situations before and had the scars to prove she’d lived through them. She was not going to let him win this easily.

The Calerian looked up at the Dram whose face showed no emotion for what he’d just done. While she couldn’t help her pain filled expression from appearing.

“I…can’t believe…you did it…” Even her words sounded pained.

She couldn’t believe that someone could be so cold and uncaring. She couldn’t. But he could.

Without warning the world around them stopped. Everything froze in its last movement, except them. The branches of the nearby trees no longer swayed in the wind and the grass remained still and silent. Her shallow, heavy breathing was the only thing to break that silence, uncomfortably loud. Colour began to drain away from everything, except them. Everything that was once vibrant and alive turned grey, then began to rot. Headstones fell over and crumbled as if centuries were passing in seconds. The trees lost their leaves, their barren and twisting branches resembling mangled and broken fingers reaching outwards. The houses beyond the cemetery faired no better. Their walls crumbled, their windows broke and their roves caved in. Puffs of smoke no longer rose from the remains of their chimneys and there was no warmth to be found. Only darkness her eyes could not penetrate.

This was Purgatory. This was her realm and she did not plan on allowing Malagen to leave here alive. But not by her hand, no. There were creatures here that could do that for her because even now she could feel her strength waning. The transition to Purgatory ended, but still nothing moved. Everything in here was dead and forever frozen in time, everything except them. But for how long? If she could get out of here after the Fallen had taken care of him…if she could survived that long. But then what? Crawl to the nearest house? Travelling to Purgatory takes energy and so did staying in it. It was something barely noticeable to her before, but now when she was weakened she could feel the strain of staying here. She would not have to hold out for very long though, already she could feel Fallen. The presence of their souls made her feel ice cold on the inside. And they were quickly moving towards them. Fallen were always drawn to life.

Taking in a sharp breath, Ira eased herself back against one of the headstones as she tried to ignore the pain.

So this was how she was going to die. In some random fight that occurred all because she wouldn’t have dvailiggya with some siahd…all because she’d wounded his pride. All because things didn’t go his way. It was a sad reason to end another person’s life and it left a bitter taste in her mouth. There was no grand battle against Fallen for her, instead she died at the end of a cold-hearted bandhakineya’s blade. Perhaps she’d get to see her mom again…perhaps she’d see Uri as well.

She caught sight of the Fallen as they made their way into the graveyard. They were the only things moving in this place and their appearance made them stick out in all the grey. Their skin was blackened and burnt looking, clinging to their disfigured bodies. Faces with sightless red eyes that never blinked observed her and Malagen and mouths that never closed silently screamed their rows of sharp, jagged teeth. Every one of them was different, every one of them mangled in some new fashion. She could see one that had ten long claws for fingers, one with a blade protruding from its forearm and another with quills covering certain areas of its body. Amongst the Fallen were the barely corrupted, those not yet completely overtaken by the evils of Purgatory. They still looked human, except their skin was slowly rotting and falling away to reveal the white bone beneath. The only thing they all had in common was the void in their chest, the pitch-black area where their hearts used to lay. She knew Fallen well enough; they’d attack Malagen first. She was wounded, she was dying and of barely a threat to them. They’d fight him and he’d fight back, but he couldn’t hurt them. This was her realm. This was Purgatory. Here, he could do nothing.

It was always the same. The disbelief, the remorse, the eyes that looked up towards him, betraying a constellation emotions. It was as if on both the conscious and the subconscious level all his victims knew that death came to collect and the gist of their emotions started to fight for survival, for getting out through these windows of the soul in order to make themselves known. Some begged, some cried, some cursed his mother and the festering womb that gave birth to such a monster, but in the end they were all forced to yield to the end that his blade brought. Malagen never understood why everybody made such a big deal out of it. Death waited for everybody at the end of their road and whether you made your peace with that fact or you whined in disbelief made no difference to it. Everybody dies.

A pair of unimpressed, uninterested eyes looked down at the woman that struggled with her wound. There would be no salvation for her, he knew. The action unfolded the way he calculated, the way he anticipated, the way he saw it before it actually took place, and regardless of how much her desperate hands pressured the wound, they couldn’t prevent life that seeped out of it. Perhaps it wasn’t the cleanest death, but the night was still young and his blade was still out of the scabbards. Given their current position, Malagen figured a decapitation would’ve been a fitting conclusion to one of those tales that he always tried to forget. Always tried and always failed. Failures were wounds that never truly healed. Still, her death seemed like a good alternative. It was easier to cope with failure if you were the only one who really knew about it.

He lined the edge of his damascus saber with her neck. There would be no goodbye speeches, no last minute revelations, not on his part anyways. He brought death, plain and simple and uncouth, no addendums.

And then everything changed.

Malagen didn’t see it at first, his eyes fixated on those of his latest victim, but somehow he was able to feel it. It was like a shadow passing over him, a change somewhere at the edge of the senses, growing in magnitude until it manifested itself. And suddenly the world around him started to fall apart. Stone crumbled as if centuries passed in a blink of an eye, trees lost their leaves as if some conjurer snapped his fingers and brought in early autumn, the very grass beneath his feet withered and decayed. It was as if the world around him was a painting and somebody threw a bucket of water over it, making all the colors melt and mix until there was nothing but the sick grayness all around him.

Uncertainty swept over his face for a moment and it lasted just long enough for his mind to provide the plausible explanation for this metamorphosis. And then his lifeless smirk was back on. It was all Ira’s doing. The witch could manipulate metal as if it was plaster; making an illusion such as this one was probably an even easier feat. He let her crawl away from him, semi-amused by this dead world she summoned. What did she think? That he would cower in fear of this imagery? That it would strike dread into his bones and make him spare her life?

“Interesting,” Malagen spoke in a tone that made it clear that he really thought otherwise. “But pointless. Do you really believe that this fake nightmare is going to save you?”

Of course it wouldn’t. He was the nightmare here, the boogeyman that lurked in the shadows. Everything else was unreal, a pretense that was supposed to distract and intimidate, the disfigured zombies included. About a dozen approached him, screaming and howling and waving their gangly limbs in an attempt to strike fear into him. In response, the dark barbarian sheathed his blade. They'd pass through him the way incorporeal illusions always did. And once her final attempt failed and she knew she tried everything and failed, he would kill Ira.

But this time events didn’t unfold the way he predicted.

The first walking corpse swung its clawed hands like a werewolf, growling through its yellow, jagged teeth while doing so. And to Malagen’s surprise, instead of passing right through him like a mist, the claws dug into his left shoulder, tearing a potion of both his coat and his flesh. The Dram stumbled sideways, stifling a cry and a cringe and covering his surprise with a firm frown. He reached for his blade, but another strike came from behind, a plank with rusty nails digging into his back and nearly throwing him on his knees. He finally succeeded in unsheathing his saber then, but when he thrust his blade through the chest of a specter that had swords for hands, the metal met no resistance, passing through the black flesh as if it wasn’t even there. He tried again, and again, evading the attacks of others, but he was fighting vapor it seemed, and the vapor struck back like a mallet.

“This is your devilry, witch,” Malagen spoke, backpedaling away from the wraiths and towards where she sat. There was no panic in his tone though. He knew a solution to the problem; when illusions posed a problem, get rid of the illusionist. “And it will die with you.”

“What if there’s a God a Hell and Heaven?
Fire is the torment I must face
Dying by the souls I have forsaken
No one’s gonna catch my fall from grace!”
Kamelot – Elizabeth: III – Fall From Grace

He fell for it.

His assumption brought a smirk to her face. How presumptuous of him to think that she had done all of this merely to save herself. That was not her goal at all, no; in fact her goal was his downfall. He would be on his knees before the end of this and then that infuriatingly emotionless smirk on his face would disappear. Yet, as the first blow was struck she found no pleasure in it. When he sheathed his weapon and faced the Fallen head she thought it the end of all this, but that was not so. The first blow was merely to his shoulder and the look on his face though of much improvement was not satisfactory. Seeing him stumbled forward almost to his knees caused no happiness within her when it should. All it left was a bitter taste in the back of her mouth. She could derive no pleasure in watching another person die, nor could she find it within herself to enjoy the knowledge that she was the one killing him. Her hands were already stained with the death of one person and now she was about to add another. Would Sanctuary still open its doors to her? Or would she be cast into Abyss with Malagen? For though she had killed one—soon to be two—he had killed many. He had not told her, she didn’t need him to. It was in his eyes and his disregard for life. Even telling herself she was saving others could not completely alleviate the guilt beginning to grow.

Ira was not built for killing and she did not want to kill him.

Was it better to kill the monster or set the monster free on the innocents of society?

How easily she went from wanting him dead to wishing for no such part in his demise. Seconds ago she had been sure. Where had that determination gone? Did her will abandon her when she most needed it? But her mind was not set. She was still debating with herself. If she left Purgatory now she could save Malagen, but no matter what she did she was still going to die. He had made sure of that.

Her mind was drawn away from its musings by Malagen’s words and a smile weakly tugged at the corners of her lips. How easily he could solve this dilemma for her.

“Your first mistake was thinking…this was to save myself…it was to kill you.” She shook her head as her eyes observed him. A mix of amusement and pain in their silver texture. They were the only things still vibrant on her. The colour of her skin was already paling. The dark tan that made her look exotic disappearing and leaving her feeling cold. “So go head…kill me. Then you’ll be in for a real surprise…”

The armour she had summoned at the beginning of all of this faded from her body. She could no longer sustain the energy it took to keep it upon her. Not that it had helped when she’d needed it anyway. The robes underneath her were soaked in her blood. Once purple and red they were now almost black and sticking to the skin around her hip, groin and all down her leg.

Shifting her position, the Calerian sucked in a lung full of air as a fresh jolt of pain worked its way up her leg and torso. “If I die, you’re stuck here. And they wont care how skilled you are. The Fallen will kill you eventually…after all, you can only dodge for so long.”

He was standing right beside her. Her head rolled back uncomfortably just to look up at him and her words seemed to have little effect. She hadn’t expected them to. But beneath that cold exterior he had to be thinking about it.

While they had been talking the Fallen had not been idly watching from a distance. Looking passed Malagen Ira could just see one of them sneaking up on the warrior. Before she realized what she was doing, the Calerian leaped forward from her sitting position, a small throwing dagger appearing in the loose grip of her fingers. She threw it towards the Fallen with more strength than she thought capable of at that point in time. The dagger sailed through the air, the trajectory slightly off. But it still found it’s home. Instead of burying itself in the flesh of the Fallen it passed into the darkness in the centre of its chest. Without warning, the creature disappeared leaving a black and red butterfly in its wake. A new manifestation of the corrupted soul it had become. All its guilt, all of its regrets and evils done after death were passed onto her. She could feel them within her. The butterfly disappeared after only a few moments as well, but Ira never got the chance to see it. The sudden movement had ripped her wound and the pain left her breathless and seeing blackness. One of her hands was shaking but she couldn’t seem to stop it and she had to continue to remind herself to breathe. Shallow gasps for air that came at irregular intervals. At first she thought she had clenched her eyes shut and couldn’t open them, but as her vision cleared she realized the pain had blinded her.

She was lying on her back against the hardened earth. There was something digging uncomfortably into her spine but she couldn’t muster the strength to move. Above her the endless grey expanse of this realm’s sky was the only thing she could see.

“To think…” her words were a whisper, “I’m going to breathe my last…in Purgatory…abhistadevata…”

Closing her eyes against the rot that was this realm, Ira waited. It was all she could do now.

Lies.

That was what Ira tried to serve him. She wasted some of her last breaths on feeble attempts to convince him that this illusion was actually some kind of a purgatory and that her conjured monstrosities were the fallen. Whatever that meant. It boiled down to the fact that he was stuck in this place, defenseless against her summons, and that she was his only ticket out of here, and that he should probably repent for his evildoings and yield and be saved and live happily ever after. Or some other fairytale akin to that. Malagen had to admit that it was a decent bluff, but his rational mind was far too sensible and realistic to actually buy it. It was all about numbers and odds, and regardless of the macabre surroundings and the peculiarity of its inhabitants, chances that Ira’s claims are true were slim at best. On the other hand, the possibility that this madness would end once Ira was dead was rather good. Malagen, never a risk-taker, knew what he had to do.

But when the robust barbarian knelt next to Ira and prepared his saber for the deathblow, the rock-solid certainty with which he executed all of his actions was opposed by the candor in her eyes. The venue was different, as was their current positioning, but the flame in her eyes was something he saw before. Back in the Citadel, when they stood toe-to-toe and she threatened to take his life with her twin blades, there was the same cold fire burning in the silver of her eyes. And just like back then, it spoke of truth. Malagen didn’t know whether or not her words were actually true, but Ira’s glare made it clear that she believed every single thing she said. And while that didn’t change the odds dramatically, it was enough to shake the very foundations of his resolve.

Could it truly be? Was this hapless witch really capable of such powerful magics? This weakling that he cut down in three moves, could she really be the bringer of his demise? The blade in Malagen’s hand didn’t shake, didn’t waver, but it didn’t move towards Ira’s neck either. His pale visage was rigid, unchanging, but below it the cogs were turning, reevaluating the situation. And with each second that he spent deliberating, the odds were becoming less and less stacked against Ira. Ultimately, it all once again came down to the very thing Malagen preferred; playing it safe. Killing her under an assumption that her death would eradicate the magic was neither here nor there; it could yield the desired result or it could not. On the flip side, if he let her live and struck a deal with her, he had a guaranteed ticket out of this mess. And then he could kill her without any risks being involved.

But before the dark swordsman even got a chance to start negotiating, Ira was on the move. Despite looking jaded to the point where she was about to faint, the woman managed to retrieve a portion of her flare. And to Malagen’s great surprise, she used it to save his life. His life. The life of a demon that was a hairsbreadth away from ending her own. The walking dead that was upon them both shrieked as Ira’s dagger passed through the black hole in his chest, its body collapsing as if it was made of sand. In its stead a single butterfly spread its wings, bringing a tinge of red to the collage of darkness. It lasted only for a moment though, this speck of vivid crimson, until it was chased away by the Fallen. Three of them approached in their agonizingly slow steps, with at least a dozen behind their backs and who knew how many still lurking in the black mist that surrounded the locale like a shawl.

Malagen returned his attention to Ira. The exotic woman was hanging by a thread, life so faint inside of her body that her skin grew pale and cold. Her eyes were closed, but those breasts that he coveted until a little while ago were still rising and falling. His right hand moved with a purpose, returning the damascus sword to the sheath in his left before proceeding to slap her cheek.

“Snap out of it!” the barbarian commanded her, raising his voice a notch. The yawls and growls and teeth-grinding behind his back were growing in volume, a gruesome background noise that forced an almost human hue into the sound of his voice. His azure eyes were still solid ice though, plummeting down towards her dazed argent ones from above. “Listen to me. You don’t need to die here. If you take us out of here I’ll get you to a healer.”

Did he really mean those words or were they just empty promises? Even Malagen himself didn’t know at that moment, but the answer to that question was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was whether or not she would believe him and take them away from the metamorphosed graveyard. Behind Malagen, three specters approached, their disfigured, tortured faces rising over his shoulder, rage spewing through their eyes. There was no time for palavers anymore, no time to ponder on the repercussions of their actions, no time for debates. Just one last promise.

“You have my word.”

The slap across her face was jarring. She’d almost been gone as unconsciousness slowly sneaked up on her and blanketed her mind. The brief moment had been blissful as she could no longer feel the pain of her wound and her body was no longer as cold as ice. But then she had lost it. Like sand it slipped through her fingers. The sudden contact of his hand snapping her mind back to reality just as he had commanded her to. Her eyes cracked open, but it was so hard to keep them that way. They were so heavy and all she wanted to do was sleep. All she wanted was that blackness again. But he was talking to her, yet her own sluggish mind took longer than normal to hear and understand what Malagen was saying.

She didn’t have to die here, yet hadn’t he been the one who’d hunted her down just to kill her? Why was he suddenly willing to allow her to live? Was it only to save himself? Of course it was; whom was she trying to kid. Now that he actually believed her words and knew that killing her would only damn himself, he was just looking for a way out. This was no happy fairytale where he would change his mind and suddenly regret his own actions. Self preservation was one of the strongest traits a human had, even the emotionless humans that thought themselves so much better than others, were the same when brought down to base needs. Could she trust him though? If she took him from Purgatory would he really take her to a healer or would he leave her to die? Her mind said he wouldn’t. It screamed at her to realize how little people meant to him and how he would laugh at her naivety once she had freed him from this place. But her instincts, they told her to take the chance. Ira didn’t know whether to listen to her logic and reason or her gut, which had never steered her wrong before. This time it could cost her, her life, either way she might die. If she stayed here it was certain death for them both. If she left there was a chance he would honour his word.

Unlike before, his words weren’t hollow. There was a tinge of emotion lining their edges but whether or not that meant something she wasn’t sure.

There was no more time to think about it. As she’d been searching his cold eyes and warring within herself, the Fallen were closing in on them. She couldn’t debate any longer. She had to make her decision now or have it made for her. Ira only hoped she would not regret this.

Pursing her lips into a line thin, Ira reached out and grabbed Malagen’s arm. Her fingers wrapped around it as hard as they could, but her grip was weak. There were words flying through her mind. So many different things she could say to him but she knew they would do her no good. If he was not going to keep his word nothing that passed her lips could change that.

The world around them froze.

In Purgatory nothing moved, nothing but the Fallen. Their cries cut off as their disfigured bodies ceased their incessant clawing towards Malagen’s back. They slowly began to fade, falling apart like so many grains of sand and leaving nothing behind. In Purgatory they would stay. The stones around them were picked up from the ground by unseen hands and slowly made whole once more. Names appeared on rough surfaces and piles of rock took shape into winged figures that looked upon Ira and Malagen with sad faces that judged not. Leaves returned to the trees they had departed and the homes in the distance rebuilt themselves. Colour slowly began to bleed into the grey. Light set panes of glass ablaze and the sky was filled with the stars and moon once again.

Normally the transition from Purgatory to Althanas was instantaneous but in her weakened stated Ira was having a hard time bringing them back. The closer she was to death the more Purgatory tugged and pulled at her soul, trying to rip it from her body. It left her panting and dizzy and running out of energy. When she didn’t feel pain, she felt a tingling sensation pass through her from head to toe.

Finally she pulled them through, but the energy it took was too much for her to handle. She couldn’t remember closing her eyes but she must have for everything was dark. Sensation was slowly fading away from her limbs and her fingers lost their grip on Malagen’s arm. They fell to the ground but her mind was lost to unconsciousness before her fingers brushed the grass. If Malagen didn’t keep his word she would never open her eyes again.

For the briefest of moments, a thought shot through Malagen’s mind that his bargaining was to no avail and that he’d be better off trying to conjure up a viable way to fight the semi-corporeal ghosts of the Purgatory. But then, just when he was about to roll away from her side and begin a futile struggle, her hand latched onto him and the scenery began to morph once again. The process was reversed now, as if time was running in a direction opposite of the one it usually ran, making the broken tombstones piece themselves together, retrieving the lush leaves of the rejuvenated trees, re-growing the grass just as fast as she originally made it wither. The wicked, fiery sky of the Purgatory was losing its blaze, quenched to the point where only the rebellious moon shone and the twinkle of stars specked the endless sheet of black. Malagen’s other senses noted the change as well. The stale air of the accursed place Ira took them from was exchanged for the earthy scent of the graveyard. Shrieks of the blemished fallen souls were silenced and replaced by the soothing sound of the rustling leaves and wavering grass.

The real world was back in all its nightly glory.

The moment Malagen was absolutely certain that this peculiar transfer was done, he tore his arm from Ira’s grasp. It turned out to be an unnecessary move because the tribal woman had fainted anyways, but the barbarian did it anyways, regaining his footing with as much grace as his wounds allowed. His thin lips curled into mildest of smirks. He didn’t need her anymore. She was foolish to believe in his promise. Promises were nothing to Malagen, just words like any other, thrown into the wind with, waiting for somebody to catch them and give them meaning. Ira saw hope in his words, she saw truth, sincerity.

She should’ve known that with the return of the real world, Malagen’s real nature reappeared as well.

He owed her nothing. They were adversaries from the very beginning, from the moment they met in the Citadel, and the only conclusion to rivalry that Malagen knew was death. Given the state Ira was in, it seemed that, despite the short Purgatory interlude, everything was unfolding the way it was supposed to. She would die in the graveyard just as he said she would and he would walk away just as he was supposed to. No attachments. No remorse. That was the way it has always been for him.

And yet this time around, when the ruthless swordsman turned his back to Ira’s dying body, there was a tug that prevented him from making more then a single step. This invisible force was clinging to his gut, to his mind, producing an emotion that Malagen couldn’t define. It seemed like a mixture of nausea and an oncoming headache, lurking somewhere beyond his senses, whispering to him words that he couldn’t quite comprehend. Was it guilt calling for him, replaying the promise as if it meant a damn? Or was it simply an anomaly in his emotionless demeanor? Malagen didn’t know, couldn’t know. Emotions and deliberation didn’t compute in his rigid mind. He was trained to disregard these nuisances, cast them away as irrelevant, redundant, obstructive. And yet when he turned towards Ira and looked over her fading body, they didn’t seem that way. Somehow, on some plain of consciousness in some forgotten, locked-away part of his psyche, these feelings seemed right.

And Malagen knew he had to end this torment of the mind.

***

A pair of loud thuds crashed through the fragile shell of serenity of Gerrard’s slumber. The third one crashed through the locked door of his establishment. The elderly healer started with a gasp, his wrinkled fingers tapping over the nightstand in search for his spectacles that seemed lost in the darkness of his sleeping quarters. By the time he retrieved them and put them on his bearded face, the footsteps of the intruder were more prominent, moving down the wooden floor until they seemed to reach the other side of his door. This time the thief – for it had to be a thief breaking into his place at this time of night – used proper means to open the door, turning the knob and pushing it inwards. Gerrard had to squint his eyes to see anything in the darkness, so his fingers did the tapping search again until they retrieved an oil lamp and a pack of matches.

“I have no valuables,” the old geezer said in a voice as dry as gunpowder as his fingers struck a match. He brought the flickering flame closer to the lamp with no panic in either his movements or his voice. “Unless you want my healing ointments. I have those in abundance. You didn’t have to break my front door because of them though.”

Once the oil caught flame, the aged cleric was finally able to see who invaded his privacy on this inauspicious night. A tall, dark man was standing in the doorway with a body slung over his shoulder, using one hand to keep the body steady and the other to point his saber at Gerrard’s face. Blood was dripping on the floorboards steadily, pooling at the man’s feet. And when the man finally spoke, his voice was as cold as the look in his dead eyes.

“I don’t want your ointments, old man. I want you to heal this woman,” Malagen spoke, struggling to keep his pointed saber steady and losing that battle. He didn’t come out of the battle with the Fallen unscathed and the bleeding wounds that the monstrosities tore on both his shoulder and his back didn’t go well with the toilsome lumbering of Ira’s body. All of this made the steel in his hand quiver minutely.

“Swords and threats won’t help you here, my son,” the gray-haired man said, retrieving his creaky bones from the sheets and pushing his feet into a pair of slippers. “Put both of them away and then we can help your woman.”

“She’s not my woman and I’m not your son,” the barbarian retorted with a touch of irritation. But the look in Gerrard’s eyes was relentless in its wisdom, fearlessly gazing into the eyes of death, making Malagen realize that the old man had the upper hand here. Killing him would do no good; he needed the man alive and willing to help. His blade fell at his side.

“Good. Now, let us see what can be done,” Gerrard said, throwing a robe over his linen pajamas before pushing past the barbarian and leading the way through the reception room and towards dispensary. The flame of the lamp revealed two short rows of beds, but there seemed to be no occupancies at the moment. “Put her down on one of the beds. I’ll fetch my apparatus.”

By the time the aged healer returned, the impeccable white sheets were already heavily tainted by crimson. The man wasted no time though, lighting a pair of lamps near the bed before inspecting Ira’s body. “She’s lost a lot of blood. Why did you wait so long to bring her here?” Gerrard said in patronizing voice that Malagen didn’t appreciate one bit. Unfortunately, he had to make peace with the fact that crushing the man’s skull against the wall wouldn’t yield the desired result when it came to Ira’s health.

“I’m going to need your help. Go wash your hands in the basin over there.” Malagen didn’t obey the command. The way he saw it, he fulfilled his promise already, bringing Ira to a healer. What happened afterwards was none of his concern. The queer notion inside of him and the healer thought otherwise. “What the hell are you waiting for?! Do you want to save her life or not?” Malagen, who never obeyed an order in his life, who in fact killed everybody who every tried to issue him an order, did what he was told this time. And when he returned, his bloody hands clean and his coat and blade discarded, the orders continued. “We need to take her clothes off.”

This was something that the barbarian wanted to do for a while now, and yet he derived no pleasure from undressing the exotic woman. Even his callous mind realized the gravity of this moment so he worked diligently, his hands strong enough to tear her blood-soaked robes off, taking off her boots, ultimately leaving her in nothing but her skin. By now, Gerrard had a wide assortment of bottles, jars and instruments prepared, the old man working faster then Malagen thought was possible given the old man’s age. But even with this uncanny speed, it was a long night for all three of them. The cut was the way Malagen’s cuts always was, surgically precise and life-threatening. By the time Gerrard stitched up the torn artery and stopped the bleeding, they were both bloody up to the elbow and visibly fatigued. Unfortunately for Malagen, the blood on his hands was not only Ira’s. The tear in his shoulder and the one that bathed his back in blood worked in unison to finally sap enough energy out of the ruthless man. Somewhere around the time when Gerrard applied balm that smelled of jasmine and pine, Malagen forfeited the battle with his wounds and collapsed.

She couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming of. Something that had to do with the valley of the dead, but the whole thing was slipping from her as she slowly began to feel consciousness washing it away. She fought against it though. She didn’t want to be awake. She wanted to return to the land of the blissfully numb and serene, where nothing could hurt her because in the end it wasn’t real. Consciousness be damned, she wanted sleep.

Ira didn’t always get what she wanted and this was one of those times.

“Ira, you have to wake up…”

“Iren?”

“Yes.”

“But why…I just want to sleep some more.”

“I know…but it’s time to wake up. Open your eyes…”

She did.

At first all she saw was a deep brown that reminded her of the forests in Concordia. Then definition seeped into her vision and the planks of wood each made themselves prominent. She could even make out the knots in them. It took her a moment but eventually she realized she was staring up at a ceiling. Bringing one of her hands up, Ira rubbed the sleep dust away from her eyes and attempted to snuggle more securely under her covers. Whatever blankets the Inn she was staying at used were cold and being a native to Fallien, Ira hated being cold. But the moment she moved pain tore through the area by her groin, leaving her breathless and eventually gasping for air.

It all came back to her then. The meeting she had with Malagen in the graveyard and the short battle that had ensued. Her wound and Purgatory and the promise he’d made to take her to a healer.

Running her hand across her stomach, Ira felt a tinge of unease run through her as she noted that beneath these thin sheets she was completely naked. Normally that would not be such a problem were she back in her own home or perhaps even in her room at the Inn, but she had no idea where she was and as such; unease. She hit a bandage. It wrapped around her thigh as well as her hip and covered the entire area that Malagen had cut with his sword. A small peckle of blood was beginning to form, dampening the central area. It would probably be a good idea if she didn't move much. Apparently, Malagen could be trusted more than her reason and logic dictated, because here was, in pain, but alive. It was a good thing she’d gone with her instincts too, if she hadn’t, they’d both be dead by now. It was at this time she noticed the familiar weight of her twin Irenian crystals no longer pressed against her chest.

Sitting up as quickly as she could without hurting herself, Ira began to look around the room. Her eyes roamed to the table beside her bed but there was nothing there other than a basin with some water and an oil lamp. No flame flickered within the glass, it was morning and light was streaming in through the windows. But she didn’t care about that, where were her crystals? When she turned to her right she froze for a moment. Malagen was lying in the bed next to her. She could see crisp white bandages circling around his one shoulder and peeking out from his back. Apparently the healer had taken care of the wounds the Fallen had inflicted upon him. The healer had also seen it necessary to tie Malagen to the bed and Ira had to admit the man looked quite good wearing only a pair of pants and with his wrists tied to opposite posts. That, plus the fact that he was sleeping made him look almost vulnerable, yet all that exposed muscle reminded her it was not so. Still she should not be thinking about that. The man—if one could really call him a man—had tried to kill her. His body should be the last thing she cared about at the moment. Her crystals were important, not that.

Hearing the door creaked open, Ira grabbed at the white sheets that had pooled into her lap and pulled them up to cover herself. Through the open door an old man slowly made his way into the room. His face wrinkled by so many years and covered in a rather ragged looking beard that tried to hide his mouth. He closed the door behind him before he realized that she was awake and moving.

A gentle smile crept onto his face, “Good to see you with the living…”

He had no idea how good it was.

“It was quite the struggle to keep you with us.”

“Svastyaksara siahd.”

The healer, or whom she assumed to be the healer gave a gentle raise of his brows and Ira quickly corrected herself.

“You have my thanks…”

Walking over to her bedside, he placed a tray on the table beside her.

“That is quite the accent you have, where is it you’re from?”

“Fallien.” Ira said with a smile as she tucked strands of her purple hair behind her ear.

“You’re a long way from home. And you don’t seem the type to get mixed up with the like of him. Funny how you did not inquire as to your companion’s well being after you awoke.”

“I know and I’m pretty sure that you know as well—seeing as how he’s tied up—that, that man is not my companion. Merely a mistake, I have better taste in companions than one such as him.”

“I thought as much. But it is not my business, you’re both alive, now that is my business.”

Ira smiled at him.

“Ahh, my manners. I am Gerrard.”

He extended his hand towards her and as Ira reached to accept it a bit of her sheet slipped down. Blushing, she quickly pulled it back up before taking his hand, “Ira Shinkara.”

“I am sorry about your dress, we had to remove it in order to help you.”

“We?”

“The man, he helped as well.”

“His name is Malagen…” Ira said to Gerrard as her eyes wandered over to Malagen himself. He helped save her life? Not only had he kept his word and taken her to a healer but he’d also assisted in healing her? She couldn’t imagine why. Maybe she’d ask him when he finally awoke.

Gerrard moved away from her bed, “There is food and water on the tray, you should eat and rest. It would also be wise not to get out of bed unless you absolutely have to as well.”

Ira nodded her head, “Oh wait!” He stopped and turned back to her, “My Ire—I had two blue crystals on…I need them back please.”

“Of course…”

He moved to some kind of wardrobe against the far wall and from within removed her rucksack. Walking back over to her he placed it on the edge of her bed.

“All of your belongings are in here…I’m afraid the clothes you were wearing were ripped so I threw them away.”

“That's fine, I have more.”

“If that’s all you need I shall leave you for now, try to rest.”

Ira nodded her head and reached for her rucksack just as Gerrard was closing the door behind him. Digging through the layers of cloth that comprised of her extra clothes, Ira eventually pulled out the crystals. Touching them to her chest she watched as a string of interlocking silver wove it’s way around her neck with the crystals at the centre. Feeling much better with them on, Ira reached over for the tray of food on her bedside table and placed it before her, taking a long drink of the cool water.

Despite being rather dreamless, Malagen’s slumber was far from eventless. The remorseless swordsman was caught in a limbo between consciousness and a complete blackout, dipped into abyss of nothingness within which he was supposed to find serenity. But instead there was this notion that haunted him, this feeling of insecurity and utter vulnerability that refused to evanesce. It was as if on some level of subconsciousness he realized that in the real world he was as defenseless as a lamb and his inner being reflexively rebelled against such a weakness. He felt like he was running away from something he couldn’t run away from, felt like climbing towards an obscure peak that he could never reach, felt like swimming in ink that was getting thicker by the second. He felt as if his mind was ringing the alarm bells and he was powerless to answer the summons.

Eventually, however, Malagen succeeded in clawing his way out of this prison of the mind. Once his body recovered enough to sustain his cognition at the very least, his consciousness came crawling back, appearing as a mere abstract idea in his clouded mind at first, but then surfacing fully soon afterwards. His eyes shot open, got blinded by the razor-sharp daylight, slammed shut, then tried to introduce the reality more gradually. And soon the dimly lit room with tan walls and rows of beds that he remembered from before fainting came into existence. This time, however, the day cast a completely new light on the place, making it look sterile and unblemished, almost perfect. The herbal scent of balms and ointments aided to that specific experience, hanging in the air like bar smoke, impossible to disregard.

Malagen’s first move was pure instinct; the fingers of his left squeezed around the scabbards that weren’t there and his right tried to feel the hilt of his saber, but never got there. It was then that the Dram noticed the bindings that kept his arms and legs fixated to the iron frame of the bed. Made out of layers and layers of neatly rolled bandages, these restraints kept Malagen’s extremities firmly bound to the cold metal, while providing minimal discomfort. Though never the brightest firefly in the swarm, it didn’t take long for Malagen to realize who was responsible for his constraints.

“I should’ve killed that old man,” the barbarian said in a dry, barely hearable whisper that scraped his throat and made him cough. His right gave the bandages a tug, but when his left tried to do the same, he felt as if somebody pushed a cold metal plate through his flesh. As a result, a minute speck of crimson appeared on the bandaging of his left shoulder. He tried again, this time using just his right, but to no avail. Not only was he too weak to free himself, but his back hurt more and more with every attempt. As much as he hated it – and he hated it from the bottom of what little soul he had left – he was left at the old man’s mercy.

And Ira’s apparently. Once Malagen realized that he wouldn’t be able to rid himself of the restraints, his eyes finally turned to the other side of the room to notice the awakened woman. Though she was significantly less nude then she was the last time he saw her, the Dram could see that her condition was improving. The pale face of a corpse that she had prior to his collapse was gone, replaced with the healthy one that once again had an exotic tanned hue. One could’ve gone so far to say that she once again looked as irritatingly beautiful as she was back in the heat of their Citadel battle if that one wasn’t one very annoyed barbarian that felt like he got the short end of the stick out of the entire deal.

“You made it,” Malagen stated, displaying neither gladness nor agitation by that fact. He wasn’t back to his usual cold self; such idiosyncrasy never truly left the dark man. But if somebody put a blade to his neck and forced him to choose between the two emotions, he would have to admit that a part of him was actually satisfied with the fact that Ira survived the ordeal. His mind rationalized the way it always did. It insisted that this emotion was simply satisfaction that he carried out his promise. It would’ve been a plausible claim if Malagen gave a damn about promises.

“So, what now?” he asked, turning his head away from her and resting his head back onto the pillow around which his long black hair lay scattered. “You’re going to turn me over to the authorities?” He wouldn’t blame her if she did. He would have to kill her eventually once he broke out of a prison, of course, but he wouldn’t blame her. After all, he did try to take her life. People seldom allowed for such transgressions to become the proverbial water under the bridge.

Though she doubted Gerrard would give her something inedible to eat, Ira couldn't help but be weary of the things on the plate. In particular one very large orange thing she would guess to be a fruit. The skin of it tasted horrible, but beneath that was some juicy centre that made a huge mess when she bit down into it. It tasted good, except there were some annoying seeds in it that she accidentally swallowed. Hopefully they wouldn’t give her a stomachache. That was the last thing she needed, the Calerian was already sore in too many places not to mention down right exhausted. She felt like she’d been doing nothing but training for ten days straight. She’d barely been awake for an hour and already she could go back to sleep. Guess she was getting her wish to go back to the blissfully numb and serene. Before that happened she should probably finish eating to help regain her strength though. This was not the first time she’d come close to dying—death seemed to follow her around like a thick shadow—and she knew from experience that rest and food were the best things to help her.

A cough broke through the silence in the room. Turning to her right, Ira watched as Malagen struggled with his bonds in vain. Not only did they look rather secure but he seemed in no better a state than she. He would not admit to it, she knew, but Ira was rather certain the barbarian of a man was just as weakened by what happened the other day. It took him a few minutes, and probably a lot of pain as well considering the small amount of blood appearing on his shoulder, but eventually Malagen gave up.

That was when he turned to her and blurted out that fact that ‘she’d made it’.

Ira didn’t know how to respond to that, other than secure her sheet more comfortably around her considering his eyes had been wandering for a moment. He didn’t exactly sound thrilled by the fact that she was alive, but not upset either. In fact, it was just a statement that seemed to have little meaning behind it, if it hadn’t come from someone else. The fact that he didn’t sneer it at her or say it in that annoyingly cold voice made her wonder, just what she was wondering she wasn’t too sure. She was probably reading too deeply into nothing. So she shook it off, it was the only thing she could do besides ask him a stupid question she would regret immediately.

He continued to speak to her, cutting through her thoughts, which was a good thing. It took her a few moments and mulling over the word ‘authorities’ to realize what he meant by it. Obviously they were something like the Irrakam Guard. Honestly, the idea of turning him in had never even passed her mind. Now that he mentioned it though, she wondered if it would be a better solution. If she turned him over to them for what he’d done she wouldn’t have to worry about him coming after her, but then again he'd fulfilled his promise and saved her life. He could have just let her die like he’d wanted to in the beginning.

Moving her tray back over to the side table, Ira wrapped the sheet around her like a strapless dress. Carefully, she slid over to the edge of the bed and brought her legs around. Even that simple motion made pain tear up through her hip and groin. She had to stop once her feet touched the ground and allow herself time to breathe. Grabbing her rucksack, which was still at the foot of her bed, Ira fished out one of her armguards. Slipping it on, she loosely tied the strings along the side as the light caught and reflected off a clear crystal embedded in the underside of the leather.

“You know, manners dictate that I thank you for saving me…” Ira said to him as she finished tying the strings.

Carefully she pushed herself up off the bed, keeping most of her weight on her good leg. As long as she was able to sustain her balance she should be all right.

“However, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have been nearly dead in the first place, so I guess that means you don’t deserve thanks.”

There was only a few feet between their beds, but that didn’t mean it would be any easier for her to traverse the distance. She took small steps, limping whenever she had to apply pressure to her left leg. It took her much longer than it normally would, but a minute or two later she was standing by the edge of Malagen’s bed. Looking down at him, Ira realized he truly could do nothing to defend himself in his state. No matter what she did to him, he couldn’t fight back. Oh, he could struggle some more in vain but that would only cause him pain.

“Turning you over to the authorities” she pronounced the word oddly, but she couldn’t help it, “sounds like an interesting idea but it was not what I had in mind…” Her face was impassive. One could even mistake it for being a little cold.

She formed a small dagger in her right hand. Bringing it up to the bonds tying his one wrist, she easily cut them away. Leaning over him, she cut away the ones binding his other hand and stepped back as the dagger disappeared from her hand.

“You can go. I never intended to hand you over to the authorities.” The cold look was replaced by a weak smirk.

Her leg was already beginning to bother her. Moving back to her bed, Ira sat down on the side of it, keeping her eyes on Malagen. She wasn’t afraid of him, for some reason he’d kept his promise and that alone told her she had nothing more to fear of this man.

“Before you go, tell me why you kept your promise…”

It was probably better if she didn’t ask him that, but she wanted to know. When all logic said that he would leave her for dead and yet he hadn’t, she wanted to know why. Whether or not he was going to tell her was something completely different though.

When Ira voiced her intentions in a frosty tone and made it clear that she wouldn’t turn him over to the local constables, for just a second Malagen thought that the foreign woman would take justice in her own hands. True, she saved him from the dastardly Purgatory, but back then it was desperation and blood loss talking, and she could’ve been bargaining just as he did. Now that she was on a safe route to recovery, she had an opportunity to settle the score once and for all. Another one of her magically conjured blades found its way into her visibly weakened hands and though her wobbly feet could barely support her light weight, she made her way to his bedside. And once again, just like back in the Citadel, she had him on the ropes, defenseless and left to her mercy. Only this time she could strike down more then just his pride. This time she could claim his life.

But that dubious second of contemplation passed and before her true intent even unfolded, Malagen knew that Ira wasn’t about to murder him. As stoic as she struggled to be, there was softness in her eyes, the kind that answered the unasked questions, the kind that made them different as fire was different from ice. The kind that stated that, unlike him, she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. There was a different kind of hardness within the exotic woman, something that Malagen didn’t even know existed, which bound both battle rigor and clemency. He disregarded it as a weakness the first time he saw her, battle-ready and eager in that illusory arena of the Citadel, and yet it was this balance between the two extremes that made her victorious then just as it did now.

When Ira finally put her blade to use to cut his restraints, however, Malagen almost wished she cut him instead. “You can go,” she said, speaking of this liberation as her merciful gift to him, as if he was a slave that needed her permission. He probably would’ve retaliated right there and then against this demeaning way she addressed him, but Malagen was tired. Not just physically – that would’ve been the least obstacle in the path of his retribution – but rather he was tired of the thoughts that this woman inspired in him. He was tired of wrestling with the rage and the doubt and the irritation that Ira somehow managed to evoke. She unbalanced him for some unfathomable reason, shaking the beliefs that he thought were set in stone, and since he couldn’t force himself to kill her, the barbarian reckoned it would be best to distance himself from her.

With his arms unbound, the barbarian wasted not a second, leaning forward in order to untie his legs. It was simple work, but the pain in both his shoulder and his back made the entire process taxing for the Dram. He was done with his right foot and halfway to doing the same with his left when Ira’s question came. “Would you rather that I haven’t?” was Malagen’s reply, cold and uninterested as per usual, as he continued working on his bonds, sparing not a look on the woman that somehow succeeded in annoying and intriguing him at the same time. He wanted to leave it at that, but when he finally untied himself and swung his legs over the edge of his bed, her inquisitive eyes were on him, demanding answers in their own tranquil manner.

He didn’t have answers for her though. How could he explain that, even though it went against the merciless way he was taught to live his life, it felt right to fulfill his promise? How could he explain that, for some reason beyond comprehension, her presence made him ask himself questions that he always disregarded as irrelevant? How could he explain that the very fact that he couldn’t decide whether he hated her or liked her went against his nature that outlawed any and all emotions? He couldn’t and therefore he didn’t bother trying.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Malagen said, standing up and giving his body several seconds to stabilize. Once he felt his balance was sufficient, the shirtless barbarian proceeded towards the wardrobe in his usual calculated strides, doing his best to retrieve his rigorous posture. His shirt was gone, probably too torn and bloodied for patching, but his heavy overcoat was there, together with rips that corresponded those on his body. The ruthless swordsman donned the leather attire swiftly, allowing a minute painful cramp as his left arm found the sleeve. Picking up his sheathed sword, Malagen gave his weapon a glance before he went for the door. Ira’s eyes were still on him, and once again they managed to stop him, if only temporarily. He didn’t turn towards her when he spoke though.

“Some things are best left in the dark.”

And in that somber tone, the murderous barbarian left the infirmary and the woman that was the cause of his upheaval.

The cold was back. Perhaps it had never left him at all. Perhaps the words he had spoken earlier were induced into some kind of emotion through only the weakness and whatever lingered from his dreaming mind. She didn’t know and would probably never know. His answers, all three of them if one could even call them answers, brushed it aside as inconsequential. She knew he was avoiding the truth of why he saved her though part of her wondered if he even knew the answer to that himself. Had his impulses taken over? Did his instincts say to do it or had some small amount of emotion crept into the forefront of his mind and whittled away at his conscious with guilt until he’d responded and done as he’d promised?

She wanted to press him for further answers. She wanted to get up and back him into a corner in the room where he couldn’t get away from her. But it would be futile. She couldn’t keep him here, especially as weakened as she was now. Perhaps it would have been better if she’d left him tied to the bed as she asked her questions. Then he couldn’t get away. He could still avoid giving answers but when you’re tied to a bed and it looks like your only chance of freedom is responding sincerely to a few questions he might have just given her the answers she sought. Or he might have found a way to lash out at her until she freed him. Either way, there was nothing she could do about it now. He was already gone and without him the large room just seemed kind of empty. There was no relief that the murdering psychopath was finally away from her and no hateful curses hoping a runaway herd of horses ran him over. Just a kind of lonely feeling that she couldn’t quite explain.

Some things are best left in the dark.

There was a good chance he was right. Perhaps she should just leave it in the dark. Stop analyzing the emotions and stop looking too deeply into everything. It had been a chance encounter between the two of them that had nearly cost her, her life and now it was over. She should be relieved, but she wasn’t. Ira only hoped she wouldn’t start missing the barbarian, then she knew she’d be in trouble.

Sliding back onto the bed, Ira looked over at the tray of food half eaten on the bedside table. She should probably finish it but she didn’t feel up to it anymore. Perhaps she should just go back to sleep. The door to the room creaked open and Gerrard poked his head inside, quickly followed by the rest of his body.

“I thought I heard somebody leave…”

He looked from her to the empty bed that had moments before held Malagen.

Uh oh. “He managed to get out of his bonds and left.”

The old man looked from the rope, which he knew he’d tied rather securely to Ira. She carried no weapons on her either now nor when that man Malagen had brought her in, but the ropes were cleanly cut. Gerrard knew the man could not have freed himself; she’d done it for him but why he could only fathom. Women truly were odd creatures and foreign ones even more so. They operated in ways he would never understand.

Shaking his head, the old man gave her a knowing smile, “You should get some more rest.”

That was exactly what she’d been thinking of doing. Trying not to smile herself, Ira slid back down onto the bed and snuggled herself into a tight ball, wincing every time she moved her leg the wrong way or too fast. It didn’t take long for the exhaustion to claim her.

----------------------------

Ira took a deep, unsteady breath as she stood upon the threshold of The Citadel. Two weeks had gone by, four days of which had been spent at the healers and then the rest of the time in her room at the Inn. In a fortnight she’d healed miraculously fast, knowing that it was the balms the healer had been covering her wound with that made it so much easier. But in that same fortnight she hadn’t been able to do much of anything except lay in a bed and think and thinking could get her into a lot of trouble. And now that she was recovered she found herself in the one place she thought she wouldn’t come back to. Just what she was doing here evaded even her own logic. Her first visit had left her with a visible scar she could add to the growing amount she seemed to be accumulating.

Uncertainty warred within her mind. She turned to go, but stopped herself. As she stood there a rather bulky man wearing chain mail armour bumped into her and sent her stumbling down to the next step. Why people always had to be so rude was beyond her, perhaps they just needed someone to teach them some manners. Her foot shot out as he passed by and tripped him. The man fell face first onto the stone steps and quickly pushed himself up, cursing her and all her family along with it.

Maybe I shouldn’t take out my frustration on random people…

She glanced towards the man from the corner of her eye, his words still flying through the air though her ears ignored them.

Or maybe he deserved it.

He grabbed her shoulder, his fingers digging through the thin white material covering her and into flesh. Her instincts took over. Ira wrapped her fingers around his wrist pulled him forward against her back, leaned forward and then threw him onto the stone steps once more.

“It’s not nice to touch a lady without her permission.”

Before he could get up and retaliate Ira quickly stepped over him and began heading towards the massive wooden doors of The Citadel. She didn’t want to start a battle in the middle of the street. It seemed the man behind her didn’t care about that though. Once the air had returned to his lungs he launched himself onto his feet and chased her inside.

“ ‘ey, em talkin’ to ya!”

Wondering if what she’d done had been such a good idea, the Calerian continued to ignore him and remind herself why she came here, which was…well, she didn’t really know. Saying she came here to train and fight some more would be a lie but saying she came here to see Malagen would be too much for her to admit. So just why was she here? Her mind rationalized that it just wanted answers from Malagen, after all he had sidestepped her question and there was more she wanted to ask him than that. If only she could completely believe what her mind rationalized.

Ira meandered through the crowds noting that The Citadel was relatively the same as she’d last been here. The boasting continued, the fight continued and like last time, few real warriors graced the halls of this place. The halls were filled with people and their voices bounced off the high ceilings and the undecorated walls. The man behind her was still shouting curses she could barely understand and didn’t show any sign of giving up. He must have something against women, or a woman hurting his pride. When she wandered into a small clearing with three different paths for her to choose from, the man finally caught up. By now his shouts had drawn a little attention towards him and unfortunately her as well.

“I ken we should settle this in a match.”

The Calerian sighed and turned around. The man already had his hand lightly resting on his sheathed sword. His face may have been handsome but it was twisted with the smirk he currently portrayed and his nose looked like it had been broken and reset improperly. He reminded her of someone someone who enjoyed hurting others.

“I think that would be a waste of my time, you wouldn’t even last long enough for me to break a sweat.”

His face turned into a mask of rage. Men like him hated being talked back to and it didn’t take much to push him in the wrong way.

“Little whore!”

There were only a few feet between them and he tried to cross it quickly, but it didn’t work. Instead of unsheathing his sword he charged her with a rigid fist, but she stepped out of the way, grabbed his wrist and pulled the same move on him she had on the stairs, flipping him over her back.

“You’d think you’d have learned your lesson the first time. Most people don’t fall for the same move twice.”

Now she was just taunting him but she couldn’t help it. A small crowd had gathered around Ira and the stranger, including one or two monks. She got the distinct feeling they would not intervene in the fight until one of them drew a weapon though. Perhaps squabbles like this happened often within The Citadel.

The man charged her again, clumsy in his moves. They were easy to read and easy to counter. He came in fists swinging and she deftly ducked and stepped away from each one. But while she wasn’t looking he slipped a small dagger into his freehand and lunged at her. Bringing her arms up in an X in front of her, Ira stopped his blow and his strength met hers. Grabbing his wrist, she twisted it to the side until he was forced to drop the dagger then quickly twisted it behind his back and kicked out his knees at the same time, leaving him kneeling before her. She felt like breaking his arm and knew she could if she wanted to but controlled the impulse. Instead she let him go and turned to walk away, ignoring the fact that a crowd of eyes were upon her.

Despite being renowned for being the congregation place of Althanas’ greatest warriors, Citadel was becoming more and more of a disappointment for Malagen the longer he lingered within its enchanted walls. Those that he desired to meet in combat – the so called ‘legends’ whose records still hung on the walls for all to see – were nothing but faceless names nowadays. Names like Thoracis, Damon Kaosi, Ashiakin, they were all spoken with great respect, they all had their neat little place on the tapestries next to their win-loss record, and yet they were nothing more then dead letters on a piece of cloth. They moved on – in one way or the other – and what they left in their wake was scarcely impressive. Aspirers that talked big but walked with mediocrity stamped on their forehead, weaklings with dream-filled eyes that were confident that they would win ‘the next time’, overzealous quasi-heroes that beat their chest like apes during mating season, the list went on. On occasion somebody worth fighting – worth killing – would appear, but the ratio of the worthy and the worthless was such that it threatened to give Malagen a migraine.

And yet for the past two weeks, this same monotonous Citadel whole visitors he detested most of the time was where he spent most of his days. The vast lobby with ridiculously high ceiling that always seemed to echo with racket of feet and boastful claims and metal scraping against the whetstone wasn’t much better then a tavern common room, but Malagen preferred it for a number of reasons. Or at least that was what he kept telling himself. He insisted that he was merely there to train, that he could kill people here without the usual legal consequences hanging over his head, that there was no other place that could cater to his homicidal needs. But behind this curtain weaved with explanations and rationalizations the truth was concealed, hidden even from his own perception. He wanted to see her again.

Contrary to his desire, contrary to the years of rigorous training that left him as callous as the metal of his blade, whenever Malagen’s mind wasn’t set on a specific task, it wandered to Ira. The thoughts of her were like a disease of the brain, like a virus, attacking the equilibrium and taking over the basic functions, forcing him to remember. To fantasize. Regardless of his mental struggle, he would catch himself doing odious things such as reminiscing, imagining, feeling, all of the things that were classified as a distraction, as a weakness. He tried getting away, but wound up walking in circles. He tried sleeping, but then his mind went rampant. He tried battling, but even the victories lost their flavor. He spent countless hours dwelling on this anomaly, trying to explain it, but to no avail. Was it because she defeated him that his calm was broken? Was that moment of weakness the crucial chink in the dam that kept the irrationality of emotions at bay? Malagen didn’t know. Feelings were a novelty to him, something he didn’t comprehend, something that, maybe for the first time in his life, struck a dose of fear into him. Because, if there was no way back to the balance that he’d been building for so many years now, what would he be left with?

These questions that went about his mind like outlaws on the run failed to find answers today - as he sat serenely in the middle of this anthill of warriors - just as they did two weeks ago in Gerrard’s infirmary. In fact, today his quest for the calm was to be pushed another several steps backwards.

It wasn’t hard to spot her; her rambunctious entrance made her even less inconspicuous then the last time he saw her waltz into the Citadel. Ira Shinkara, the accursed woman that haunted Malagen’s thoughts, returned to the far-famed arena and unlike the last time, her awestricken approach was replaced by a belligerent one. Caught in a brawl with a man that moved with delicacy of a woodcutter, the woman managed to gather quite a crowd in the center of the lobby. And once again, Ira displayed the cocky coolness with which she dealt with Malagen, moving as smoothly as a cat and striking like a hammer. By the time Malagen managed to push his way through the circle of bodies, the brawler was on his knees, muttering curses and holding his wrist, as Ira proceeded deeper into the Citadel.

“Nothing to see here, folks. Come on, go about your business,” an aged monk that looked as dry as a twig beneath his robes said, offering a wrinkly hand to the fallen ruffian only to have it swatted away. By then Malagen was making his way after Ira, ‘accidentally’ stepping on the man’s fingers and eliciting a loud yawp before entering the same hallway Ira did. She must’ve heard him coming after her, the sound of his boots bouncing of the cold, lifeless walls and echoing through the hall, and yet she kept her course and her pace steady. Not even when he got close enough to reach for her did she make a move. But when he reached for her, she did.

His hand landed on her shoulder and her reaction was fierce, her instincts razor-sharp. Unfortunately, her move was predictable, the same one she sold twice to the same nitwit that tried to teach her a lesson back in the lobby. One of her hands caught his wrist, but when her other tried to do the same before throwing him over her back, his own trapped it and gave it a powerful tug. The force of the pull was more then enough to make the woman swirl, but with the swirl came the knee as well. The knee Malagen should’ve predicted. The knee that Malagen would’ve predicted if his mind was focused on fighting instead of the way her skin felt beneath his fingers. The knee that connected with his stomach and forced him to release her hand and take a step back.

“Nice move.” It was really nothing special, but there was nothing smarter that the barbarian could come up with that would explain why he fell for it. “So, you come looking for a rematch or do you greet everybody this way?”

She’d thought the footsteps following after her were from the same man. She’d thought he was trying to piece together his broken pride. She’d thought he was a glutton for punishment and wanted more. She’d thought wrong.

When the hand landed upon her shoulder, every muscle in her body tensed and begged for her and turn around and give this man the kind of beating he deserved. Ira might have just done it too, if it wasn’t for the fact that her move didn’t work. It wasn’t surprising, perhaps the third time was the charm and he was actually beginning to learn something. So she tried another one that was sure to surprise and it was only after her knee connected that she noticed whom she’d just attacked. She’d been aiming to hit him in the crotch too, good thing she’d missed.

“Zapathiya ast abhizasti bhizap kruz anuzap dikkr!”

They were curses. Whether or not she was muttering them to herself or to Malagen she didn’t know. Why the idiot had snuck up on her after she’d just been accosted by a man who’d attempted the same thing—and failed in his attempts—she had no idea. But then again, the male mind worked in many strange and mysterious ways. Perhaps he thought…well, really she had no idea what he’d thought. She only wished she’d realized it was Malagen before she kicked him in the stomach. Then of course she realized she wasn’t all that sorry she’d just injured him. He deserved it and so much more. It was just that now he was standing right in front of her and she didn’t really know what to do with him. Though he did commend her on a nice move Ira was actually surprised her knee connected. Maybe he hadn’t expected her to attack. Maybe his guard had been down. Whatever it was it didn’t matter in the end.

“Serves you right for sneaking up on me!” Her words were somewhere between angry, frustrated and apologetic all at the same time. She hoped he had fun sifting through those emotions.

The rest of what he said eventually sunk into her head. He wanted a rematch?

“A rematch…I…”

She felt her face flush with heat and knew without a doubt that she was blushing. She needed to say something back to him, she was supposed to but no matter how much she tried all the words in her head receded into a dark little corner and wouldn’t come out no matter how much she coaxed them. Why had this suddenly become so hard? All she’d wanted to do was…was what? Even her inner mind didn’t know! Retreat was the only conclusion her mind could come up with. It was a logical battle strategy. When one was faced with a foe they couldn’t handle it was, of course, proper to retreat. Or in other words turn tail and run away from the source of the discomfort. The only problem was her source of discomfort was Malagen, who, even though she would argue this in her head, was her reason for coming here in the first place.

Clearing her throat and taking a deep breath, Ira steadied her thoughts, wondering why she was so nervous around Malagen now when before had been fine.

“I didn’t come here for a rematch, as tempting as that would be…”

Okay, so now what did she say to him. Damn it all to The Abyss, where was the sand dune she could burry her head in when she needed it? Saying nothing was worse than anything she could blurt out at the moment, so it would probably be best if she just closed her eyes and jumped in headfirst. After all, the only thing he could do was say no and then what, nothing, that’s what. If he said no there would be nothing if he said yes well, then she might be in a bit of trouble. Truth be told she expected him to say no to her no matter what she was about to ask. So, why not just get it over with, go back to her room at the Inn and soak herself in a tub filled with extremely hot water?

Nibbling on her lower lip, Ira nervous swirled the white material of her shawl between her fingers. The sheer material was as soft a silk but did little to ease the uproar within the pit of her stomach.

“I was…” another deep breath, she had to get this over with all at once, “I wanted to know if you would like to join me for dinner?”

There she said it!

Wait…dinner? That wasn’t what she’d been intending on coming here for. No, answers were what she wanted from Malagen, real answers, not just ‘some things were best left in the dark’ kind of answers. Shit, shit, shit! Now that she’d said it she couldn’t take it back. Now that she’d said it, did she want to take it back? Of course she did! There was no way she wanted to spend an entire evening across the table from that infuriating man, but part of her argued that she did want him to accept. That part she ignored. He wouldn’t accept anyway. He would just laugh at he and say something cold and belittling like he always did then turn and walk away. So she had nothing to worry about…right?

((Ira’s response written by Ira herself. Credit where credit is due.))

No, not a rematch. It would’ve been too easy of a solution if they engaged each other in battle again. They would fight, he would his infallible focus this time, emerge victorious and regain the coveted balance, thus ending the disruption. That was, at least, what he wanted to believe, not that it mattered a whole lot. Because even though it was rather evident that Ira still held a grudge against him – and probably had every right to hold one – she didn’t with violent intentions. In fact, given her rather affable expression and the sudden wave of discomfort that swept over her face - leaving a tinge of ruddiness in its wake - Malagen was rather certain that she came with an intention to reconcile. He expected the usual speech, the ‘live and let live’ agreement that would designate them as neither friends nor foes. He didn’t expect for her to drop a stick of dynamite into his lap.

A dinner? She wanted him to join her for dinner? As hard as he tried to defend against any and all emotions Ira managed to evoke, dubiety conquered his iron will and crept into the features of his visage, raising his brows ever so slightly. His eyes sought deception in her own, scanning them for anything that would explain this sudden benevolence, demanding evidence of a ruse. Because this kind of benevolence simply didn’t fit into the distinct rules that Malagen had set in his mind. When you tried to kill people, they were supposed to come seeking retribution, they were supposed to hate your guts and come after you like hounds after a bloody trail. Malagen knew that as a fact; every single man, woman and child that had somehow survived his onslaughts always came after him and they always wanted his blood. Always. No exceptions. That was the way the world worked.

Ira’s obviously operated on a different concept. Instead of the expected hostility, the woman presented an olive branch as a solution to their rivalry - instead of another bloody encounter, an amicable meal. No arenas, no weapons, no keen glances that sliced through the air like through a watermelon, no pain and anguish. Just dinner. Regardless of how much of a callous bastard Malagen was, this deviation from what he considered normal was an overwhelming sensation. Nobody ever took that route with him, nobody took that chance with him. And because of that, the ruthless barbarian found her offering hard to believe.

“You want to have dinner?” he asked, his tone losing just a fraction of that cold coloration in favor of doubtfulness, accentuated by a skeptical smirk. “As in eating?”

“Yes,” Ira responded, looking just as uncertain and lost as he was. She had a cryptic look on her face, the kind that made her look antsy to get as far as humanly possible, and yet the kind that also expected his response with uncertainty. The kind that stated she herself didn’t know which answer she desired.

“With me?”

Ira responded with what looked like a nod. The next question was to be expected.

“Why?”

Why? Well, that was a very good question. How was she supposed to answer that without embarrassing herself? Not to mention she wasn't even sure if she could answer that. It hadn't been what she'd come here to say, answers were what she wanted from him and now she was asking him out to dinner and he wanted to know why! By the love of Suravani, what had she gotten herself into this time?

“Well, I mean I just... I thought it would be nice. You have to eat, I have to eat, we could eat together and, but... well, just don't bring any weapons. It could be nice, you know... I erm...” She was rambling and she knew she was rambling but she couldn't really help it. She was also not really looking at him anymore. In fact her head was tilted down and every now and then she stole a glance at him, but no more.

Malagen couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Ira was asking him out and she acted all anxious and embarrassed, like a teenager that wanted to steal a kiss before scampering back home. Some less callous people would’ve found this approach sweet, but sweetness wasn’t the reason why the barbarian got interested in Ira in the first place. It was her audacity that irritated him, her audacity that attracted him, that drew him towards her like a bug towards a camp fire. This new Ira was all mellow and soggy, too much like all the other women. But then again, all of the other women that ever knew him were just a passing attraction, playthings that meant nothing more then a night worth of sweat and pleasure. And none of those women ever did what Ira was doing right now.

“I see,” Malagen said, his sheathed saber tapping against his left shoulder. He knew that he should say no just as Ira knew she shouldn’t be here in the first place. But with so many things deviating from the ordinary in their encounter so far, what difference another one made? When the Dram spoke, his voice was stern, but not entirely lifeless. “Very well. I accept your offer, but I’m not leaving my sword behind. There are evil people out there. You never know when you might run into one. Now, we can leave whenever you stop acting like a coy little girl.”

C-coy little girl!?

Ira’s eyes shot to Malagen’s face, her eyes narrowing into what could only be interpreted as a glare. Before she could think better of it or even talk herself out of it Ira clenched her hand into a tight fist and sent it sailing through the air hoping to hit Malagen right in the face and maybe break his nose. His skull was so thick she’d probably break a few of her fingers knocking against it but she didn’t really care. He had no right calling her a coy little girl! She was far from that and so what if she’d been a little nervous and embarrassed asking him out to dinner, it hadn’t been her plan and had taken even her by surprise. If he hadn’t of asked why she wouldn’t have fumbled around for so many words. Besides he was supposed to say no, not yes! Svatgham! He had said yes! Now what was she supposed to do? She’d just condemned herself to a night stuck with him.

It seemed that when Malagen’s cold nature returned so did his reflexes and his guard. He dodged her sloppy attack as if it was nothing then caught her wrist in his hand. Twisting her arm around and her body with it, Ira ended up with her hand shoved up against her back and her back pressed against Malagen’s front before she even realized what was going on. It irritated her so much that he was a better fighter than she. He was the first person she’d met that could best her in a battle so easily. The only other one to come close to it was Revor and even then the two of them were equally matched. Sometimes he would win and sometimes she would win though more often or not it was a draw as they continued to wear each other out until they were left exhausted and unable to fight anymore.

She still had her other hand free but Ira didn’t want to ensue a battle between them by trying to elbow him in the stomach, not to mention it was a predictable move in this position. She was pretty sure she’d tried that same one on him during their match anyway.

This wasn’t that bad of a position to be in but it was not what Ira wanted, “Release me.”

It was a command if she’d ever given him one and he didn’t seem too keen on obeying. In fact his free hand was wondering down her body starting from her side and circling around to her behind.

Reaching behind her, Ira grabbed his wrist and twisted her head to the side so she could just see him, “Let me go…”

Whether it was the way she said it this time or something else, Malagen listened to her and released her wrist and she in turn let go of him and stepped away. She couldn’t help but feel relieved and disappointed at the same time, the second emotion she shook off. Ira did not get close to people like that, she never had and she never would and if Malagen were looking for that he would have to look elsewhere. What had happened back in the arena was an anomaly not to be repeated.

“I saw this adorable little place a few days ago and I’ve been meaning to try it out…”

Turning her back on him, Ira began leading the way out of The Citadel and into the bustling streets of Radasanth.

Twenty minutes later and one wrong turn, Ira had finally led the two of them to the place she’d been talking about. It was called The Black Forest Inn but it was not an Inn at all, which made the Calerian wonder why they would call it such a thing in the first place. It was a large building with a set of huge glass windows on the front of it. Inside candles lit every table and patrons were already beginning their meals within. Almost everything was made from wood instead of stone and it gave the place a comfortable feel.

“I really wish you would have left your toys behind… the only evil person I’m worried about running into is walking right beside me. And what would you need it for when I can form a weapon for you should we run into trouble?”

She didn’t see that happening since her walk had led them into some of the nicer areas of Radasanth. Thieves did not lurk in every darkened alleyway here. Men wore weapons around their hips more for show than any kind of actual defence and the number of guards walking the streets had doubled compared to the others areas Ira had been in. She found it odd that they would post more guards in a place with less crime than some place with more. Perhaps it was like the Outlander’s Quarters. Shove those of less repute into one area and let them kill themselves while the wealthy and better off continue to live in their lap of luxury. It all made her realize how unique her home of Astaka was and how much she was beginning to miss it.

Grabbing the ornate handle of the door—it looked like a vine or a branch—Ira went inside knowing Malagen would be right behind her. Most of the places Ira had been to in Radasanth were rather normal, she sat herself and waited for the serving staff to ask her order. This place was definitely of a different class. Instead of finding her own place there was someone at a small desk once she walked in who waited to seat her. It was a little over the top for her but nice at the same time.

Cameron raised his head from the seating map as he heard the front door open. The first person to catch his eye was a rather beautiful and exotic looking woman. She was dressed completely in white and it made the deep tan of her skin stand out all the more. Her leggings flowed around her with her every step and her shirt was short cut both in sleeve and bottom. A sheer white material he could only guess to be some kind of shawl was wrapped around her one shoulder and stomach but he could still see through it. Her hair was even a light purple and he knew that she must dye it, for that was no natural colour. She looked simple, but elegant. It was not the normal dress of the clientele that walked through those doors but he supposed wherever she hailed from it was of the norm. The man trailing by her side though was not the kind of person Cameron ever saw in this establishment. He was another one of those warriors and he even brought his weapons in. How distasteful.

“How may I help you?” He asked as politely as he could to her, completely ignoring the man.

“This is my first time in a place like this, do I ask for a table?”

He smiled and nodded his head, she had quite the unique accent. “Yes, for how many?”

“Two, abhiruc.”

Though he was unsure what the second word meant, Cameron nodded his head anyway, “Right this way.” Shame that she was mixing with one such as him. Her choice though. Moving away from behind the desk, Cameron led the two of them through the establishment and to a nice table by the front window. Placing two menus on the table he politely inclined his head and left the two of them to their meal.

It was so easy for her to classify him as evil. It was a commonplace prejudice, a sign that most people eagerly stamped on everything that they didn’t comprehend, that didn’t fit in their set of rules. Malagen didn’t mind much; that was the way human mind worked. If a pack of wolves devoured someone’s horse, then the wolves were evil. If that same horse ran over a child, then the horse was evil. If a pair of people robbed graves, then they were evil. And if somebody robbed those same two robbers of their lives, then that somebody was evil too. Evil was such a trite concept nowadays that it lost its power, so it didn’t unnerve Malagen that Ira described him as such. If she was comfortable with it, so was he. Being evil usually minimized the chit-chat and the number of questions anyways.

“I prefer weapons that aren’t a part of magician’s trick,” was the only response that the ruthless barbarian offered, walking alongside the foreign woman in his specific manner that seemed to make each step look exactly the same as the one before. Yes, chances were that he wouldn’t actually need a weapon given the fancy neighborhood riddled with guard patrols, but Malagen wasn’t a gambler and thus didn’t play dice. Having a weapon at his side wasn’t optional – not with the training he received – it was his creed, the way he was taught to live. It made him so accustomed to the cold metal in his fingers that he felt vulnerable without it.

The Black Forest Inn was situated on one of the main streets that sliced the Government District in neatly urbanized blocks of pompous, lofty buildings and Malagen couldn’t say that he appreciated the environment. Beauty and quaintness and grandeur, they were all concepts that were lost on the Dram, disregarded by his efficient mind. There was little difference between a shack in the Slums and a palace as long as they both got the job done. However, he had to admit that he didn’t expect for Ira to choose such a highfalutin place for their dinner. Perhaps she felt safer here, where the guards came a dime a dozen and where everybody looked at him as if he was her bodyguard instead of her companion. Not that the barbarian cared much about the looks he received. Most of the people here were fat clotheshorses that probably didn’t know which end of their ornate sword they should use in case of emergency. Women were even worse, with their multi-layered dresses that swept the cobbles, pale, powdered faces and perfumes that made entire avenues smell like the interiors of their purses. Malagen couldn’t quite decipher the emotion that all of this evoked, but he was pretty certain it was disgust.

The interior of the inn was expectedly similar to the grandiose outsides. Carpets soft enough to be bedrolls paved the floors, the polished furniture that glistened as if somebody covered it with a fine film of grease was meticulously arranged, making the entire place look like a battlefield where the troops were already deployed and ready for action. The people were more of the same too, sitting with sticks so far up their behinds that they barely managed to turn their heads in order to acknowledge the newest pair of customers. Malagen eyes moved over the interior and saw it all; the contempt in the eyes of the steward that greeted them, the whispering lips of the lady with a wafter that obviously didn’t like the look of that dark fellow, the measuring eyes of an elderly gent that sat with three lasses that looked far too intimate with him to be his daughters. Such a welcome would’ve made a less callous man uncomfortable, but Malagen took it in stride and merely followed Ira and the waiter to the table.

Once seated and presented with the menu, the dark swordsman didn’t spend too much time flipping through the pages. The handwriting was neat enough to belong in some encyclopedia, but that didn’t help with the fact that Malagen couldn’t understand what it said. He could pick up a letter here, a word there, but for his illiterate mind it was like trying to decipher a lost language. And though he deemed himself immune to trivial emotions, once he looked over at the other side of the table where Ira studied her own menu closely, Malagen almost felt embarrassed for his inadequacy. He tried to cover it up with the usual straight face, but for some reason there was this concern inside of him that made him anxious about what she would think once she knew that he couldn’t read. And suddenly he didn’t feel that hungry anymore.

The waiter in charge of the pair’s table – a lean young man with greased brown hair and a three-piece suit – interpreted the fact that Malagen put his menu down as a sign that the customer decided what he wanted to dine, so he was fleet to approach. “The sir has decided?” he asked with politeness that almost sounded genuine.

“I...uh... I’m not hungry,” the Dram responded, the uncertainty so alien in his voice. He looked the lad in the eyes with the go-away type of glare, but soon his eyes went to Ira to check for her reaction. It seemed that the waiter didn’t get the message though, because he picked up Malagen’s menu, flipped a couple of pages, and then spoke again.

“I see. Perhaps sir would like something to drink? We have a fine selection of beverages, as you can see here,” he said, placing the open menu before the barbarian. Malagen looked at the pages again, but nothing changed since the last time he beheld the menu. Compared to the barbaric runes which he was familiar, these letters were undecipherable in their simplicity. And there were so many. After a moment of silence that seemed to hang in the air like an axe of an executioner, time came to come clean.

“I can’t read,” Malagen spoke, holding on to his dignity, but breaking by the seams and allowing a tinge of humanity into his voice. He flipped the menu closed, pushing it away almost in anger. “So just bring me whatever and go away.”

Perhaps she should have chosen a place less extravagant. Though Malagen would never outwardly say he was uncomfortable with something she could tell this was not the most common place he dined at and nor was it for her. It had looked rather interesting when she had passed by it on one of her aimless walks but it was just a little too stuck up. Perhaps the food was good and really she could care less what the siahds in this room thought of her and her choice of company. They could always leave but Ira was starving and she didn’t feel like finding another place to eat at. They were here; they might as well enjoy it as best they could.

Grabbing the menu from the table, Ira opened it and flipped through the pages quickly realizing she’d made another error in her choice of dining. Everything within the menu was written in Tradespeak and though Ira could speak the language to an extent she couldn’t read it if her life depended on it. The neat letters so wonderfully written were lost to her mind in a confusing swirl of circles and lines that interlocked together to create a language. The only thing she could read was Fallien and an extremely small amount of Common and by small she meant really small. This may as well have been written in some kind of ancient language, the decoder of which long since lost to the ages for all it’s worth to her. But that would be a rather embarrassing thing to admit to Malagen. He lived in this city and reading something as trivial as a menu would be so simple to him. She didn’t want to have to admit she couldn’t read this. So she let her pride get the best of her as she thoughtfully studied dishes she would never hope to understand.

“The sir has decided?”

The gentle and polite voice of the waiter broke through Ira’s mind, a thankful reprieve to the confusing swirl of letters dancing beyond her eyelids. Yet that also made her realize she would be expected to order as well. Malagen’s response made her blink and slowly look up from the menu. Never before had she heard him sound so unsure of himself, it was so out of character. He even looked uncomfortable. He was however giving the waiter a glare that would send most men scampering for their lives. She had to hand it to him, he didn’t back away, he actually offered the menu to Malagen again on the list of drinks trying to encourage him to order something. Silence was the only answer the waiter received for what seemed like minutes. Finally Malagen broke it by admitting he couldn’t read and further growling to the waiter to bring him ‘whatever’ and go away.

The man took the menu off the table, slightly off put by the tone in which Malagen had spoken to him and possibly by the fact that he couldn’t read. Ira on the other hand sat there rather surprised. She couldn’t believe he would admit to such a thing and he even seemed upset at the fact that he couldn’t understand the language.

When the waiter turned to walk away, Ira gently placed her hand on his arm as she smiled up at him, “I’m afraid I cannot read Tradespeak either.” The waiter seemed displeased by her sudden revelation and that slightly irritated her but she tried not to let it show. “Do you by any chance carry ayahpana?”

The waiter smiled, “We do. It happens to be one of my favourite drinks.”

Relief washed over her, finally something a little familiar from her area of the world, “Wonderful, two of those please.”

‘Iron drink’ was its direct translation. It was a form of alcohol from her native Fallien that was extremely strong and took a stronger stomach to handle. The drink had recently begun to grow popular among other nations including Corone, but Ira had learned early on in her stay that most Taverns did not carry it. Apparently the more high-class areas did.

“Now… as for our orders…” Ira began.

Ira hated ordering for other people but seeing as how stubborn Malagen was and how she did not wish to embarrass him, she decided to ask all the questions. When it was said and done she’d ordered a simple plate of meats, cheeses and bread as an appetizer. For her main course; some kind of rare foul with a light lemon, wine sauce and a side of pasta and salad. Malagen she’d ordered something with a little more red meat to it. She only hoped he would enjoy it.

The waiter picked up their menus and left them only to return moments later with two glasses of ayahpana. It was a clear blue liquid that looked harmless enough but Ira knew better. Good thing the Calerian knew how to handle her alcohol.

Taking a sip of her drink, Ira felt the burn and the warmth all the way down.

“Are you ever going to tell me why you saved my life after wishing to take it?” Ira asked Malagen rather bluntly. It wasn’t the best conversation starter but the Calerian had never been one for small talk, “I’m not stupid, Malagen. Evil you may not be, but nor are you good. You operate for your own needs and care little for those of others. I’d ask you why you’re such a bastard but I worry over the answer you’d give me.”

That was definitely not the most eloquent thing she could have said to him. But she wasn’t here to woe him or play nice to him, not to mention his kind didn’t play nice. He probably preferred the straight forward approach same as she did. Taking another sip of the ayahpana to help wash down the words and his answer, Ira waited.

He shouldn’t have felt relief when Ira came to the rescue – he shouldn’t have been feeling anything – and yet when his companion admitted she couldn’t read either, Malagen’s unease was palliated to a degree. It was another one of those strange sensations that he hadn’t felt before, that he couldn’t understand, another fraction of him thawing in Ira’s presence. Socializing was something that the barbarian alienated himself from, all for the sake of upholding his equilibrium. He deemed that part of everyday life redundant – why coax people into doing something when you can coerce them and achieve the same result? So now that he was thrown into the murky waters of human interaction, he began to realize that he couldn’t swim.

If Ira was put off by this oddity of his, however, she did a good job keeping it concealed. She put up that intriguing smile of hers and proceeded to order with polite words, and soon enough there was a pair of eerily named drinks standing before them. And with them came the inevitable question, the same one Malagen deflected back in the infirmary. The Dram had the answer, but it wasn’t the answer that bothered him. It was the fact that Ira wanted to know the answer. Why was she trying to find out more about him? He brought her nothing but woe and pain. All things considered, she should be frowning and spitting the words at him, not trying to gently scrape the surface of his mentality in order to see what dwells beneath. Was it simply curiosity talking or was there a deeper reason, Malagen couldn’t tell.

Picking up the glass with the translucent azure drink, the ruthless swordsman took a deep swallow, leaving the silence to linger for a moment longer. The beverage was strong, stronger then he initially expected, spreading like molten lava through his insides and bringing a heat wave in its wake. But then again, Ira was a strong woman – he couldn’t really see her ordering some watery wine.

“Why should I care for others?” he finally spoke, placing his drink back on the table and firing a glance over its surface. Once his eyes seemed to grab her attention he leaned forward and continued in a lower voice that seemed more menacing somehow. “Look around you,” he nodded his head, gesturing in a random direction towards the patrons of the tavern. “Men puffed up with vanity like women, women puffed up with self-esteem like queens, drunkards that can barely stand, unclean whores that sell their flesh, sleazy merchants with greedy eyes. There isn’t a person worth killing in this room. Sure, they would all fight back once pushed into a corner, but so would dogs. They all abandoned true strength and pride themselves with their vices. Why should I care for them when they don’t care for themselves?”

Though Malagen couldn’t quite decipher the expression on Ira’s face, it was rather clear that the heavy words he spoken struck a cord within her. He let the words settle a little bit before he took another sip and continued. “You were different. You fought back even when you didn’t have to – especially when you didn’t have to. Such strength is rare in a woman. You ask why I saved your life? Nay, I didn’t save it. You saved it yourself. If you were more like these people, I would’ve left you for the crows.”

Seconds after the barbarian was done with his pertinent answer, the waiter came with his hands full of plates, bringing both the food and the much needed reprieve from the subject at hand. The large oval plate was laden with neatly arranged strips of various dry meat, decorated with leaves of basil and parsley, with small squares of cheese forming a pyramid in the center. Two empty plates were set before Malagen and Ira, together with a set of silverware that seemed to have too many utensils. With a cultured bow and a conservative “Enjoy,” the waiter made himself scarce.

“That’s simply the way of the nature,” he continued, his voice somewhat less ominous as he forked several pieces of meat into his plate and picked up a warm bun of bread. “It’s the way I was taught. The weak perish and the strong prevail. There are no feelings involved, no more then when a wolf kills a doe.” This was probably not what Ira wanted to hear. Even though communication – verbal or otherwise – wasn’t his area of expertise, Malagen reckoned that Ira expected some sort of a confession that would rationalize his action, some soppy story that would explain it all. But Malagen was no storyteller, and even if he were, his story wasn’t a soppy one, not to him anyways. It was more of the same really, just strong prevailing over the weak. The way it was supposed to be.

To say she didn’t expect the words would be lying. An explanation from Malagen would be nothing like one from another and she knew that asking the question. He would give no soft, sugarcoated excuse for what he did. Instead he gave her his intentions and justified to her his way of looking at the world. A sad way of looking at it but one that was very true. The Calerian had seen it many times in the desert. The strong always prevailed over the weak. Humans were one of the only species the nurtured the weak and sustained them. In the wild, animals that were different and could not operate under the norm were discarded and quickly killed, keeping the strong, strong and the weak from passing on their seed to others. What worried her slightly was that she understood most of what he was saying. There was barely an argument in her mind and throw at him.

“I understand…”

She looked away from him and down at the liquid in her glass, swirling the contents around before taking another sip and enjoying the warmth as it seeped into her.

“It is the way nature operates and if humans did as dictated by everything around them they would no longer nurture those who could not defend themselves. Yet, true strength does not come with the knowledge that you can kill someone weaker than you, it comes from knowing that you can protect those who cannot protect themselves.”

She looked up at him as she said the last.

He was raised differently than she was and she could not fault him for that. His philosophy on life was not wrong, perhaps a little immoral or skewed, but it could not be wrong. Not everyone could look at the world with eyes that see the same thing. Ira herself may see someone in need, while Malagen only sees a diseased old man better left for dead.

Placing some of the dried meat and a warm bun on her plate, Ira glanced over to the napkin laden with too many pieces of silverware that looked like miniature swords and spears to her.

“Corone is a long way from my home and it’s people very different than what I know. I find myself surrounded by those who care little for anyone but themselves instead of working together as a community. In Astaka we are a group. Not everyone is born with the ability to see the dead and travel to Purgatory, but those who cannot are given purpose. Without them we would not have our crops, nor the meat we eat for they hunt it.” She didn’t really know how to describe her home to someone who operated on his own and for his own needs, “It’s dis…dis…” Ira couldn’t remember the word, “it saddens me to know that communities like that do not exist beyond my home. People are discarded so easily in Radasanth…in the worst areas they are treated like…nothing.”

She wanted to say garbage but she couldn’t think of the word in Common.

The Calerian leaned back against the soft cushion of her chair looking out at the patrons in the establishment. Conversation was abound but the place was rather quiet compared to most of the taverns she had been in. No one laughed raucously and no one shouted. There was a constant swirl of words in the air kept to a minimum and the serving staff was light on their feet and soft-spoken. They were barely around and moved from table to table like ghosts in a way. It was strange and just as Malagen had said. Pompous men with women hanging off their arms giving them empty smiles that never reached their eyes. Their dresses flowed around them in the most extravagant ways and Ira wished she could look as beautiful as they did but they were empty on the inside. Never truly themselves, they pushed aside their personality to operate in a way that their status demanded of them.

“I do not understand the ways this region commands its citizens act…”

She didn’t turn back to Malagen as she said the softly spoken words. Instead she watched for a moment as two women flirted with a rather handsome young man who’d clearly had one too many. Were they the whores who sold their flesh? Was he puffed up with vanity like the women who floated across the floor around him? She didn’t know.

Sighing, the Calerian turned back to Malagen, her expression sombre and no longer with that bright smile to fill her eyes. But she shook it off and took a deep breath.

“Now, before I ask you what has made you so cold and distant to those around you, I need to know something almost as important.” She kept her face as stern as possible as she picked up one of the miniature spears and held it before her, “Just what am I supposed to do with this?”

She couldn’t help but break into a smile as she asked the question.

She didn’t understand. She said that she did, but there was no way for Ira to fully comprehend the meaning of his words, not unless she had suffered the rigor of the Dram upbringing. It was more of an expression of sympathy, this admission of hers, something that people used when they found out more then they initially wanted. Or at least that’s what Malagen thought of it. But then, instead of changing the subject the people usually did, the exotic woman offered a retort. She spoke of her home, some obviously faraway place called Astaka, where the strong looked over the weak and the weak returned the favor by doing peasant work. It sounded a bit like slavery to the barbarian - a concept widely spread through Ferioh as well - but there was too much compassion in Ira’s voice towards these weaklings of her home for it to be slavery. It seemed that she believed that there was strength to be found in aegis just as he believed that there was strength in ruthlessness.

She was wrong, of course, but Malagen remained silent during her exposition, not so much out of politeness but because, despite the obvious difference between them, there were several points on which they actually agreed. Communities like Radasanth evoked something within them both, only with him it wasn’t sadness like in Ira’s case. They were both distant from their homes, only in Astaka the weak were nurtured and in Ferioh they were either killed or forced into slavery. It seemed like they were standing on an opposite side of the same spectrum, seeing the other side through this translucent prism that distorted their vision.

All this talk about the points of view and opinions and homes brought back memories of Ferioh for some reason. Perhaps it was due to the second glass of liquor that Malagen ingested – though quite impressive constitution-wise, the barbarian never consumed alcohol because of the negative effect it had on one’s perception. Or perhaps these recollections were the consequence of this turmoil that Ira had a knack of waking inside of him. Either way, some of the mental pictures and sequences that were neatly cataloged in his mind were starting to fall out of their respectable shelves. And to Malagen’s surprise, it were those that he deemed irrelevant that stood out the most. Not the cruel tutoring of his instructors or the do-or-die winter training in the Ferioh steppes or even one of the numerous whipping sessions, but instead moments like the murder of Dharnia and people like Taneth, a boy with ten winters under his belt who never returned from what their instructors called the ‘steeling’.

This moment of reverie came to what Malagen hoped to be a definite end when Ira spoke again. This time she was more subtle, wrapping up her real question in the coat of a jest, probably in an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere that suddenly grew as grim as if there were clouds brooding over their heads. The Dram didn’t smile – he understood the jape, but like many things, it too was deemed irrelevant. However, there was something in Ira’s smile that almost wheedled him to pick up the utensil in question and skim over it. His fingers spun it once deftly so that the point tip wound up between his forefinger and his middle finger.

“Its balance is lousy, but I reckon with some skill you can hit a waiter from the other side of the room. Just in case he’s being too slow,” Malagen finally said, finishing up with a grin instead of a smile. His other hand found its way to the glass again, bringing it in for another deep swallow. Even though he refused to admit it, he was feeling uncomfortable, and this ahaya-something that Ira ordered seemed like a cure for that particular ailment. Not that he needed a cure for it. Discomfort and tension were good; they kept you on your toes, kept you focused. Or so Malagen’s mind kept saying while its owner took another sip.

“It’s for show,” he finally gave a definite answer, dropping the utensil. “Just like most of the things here. Why else would there be nine tools to do the job that you can do with three or less?”

It was all a distraction though, this talk about the trite etiquette and the usage of the right eating instruments for the right course. Her real question was still standing between them, lingering in the silence and waiting to be answered. Even though Malagen had no intention to reply to it, the question clawed at his psyche, lurking for that moment when the alcohol would assuage his tension just enough to lure the answer out. It bombarded his thoughts with images related to it until one of them managed to break through the barricade. And in this oddest turn of events, the barbarian spoke again.

“Closeness is a weakness, just as your caring for the weak is, just like all emotions are,” he spoke, his fingers oddly restless, playing with one of the tiny forks, his eyes starting at a breadcrumb on the table. He tried to maintain his cool, but the more he spoke, the more color manifested in his tone, making it almost human. “They are a leverage that your enemies can use against you, a needless risk. So if you kill that part of yourself, they can’t harm you anymore. You become... invincible.”

That was what he was, invincible, dependant only on his own prowess. When you were invincible, death couldn’t touch you. It became just an inevitable event farther down the road, a moment when somebody stronger triumphed over you. There was no sorrow, no regrets; it was simply the way things were. Your paths crossed with somebody stronger, better, and you became an obstacle. There were many of such moments in Malagen’s life, and though he always disposed of all obstacles, one in particular returned to him now. The first one. And for some reason, he felt inclined to vocalize that thought.

“That is one of the most important lessons I learned. Back in Ferioh, they paired the strongest with the weakest and took us to a frozen river...” he said, interrupted only by a pause long enough for him to take another sip. The alcohol seemed to sit better on his stomach then food at this point, but it also brought the unwanted images to the forefront. Combined with a pair of silvery eyes that gazed at his, it made Malagen more uncertain and anxious then ever in his life. It made him wrestle with emotions that he didn’t want to deal with, it called them back from those moments in his past that he kept locked away. And soon he realized that he had only two options; yield to this disturbance or get away from the source of it. And Malagen never yielded.

“I... I have to go. This was a mistake,” he spoke just as hastily as he picked up his sword and got to his feet. He walked away from the table resolutely, intercepted only by the steward that tried to politely ask him if something was wrong. Malagen pushed him away wordlessly, sending the man toppling over his small table and attracting the attention of the customers. It was so stupid of him to accept her invitation, to let her live. She was the deadweight he had to cut off.

Whether it was the drink or just the way Malagen said it, Ira could not be sure. But when he explained how she could hit one of the waiters were they to move too slowly the Calerian could do no less but burst into laughter. She had to cover her mouth with her hand and try her damnedest to hold it inside because the last thing she wanted to do was draw any kind of unwanted attention. But she couldn’t help it. She kept picturing Malagen with his scowling face and glaring eyes throwing that little spear towards one of the poor serving staff. It would probably not kill the man, it did not appear to be that well crafted, but it would certainly hurt. As he finally explain the utensil was for show, like most everything else on the table, Ira quieted herself and took a few more sips of her ayahpana. The more she drank of it the more comfortable she felt and the more tension that left her muscles. It was a dangerous combination as she knew she shouldn’t be drinking that much in order to keep her wits about her, but sometimes she just couldn’t help herself.

With the laughter that had come to her eyes she’d almost completely forgotten about the other question she’d asked him. The one left hanging in the air that she hadn’t actually expected an answer to. He was too distant to tell someone he barely knew anything about himself, but already he had revealed so much without even meaning to. So when he began speaking once more, Ira had to remind herself of it. His less than pleasant opening for his explanation almost left her to choke on her drink. If she could choose between knowing the truth and sending japes at him all night she would gladly choose the latter, just to see him smile a real smile and perhaps even laugh. The Calerian doubted Malagen had ever truly laughed before and what a shame it was. Laughter could heal a soul with a thousands wounds, if even for a moment. It was the burdens of the world washed away in a simple motion made easier by that which brought the laughter forth. Still, his words ended that and brought the seriousness back into their conversation.

Quietly she listened to him speak, absorbing the words the best way she could. They struck her from within to think that he lived his life without any kind of emotion. But the more he spoke the more his guards fell away and the more she could hear that which he tried to abandon creep into his very voice. Emotions were not weakness. They gave you the strength to continue when all else left the body to weakness. They were drove a true warrior forward. The emotions within them, the love they felt, the need to protect those they cared about and even sometimes the feelings of hate and anger. Without emotions you are not invincible…you are the weakest in the very core of yourself, forever missing something and not knowing what to fill the hole with.

Ira wanted to explain that to him, but as she drew the fortifying breath into her lungs he continued to speak. But when he paused long enough to take another drink, Ira too sipping from her glass, his eyes became haunted. He was no longer just looking at her, he was staring into his past and it seemed too much for him to handle. When he announced his departure she was so surprised she didn’t even act immediately. Not until she witnessed him push over one of the waiters did Ira finally realize what was going on.

“Abhisagga!”

Hissing the word, Ira quickly pushed up from her chair. Reaching into her purse she dumped what looked like fifty gold coins on the table before she quickly went after Malagen. It was so stupid of her to ask such a question, but she hadn’t seen the harm in it. Apparently he had more to his past than what met the eyes and not all of it he was willing to deal with.

Rushing away from her table, Ira was stopped by another one of the serving staff as a few others helped up the knocked over man.

“Miss, miss is everything all right?”

She nodded her head and tried to move passed him but he kept blocking her way and she didn’t know what kind of bravado was seeping into his brain but she wanted to squash it. She could handle herself and did not need the help of some prissy little waiter.

“Are you sure, should we call the guard for you?”

“I do not need the help of your guard. Now…remove yourself from my path!”

If she didn’t know any better she’d guess she’d just sounded like another one of those stuck up noble, Radasanthian women, but she didn’t care. It got the job done and the man quickly moved away from her. Sparing a glance just long enough to ascertain the one member of the staff was indeed uninjured, Ira quickly turned and fled from the establishment. She didn’t know how long Malagen and she had been inside the restaurant but in that time the sun had begun to set. It was not dark, but dusk was upon her and the air had chilled. As the crisp wind swept against her bare arms and stomach she couldn’t help but shiver and resent the goosebumps lining her flesh.

Her eyes scanned the crowd of people in the street. There weren’t too many but she could not immediately spot Malagen. She would think that a swordsman wearing all black would stand out immensely in a crowd of men fluffed in colours she usually saw on the wings of birds. But no, her eyes could not see him.

“Malagen!”

A few heads turned in her direction and looked distastefully upon her sudden outburst, one of the women even sniffing at her.

“Abhiga abhipa karambhavaluka!” Ira growled at her, not at all bothered when the woman raised her haughty little head and walked away.

Ignoring her and continuing to search the crowd, Ira sighed as she realized her chance of finding him was slim to none. He was probably long gone and away from her by now.

“Malagen…”

Looking down at the neat rows of cobbled stones and running her fingers through her short, purple hair, the Calerian picked a direction and began walking. No point in standing around for nothing. If she were lucky her chosen path would lead back to the Inn she was staying at. If not she had another long night ahead of her. What more did she expect though? He answered the one question that had truly been bothering her and neither of them had any more of a reason to interact with one another. She was only pouring salt on the wound.

He watched Ira burst out of the tavern from the safety of his shadowed hiding place and didn’t know what exactly to make of the fact that this strange foreign woman called his name. The setting sun cast a thick shadow over him, making him almost invisible behind the stacked wooden crates. He knew he should’ve been running, scurrying away from this epicenter of chaos that perturbed him, and yet instead of disappearing into the vast maze of Radasanthian streets, Malagen was standing in the alley adjacent to the Black Forest Inn, looking at the woman that managed to quake the simple, yet effective world he built. Though he refused to acknowledge it, there was something within him, some flame long extinguished, and it was curious whether or not Ira would follow. But even now when the barbarian witnessed that she did, he was still confused as to what was the true meaning of her actions.

What did she want from him? Why did she go through all the motions with somebody who she didn’t even like? Was there a secret agenda to her interest? It couldn’t be for the sake of fornication, for they went down that road already and stuck a blind alley. Did she truly care for his story, care for him the way she cared for all those weaklings that she had a tendency to protect? It would’ve been so much easier if she hadn’t run out of the inn, if she had simply finished her meal and walked back to wherever the hell she called home away from home. It would’ve given a certain closure to this peculiar... something that was occurring between them. Neither attraction nor aversion – or rather both attraction and aversion – this emotion seemed to take root inside both of them. And Malagen didn’t know what to do with it. Discarding it like one of those obsolete, needless things would’ve been the easiest route, but for some reason that trait of his didn’t work anymore. He felt bound to her and incapable of severing that bond.

It was because of this peculiar sensation that the ruthless swordsman didn’t turn his back and walked the other way. Instead, his eyes followed the white-attired woman, his feet taking him from one corner of the alley to the next, finding cover in the most inconspicuous manner possible. There was a fair number of folk on the streets, but in the Government District they stuck to the main roads, leaving the side alleys rather vacant, thus enabling Malagen to follow Ira undetected. The timely evanescing of the daylight only further aided him, making the shadows denser until the twilight made them permanent.

He watched Ira with hatred. He watched her with affection. He watched her with craving, with questions, with confusion. He looked at her and found the source of everything he ever fought. And he couldn’t cope with it, didn’t posses the knowledge of how to cope with it. In a lifetime void of emotions, Malagen was finally feeling and it was a haunting sensation, disturbing to the point of agitation. It had to come to an end, he knew, one way or the other. Either she would give him some clue as to what to do with this mess she caused or he would take her life. Either way, there would be some kind of a resolution to the problem.

The prowling Dram waited until Ira finally got off one of the wide avenues, waited patiently with his blade sheathed, standing in the darkness, his back turned to a stone column that was the corner point of a fence that surrounded a rather lofty compound. And when he heard her footsteps come near enough, he stepped into the middle of the street... only to realize that he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Ira stood before him, speechless, as if she too failed to find the words. He took a step towards her, then another, his face foreboding, expressionless.

“Is this where you’re supposed to say that you give a damn?” he finally asked once only several feet of cobbles remained between them. Though his words seemed stone cold, there was a spark in his eyes that reflected the turmoil within him. “Is this where you say that you care, that you want to know, that all will be well? That there is a silver lining to every damned cloud?”

There was anger in his voice when he spoke the last words, and when she opened her mouth to speak, he disallowed it. With a single fluent motion, his blade played a metallic chord as it was drawn and pointed at her neck, his eyes shooting her over the length of the blade. His next words weren’t spoken, but spat at her. “DON’T! Don’t tell me you want to know! You don’t want to know! There is nothing for you here. Nothing! This is who I am!”

At the end, Malagen almost shouted, bringing his blade so close to her neck that the tip of it threatened to prick her skin. But instead of the trained calmness that usually kept his hands steady, this surge of emotions made his blade quiver, made his grip uncertain just as he was. He wished that she would turn around and walk away. He wished that she conjured her blades and put up a fight. He wished that she said that she did want to know, that she touched his hand. He wished all of these things at once, unable to decide, unable to distinguish what was right and what was folly. His eyes, regardless of how steely he tried to make his glance, sought answers in the silver ones at the far end of his blade.

The rest of her night presented itself in a plain and boring way. She would go back to the Inn, perhaps order something else to eat but most likely not even eat it. After that she’d lay in bed for a few hours staring up at a darkened ceiling until exhaustion won over and she finally passed over into restless dreams that gave her no comfort. She never should have entered that Citadel again, knowing he would be there and even though trying to deny it going there specifically to see and talk to him again. It was a lot to admit to herself, but what was the point in lying to her own mind over and over again? Malagen had just ended their interaction for the second time now and to go after him again would be folly. Chasing him out of the restaurant was foolish enough, but she’d probably do it again if the opportunity presented itself. Just why she enjoyed spending time with him was beyond her. If only their interaction had stopped after The Citadel, neither of them would be in this kind of position.

Where were the guiding words of Uriahd when she needed them?

‘You’re actually letting him get away? Haven’t I taught you anything!? Go get him!’

But she couldn’t go get him. She didn’t know where he was and besides, he’d tried to kill her for real and not just in the illusion of The Citadel.

‘So? You’re alive aren’t you?’

Yeah, that was true. He saved her, or by his explanation she saved herself. It was rather strange.

‘Okay, good. Now I ask again, why are you letting him get away?’

She…didn’t know. But she’d looked and she hadn’t been able to find him. If Malagen wanted to get away from her she was certain he could do it. He knew these streets and she didn’t. She knew the way back to the Inn and quite possibly even then she might get lost. Navigating a desert was so much easier than meandering through stone walkways and tall buildings. She couldn’t see the sky from in here and the sky is what helped guide her, yet even if she could the stars looked a little different in this area of Althanas. Every street looked the same. Every wall was a replica of the last and every window held the same glow and warmth of the one before it. The sun was almost gone too and as Ira glanced up towards the sky she could just make out the first of the stars appearing.

Ira was so lost in her thoughts that when Malagen appeared from nowhere in front of her, her heart leapt into her throat and lodged itself in her airway. At first she didn’t recognize him, his clothing too dark and his face hidden in shadow at just the right angle. It didn’t take her mind long to register who stood before her though. A small amount of relief crept into her mind then and her heart returned to normal but then she saw the look on his face. Hard and cold. He was back to normal and his intermittent steps were bringing him closer to her and she didn’t know what to do. Every instinct within her body told her to flee, that he had once again reverted to the predator and she was merely the prey, but she couldn’t. Something within her would not let her leave and even if she could, she doubted she’d turn and walk away.

Then his words rang out in the silence and with every question Ira felt the beat of her heart increase with his anger. She didn’t know what to say to him, she didn’t know what he wanted to hear. A multitude of answers swam around in her head, moving too quickly for her to grasp them and hold onto. She had to say something, but when she opened her mouth he silence her with heated words that made her jump and the tip of his blade that made her heart stop beating for an instant. Every time he yelled at her he brought the sword closer to closer to the flesh of her neck until the tip nearly brushed against her skin. But it quivered. There was no steady hand holding it with certainty, there was only a man battling with things he couldn’t begin to understand because he’d shunned them his whole life.

For the first time she felt real fear around him. He could end everything for her in the blink of an eye and the last thing Ira wanted to do was die.

“Malagen…”

Her shallow breathing made her chest rise and fall in quick intervals. She couldn’t hide her fear from him but she could try to push it aside. She moved forward just a fraction, just enough that the tip of his blade pierced through her flesh. Blood welled and a few drops trickled down to her collarbone, but it was not deep enough to truly bleed.

“If you want to kill me…kill me. I’m tired of fighting you.”

His eyes implored so much from her, but his face was impassive and cold. Yet he made no move to finish the job and slit her throat. Stepping away from the sword, Ira moved closer to Malagen. Her eyes never leaving his, searching their depths as her hand rested upon his and slowly lowered his sword.

“Enough Malagen. I…I don’t know what you want to hear from me but I’m not going to lie to you. I barely know you but the fact that I’m standing here and not running away should tell you that I do care and that I want to know you better. This is who you are and I’m not asking you to change!”

There were no accusations within her words, no anger, nothing. They were just softly spoken to him, “What I feel and want doesn’t really matter right now, does it? The fact that I feel something does…what exactly is it you’re feeling right now? What is it you want?”

She couldn’t decipher him. He could push her away and run from her once again or he could kill her on the spot, she didn’t know anymore. Despite the fact that he tried to hide so much within himself and deny the basic emotions any human should have, there were layers to Malagen he himself may not know existed. Perhaps he had forgotten about them or pushed them away as inconsequential, she didn’t know. But they were surfacing now and he didn’t know how to deal with them, that much was certain. Whether or not Ira could help him was a mystery, whether or not he would allow her to even try was something else entirely.

Candor and benignity with which Ira countered his words were a blade that passed right through the abysmal core of his being. All the fortifications he erected, all the callous walls of ice and stone, all the defenses which were supposed to keep him safe from weakness, she cut through them as if she knew some secret passage he had no knowledge of. Her touch was meaningless, but it was electric, paralyzing, conquering his resolve. Her eyes, both stern and soft, seeped into his own like firewater, setting him ablaze and bringing light to the shadows that accumulated within him over time. Her words offered questions instead of answers, further complicating the puzzle that already left him befuddled. By simply being who she was, Ira succeeded in making Malagen feel helpless, pathetic, all the things he fought not to become. She shattered his balance, and each shard of his previous self was different, jagged, like broken glass. A part of him hated the sense of hopelessness. A part of him felt relieved. A part of him wanted to embrace her, to do the unfathomable and apologize. A part of him wanted to act like all the human dogs he hated that put tails between their legs and ran away from a problem.

Mostly, though, Malagen just wanted it all to end.

For that purpose, his hands did what they did best, what they were honed for during his entire life. He tore his wrist from her grasp, stepping back just enough to give himself room to operate his saber. It moved almost too fast for the eye to see, the grayness of the twilight masking the strike that went for her neck. But Ira did nothing. The only sound that preceded the swish of his decapitating blade was the breath she took, shallow, but not surprised as her eyes peered hauntingly into his own. Malagen knew those eyes, he knew the sound of that inhale. Not so long ago, they belonged to another woman that cared, a woman that made him question the doctrine of his mentors for the first time in his life. A woman he murdered.

“No.”

Despite the current tumult in his head, the calm voice halted his blade before it ever reached Ira’s neck. His right was shivering. It took Malagen several seconds to realize that it wasn’t just his hand that quivered like a petal of a dying flower. His face grew paler then usual, displaying fear for the first time since he could remember. He took a step back, then another. The saber slipped from his fingers, its clattering against the stone ringing in his ears. There were so many thoughts zooming through his head, so many emotions cramming into a narrow doorway of his mind. He tried to speak, but plucking a single thought from a torrent of them was like trying to catch a trout from a wild current with your bare hands.

“I...” the hectic barbarian tried to speak, but found himself struggling with words just as much as something as simple as walking. He doddered for another couple of steps, like a man with a mortal wound, and when his back touched the wall of the adjacent building, he slid down on the street. He didn’t look at Ira anymore, couldn’t bear to see the reflection of himself in the eyes that beheld his weakness. “I... I don’t know what I want.”

He sounded so immature right then, like a spoiled teenager that couldn’t decide what to do with his life. Perhaps, on some level, he was a teenager, a boy that he never was, reliving all of the emotions he suppressed during his life in one moment in time and being unable to identify them. Sitting on the cold floor of the street like beggars that he despised, almost unaware of the fact that he was doing it, Malagen continued the story that he initiated back at the table of the Black Forest Inn.

“They used to take us to river Ennes in the early fall, when the ice was still thin enough to be broken,” he began, his arms propped on his knees, his eyes gazing at nowhere. “There were a lot of us in training, a lot of those that didn’t have what it takes to become a warrior. So they bound the strong with the weak with a piece of rope. They gave the strong a knife and shackled a boulder to the feet of the weak before they threw us into the river. The first time you try to swim to the surface together, but the water... It draws the strength from you, rips it from your gut with its freezing fingers. And when you hit the bottom, you know that the only way to survive is to cut the deadweight. Quite an experience for a ten year old.”

He looked up towards Ira when he said the last sentence. He didn’t know why he spoke of it. Perhaps, even though he still refused to admit it, he wanted to see and feel some compassion in her eyes. “It was a lesson that was supposed to teach us how dangerous emotions were, how they made us weak, and I learned it, mastered it over the years. You ask me what I’m feeling right now... It’s like asking a blind man for directions. I don’t know, perhaps I never will and perhaps that’s best for both of us.”

Ira felt as if a fist had closed itself around her heart as Malagen described what his people had done to him and considered it training. It was horrible and cruel. Never in her life had she heard of such a thing and never had it been done to train youth and forge them into a better fighter. It was traumatizing. To a ten year old, she just couldn’t imagine such a thing. The ice cold water all around them and the deadweight at their feet. Only it wasn’t deadweight, it was an actual person that was struggling to survive just as much as the other. Calerian training was hard and even at times harsh, especially to a five year old, but never would they do something as cruel as force you to murder another person. No, Ira could not classify that as murder. It was simply pairing people together knowing that either one or both will die. Either the boy will find the will and strength within himself to cut the rope and kill the person attached to him or he wont. It was as simple as that.

Put in such a similar situation Ira couldn’t even begin to imagine what she would do. Part of her reasoned she wouldn’t be able to do it at all, but under feet of freezing water knowing that she was going to die unless she simply cut a rope she wasn’t so sure. After all, as reason could dictate, she was not the one truly killing the person attached to her the water was doing that. She was merely saving herself. To the mind of a ten-year-old boy she could not imagine what thoughts had been going through his head. The men who had dropped those boys into the river were murderers and Ira took a small amount of satisfaction knowing that they would probably be sent to the Abyss when they died. Then again, Malagen would probably be sent there as well.

Uncertain, Ira moved towards him. Kneeling down, she picked up his fallen blade along the way, the blade that he had moments before nearly killed her with. How simple it would have been for him to end it all with that simple blow and kill her. Then the emotions would go away and the turmoil within him would disappear, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to kill her.

Kneeling beside him, Ira sheathed his blade then brushed the long strands of black hair away from his face. Placing her palm against his cheek, she turned his head to face her and found herself without words. She kept opening her mouth to say something comforting, something that would help him cope with this but she found nothing. Some times words were not the answer. They were after all only words and actions always spoke louder than they ever could. So Ira embraced Malagen instead. A touch could go a long way and she could only hope that it would help him. Resting her head on his chest she wrapped her arms around him as best she could.

“Malagen, no boy should have to go through what you did…” She loosened her hug and just knelt there, continuing to rest her head on his chest as she spoke, “There aren’t enough words in the world that will make what you went through go away, but that doesn’t mean you should shove it aside, pretend it never happened and build up a stone wall around your emotions.”

If Ira could she would change the past and erase what he had gone through as a child. But that was not within her abilities. She’d never felt so inadequate before in her life. He needed her help and she was at a loss for how to give it to him, especially in some cold and dark alley. Ira could feel the cold from the stone cobbles seeping through the thin material that separated her skin from the ground and slowly numbing it. Not to mention every time the wind brushed against her flesh she couldn’t help but shiver. It made her want to cuddle in closer to Malagen just to stay warm if not to be closer to him longer. But she couldn’t stay like this forever; it was actually an odd and slightly uncomfortable position that was cramping one of the muscles along her thigh.

Reluctantly, she pulled away from him, “I…let’s get out of this alley. It’s cold and not exactly the most private area either. The Inn I’m staying at isn’t far from here…”

Getting to her feet, Ira was just about to offer her hand and help Malagen up when he pushed himself off the ground and stood on his own. Reminding herself that he was not a man who needed coddling, Ira tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and turned to leave the alleyway. It took her a moment to remember which way she had come in and which she needed to leave, but soon enough she had them on the right track towards The New Leaf Inn. It was only a five-minute walk from where they were, nestled off one of the main streets in the city. The Inn wasn’t the in the best area of the city, in fact she had left that area a while ago, but it wasn’t in the worst either. Besides, Ira wasn’t too worried about the kind of crime that went on around the place; she could take care of herself. All she cared about was the fact that her room wasn’t very expensive and was spacious, comfortable and had a massive bed that she could just sink into and forget everything in.

The New Leaf Inn was a large building mostly made of pale, beige stones with large windows that faced invitingly into the street. Candles burned in most of them and the closer she got to the building the louder the voices from within became. The Inn also had a tavern in the lower floor that never got as rowdy as some of the places she’d visited recently. Ira guessed that was mostly because the patrons were those staying upstairs and they didn’t want to get kicked out of their rooms. That being said they still knew how to have a good time and Ira had joined them a few times and woken up with quite the headache the following afternoon.

Opening the front door, Ira’s senses were immediately assaulted by a number of different things, including the sound of laughter, drowned out by equally as loud talking. The smell of ale and smoke was in the air, masking the aromas that always filtered in from the kitchen. The one thing she was really thankful for was the heat though. Glancing into the tavern before she headed upstairs, Ira spotted a few familiar faces that had befriended her a few nights ago. Heading up to the third floor, the Calerian fished her key out of her purse as she walked down the wooden hall. From up here the sounds from the tavern below were nothing more than a whisper, the noise absorbed into the wood. Moving along to the fifth door down, Ira unlocked it and slipped into the darkened room, leaving Malagen to close the door behind him. The light spilling in from the hall was just enough to illuminate the fireplace and the table and chairs set around it. The bed and desk, which were on the opposite wall and farthest into the room could just barely been seen.

Walking over to the mantle, Ira grabbed one of the matches off the top and knelt down before the fireplace. Striking the match against the stone, Ira watched as the smallest of flames chased away most of the darkness in the room before she set the flame to the kindling. Making sure it was good and caught before she stood up and slowly turned around to Malagen, Ira found herself once again feeling that nervous flutter in her stomach. She realized then it was just the two of them, Ira and Malagen, alone, in her room, together, by themselves and Ira suddenly started feeling very unsure of herself.

Completely disarmed by her amicable disposition, Malagen followed Ira through the oncoming darkness of the streets like a prisoner sentenced to death. Perhaps it was because in a way this whole encounter was a guillotine that threatened to end something that was a crucial part of him. This ruthless rationale that kept him at arms length from humanity was withering, taking away everything that he had known and introducing a different viewpoint. And from this new vantage point, there was comfort to be found in her embrace, not weakness; there was strength to be discovered in the warmth of her touch, not weakness; there was reliability to be found in her words; not weakness. It was a moment of redefinition in which Malagen was finally forced to admit that he wanted Ira for more then just the satisfaction of his bodily lust.

But that was currently the maximum effect of this redefinition. Malagen’s world didn’t topple over. His frozen heart didn’t thaw and reveal the soft spot. He wasn’t about to cry his eyes out and repent for the things he had done. That wasn’t how a Dram mind worked. That wasn’t how Malagen’s mind worked. There were no miracle cures for lifelong corruption, no groundbreaking moments that completely changed the course of one’s life, no divine epiphanies that shed light on the reigning shadows. There were a lot of closed doors inside the barbarian’s head and Ira succeeded in opening one of them. And while it was more then anybody was able to do so far, there was still a lot of darkness locked away deep inside of him, a lot of doors that weren’t opened now and that perhaps would never open.

Their walk through the benighted streets of Radasanth was brief, but to Malagen’s troubled mind it seemed to last forever. He kept rationalizing, kept calculating, kept trying to predict to what end were the events of the day leading, but there were no answers to be found. And even when he thought he had it all figured out, all it took was one look towards Ira to tumble the house of cards he built with thoughts. He caught himself looking at her when he should’ve been paying attention to their environment, following the way her body moved, the way her every muscle flexed, the tempting manner in which her attire both hid and revealed so much. The barbarian chastised himself for making such an irrational mistake, but it failed to prevent him from repeating it. Again. And again.

And then they were at the doors of the New Leaf Inn. Unlike the previous establishment they visited, this one didn’t seem as vain and starchy, and its patrons only further confirmed that conclusion. It was obvious that most of the royal, pompous folk found it far too simple and ‘below their level’, while the rapscallions and murderers – his kind of people – found it too neat and lacking enough shadows in which they could knit their webs. Ira showed no intention of pausing in the common room though, despite several of inviting hands raised to greet her at a table on the far side of the room that Malagen noticed. Instead she led the way up three flights of stairs, taking them away from the relative commotion and into the silence of her quarters.

It was the silence that disquieted the barbarian. It reigned in her room even as she moved around, setting a lively fire in the hearth whose flames chased out the darkness. Never before had Malagen feared the silence – in fact, he preferred it over meaningless words that people tended to blurt just to keep their tongues busy. And yet now, as she stood before him and there were no words spoken, he found himself looking for a way out. He didn’t know what she expected from him, what the common etiquette demanded from him in situations such as this one. Did she bring him here to bed him? Did she want him to embrace her, kiss her? Did she want to continue their conversation? Or was she at a loss just as he was? Whatever it was, Malagen decided not to back down.

He should’ve thanked her. He probably should’ve apologized as well. But those words never exited his mouth and he found them hard on his tongue and himself incapable of uttering them. Instead, he found a way around them. “You didn’t have to do this,” he spoke as he closed the door, his tone cryptic, neither deathly cold nor perfectly human. “Well, not just this. A lot of things today. Not after what I’ve done. And yet here we are. Does your kindness know no boundaries?”

A pair of steps took him closer to her, close enough for his hand to reach towards her and touch her. But for the longest time he just looked at her, his steely glare descending from up above, examining her quicksilver irises. Some men could read looks, could tell exactly what the woman was thinking just from looking into their eyes, but Malagen wasn’t one of them. This kind of subtlety wasn’t the part of the program. The term of gentleness was practically lost to Malagen through the years, but instead of grabbing her and throwing her onto the bed as he usually did with wenches, his right hand went for her face, the back of his fingers passing over the velvety skin of her cheek. She didn’t recoil at his touch, but there was something in her eyes, a surge of emotions that he deciphered as alarm and discomfort. He pulled his hand back.

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

It was an enigmatic question and even Malagen didn’t know exactly what he meant by it. It was an offer to spend the night with her, but it was also more then that. It was a truce that was supposed to end this violence between them once and for all and exchange it for something more. Something that Malagen couldn’t even comprehend.

He was right, she didn’t have to do anything she had today, but she had. Despite their multitude of differences and the space that seemed to keep them from each other there was just something about Malagen that she was attracted to. It wasn’t the façade of coldness he constantly threw against the world, there was more to him than that. Beneath eyes that never seemed to care and a face hardened into an expression that had lost all emotions there was something. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was yet or whether or not it would ever truly come to the surface, but she had upset the balance within him and he was beginning to open up to her. Her kindness had done that, not the harder parts of her personality, parts that he had not seen. Ira was not all soft; she had cold parts of her that she tried to bury deep within her mind, cold parts that had arisen during her training as a Calerian. Someone could only fight so much and train so hard until they steeled themselves against the emotions of those they are fighting. Much like Malagen had done, only he had blocked all of his own emotions. But Ira had not let that overcome her. She couldn’t bring herself to look coldly upon any living person; even ones that had done despicable deeds she couldn’t even begin to comprehend deserved some compassion.

When his hand came up and caressed her face she couldn’t help but feel a small surge of uncertainty. This was all so new to her. Like Malagen experiencing emotions for the first time and feeling blind to it all, she found herself in an ocean and without the ability to swim, floundering. But she didn’t want him to stop. When Malagen pulled his hand away she caught it in hers and brought it back up to her face. His touch felt right where no one else’s ever had before.

“I suppose you’ll have to test the boundaries of my kindness and see just how far they go…” Her heart had turned into the beating wings of a bird, fluttering in her chest, which rose and fell in quick succession due to her shallow breathing. She wanted to beat her nervousness back and feel just as calm as Malagen looked, but she couldn’t. This was too new to her. “I think if you don’t stay, you’ll leave one really disappointed woman behind.”

She couldn’t help the blush that coloured her cheeks after saying that. She felt like a little girl again, unsure of herself and the world around her. It wasn’t really unlike her though. Flirting was nothing new, but this was leading to something else entirely. It wouldn’t end with the words and a few sultry looks as she turned and walked away. This was something that was going to change her in a small or even large one. She didn’t know. Never before had Ira ever thought she’d find someone she could feel comfortable with in this sense. But despite how nervous she felt she was comfortable around Malagen. But she couldn’t tell him that…this was her first time. The words wouldn’t leave her lips.

“I…”

She looked away from him. She couldn’t keep looking him in the eyes without blushing even more and she didn’t know why. Reaching up, she placed her hands on his stomach, feeling the rigid muscle beneath flex ever so slightly at her light touch. Biting on her lower lip, Ira glanced up at him for a moment as she ran her hands up along his stomach and chest, slowly pushing his coat off his body as she did so. She pushed it from his shoulders and watched it slip from his arms and pool on the floor by his feet. Running her fingers along his shoulder and up the back of his neck, Ira buried them in the long strands of his black hair. Rising onto the tips of her toes, she paused a breath away from his lips, unsure of herself and searching his eyes before she kissed him.

She looked like he felt; aflutter and uncertain, her cheeks flushed with a rosy hue. They were tiptoeing around each other; standing in one spot, but still moving around each other as if they were both made of heated steel that would burn then on contact. But despite this threat, Ira didn’t reject his touch. She took his hand – this hand that threatened her life several times already – and steadied it, recalled it, made it touch her blushed face again, made it feel welcome. But she didn’t stop on just a single touch. Her fingers crawled over the fabric of his shirt, her touch warm and almost sizzling, as she explored his torso with the hands of a sculptor and made her way up to his shoulders. The thick coat was an obstacle in this game of closeness, so she subtly removed it, made it slip off of his muscled form before her hands proceeded with their ascent. They wound up tangled in his hair and bringing their faces close enough for Malagen to inhale her unique scent.

His own hand wasn’t motionless either. Despite the initial reluctance, the brush on her cheek turned into a lengthy touch, his hand cupping the side of her visage, his thumb just passing over the corner of the full lips she nervously bit. His left was stubborn though, still latched onto the sheath of his saber, still refusing to succumb to this magnetism that was so prominent between the two. There seemed to be so much uncertainty between the pair, so much anxiousness that dried their mouths and robbed them of their words. Neither of them seemed comfortable in each other’s arms, but just as much neither of them couldn’t think of a better place to be right now then in this room, staring at each other’s eyes and feeling each other’s warmth.

The suspense was almost tangible, erasing the room, the crackling fire, the dancing shadows, the murmured voices of the common room, and leaving only the two of them in a standstill that Ira ultimately broke. Her lips covered his own, soft and sinfully tantalizing, and at first Malagen’s refused to return the kiss, stubborn just like his left hand, clinging to the callousness with which he usually responded to wenches that kissed him. But their coldness lasted for just a moment, losing the battle with her warmth, unable to resist participating in this moment of intimacy. His hand nudged her countenance with the gentlest of touches, making her mouth more accessible. Enticed by her taste, by the touch of her fingers, by the inevitable nearness of her body, Malagen closed his eyes and kissed a woman with more then just his lips for the first time in his life.

Time lost meaning. Neither of them could count the seconds with this surge of passion reigning in their bodies. The only thing of importance was that when their lips finally detached, they could read the desire in each other’s eyes. The muscular barbarian kissed her again, this time with just a bit more passion and haste, abandoning a portion of his serene demeanor. They took a united step backwards, their arms embracing each other, then another, their lips feasting on the other, and another, exchanging caresses more heatedly then they did blows. And before long, Ira’s leg touched the food of her bed. Malagen lowered her onto the sheets gently, looming over her with what might’ve been a notion of a smile on his face.

Both of his hands were on the move, but neither touched the purple-haired beauty. Instead, his right pulled out the saber, his left sending the steel sheath clattering on the hardwood floor. She inhaled rapidly, surprised by his uncanny action, and held her breath as he brought the cold metal of his blade to her chest. It moved slowly, dipping between her tanned skin and the velvety textile of her layered attire, cutting through it almost surgically. But even when the deed was done and he tossed his sword away heedlessly, Ira’s face didn’t completely relax. There was fear in her. She struggled to contain it behind her quicksilver eyes, but he could feel it, sense it in the touch of her hands. Malagen’s hand didn’t move to remove her torn clothes. Instead, his left supported him as he leant over her, his right cradling the side of her strained neck.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a whisper, landing another kiss on her almost shivering lips. “I promise.”

She lost herself in his touch. His lips on hers were a heat that beckoned more passionate kisses from her that left her feeling breathless and a little weak in the knees even. She didn’t know what she was doing but it all felt so natural in the end. Thought was lost to her and time was something she counted in the beats of her heart. But she couldn’t count so it was useless. Her mind could focus on nothing but the moment and what he was doing to her and how that made her feel. She wanted the clothes that separated them gone. She wanted to feel his hands on her skin and she wanted to do the same to him, to run her fingers across the hard muscles of his stomach and then up to his chest. She wanted to scrap her nails down his back again and even run her fingers lightly over the scars he had and softly kiss each of them.

Before she even realized it, her legs hit the foot of her bed and Malagen was gently lowering her onto the mattress. It sunk ever so slightly under her weight and then more so when Malagen balanced himself over her. But he wasn’t touching her anymore, instead Ira caught a flash of silver from the corner of her eye and the next thing she knew his sword was in his hand and his sheathe was clattering against wooden floorboards and sounding way too loud for her ears. Her breath was lodged somewhere in her throat and refused to come out, as she watched the blade balanced in his grip. But it never touched her skin. She watched the entire time, scared that he had tricked her in some way and really was going to kill her but he didn’t. Instead, he sliced through her shirt, cutting through the layers of white material in one quick motion before he tossed the blade aside and leaned down closer to her.

He could remove her now ripped clothing from her body and leave her completely naked before him, but he didn’t. He brushed his lips against hers instead, lips which quivered.

“I know…” she whispered back to him. “Do not think you’ll hurt me; I am not made of glass. I do not break. And…”

He was touching her neck, she could feel it and some of her unease and fear was stemming from that. She didn’t want him to touch her neck. She didn’t want anyone near her neck.

“And I trust you.”

She trusted him with her body. But still she brought her hand up and wrapped her fingers around his wrist and moved his hand down her body away from her neck. She wanted him to touch her but not there, anywhere but there. He would be able to see the scars now. But she didn’t want to think about it, she couldn’t. Looking into his eyes, Ira trailed his hand down the cut he’d made in her clothing. She let his fingers brush against exposed skin and push her ruined clothing apart ever so slightly revealing the tanned skin beneath. She guided his hand between her breasts and down across her stomach, which made her shiver. His hands were calloused and rough from handling weapons and she loved the feel of them on her. Ira also loved the look on his face at the moment. There was no coldness, only a passion there that she felt burning within herself as well. He looked more human now than he had in their entire time together and his eyes were just a little softer. The cold was not completely gone and Ira knew it may never be, but with the desire he felt for her clear on his face Malagen had never looked more handsome.

Running her left hand down the side of his face, Ira lowered his head closer to her so she could kiss him again. In her right hand she summoned a small dagger and taking a page from his own book she cut down the length of his shirt, starting from his collar and ending at his waist. After a moment or two of hearing the ripping cloth, he broke away from her and looked down at what she’d done. Allowing the dagger to slip from her fingers and disappear, she gave him the most innocent face she could muster as she was finally allowed to feel his skin under her hands and the heat of him. Breaking the look of innocence with smile and being unable to feel his eyes on her for too long without blushing, Ira kissed him. For the hundred time for the millionth, she didn’t care. She didn’t want to stop kissing him. Her hands didn’t want to stop touching him either, her nails lightly scraping down his chest and stomach, stopping only when they hit the waistband of his pants.

Yes, there was the Ira he had gotten to know during their auspicious encounter, the woman that had coaxed him into submission in the illusion of the Citadel. Temptation and confidence dripped back into her eyes, taking command over her actions, steadily conquering the initial incertitude. Malagen welcomed the return of these traits with a smile; this was the Ira that so unreasonably attracted him, this self-assured woman that knew what she wanted and wouldn’t stop at anything until she had it within her grasp. And right now, it was him she wanted and his shirt was stopping her from getting just that, so she ripped through it with aid of her magical weapons. She offered a teasing smile as she witnessed the result of her act, the falsely coy apologetic kind that apologized for nothing. And then her hands began their roaming, touching, clawing, luring him nearer with each second.

She guided his own to do the same, but not over her neck. There was a tremble passing through her body when he touched her there, the disquieting type that was the murder of passion. Perhaps it was because the scar that marred her skin there or the story that stood behind that unique imperfection of hers. Perhaps they both had scars that ran deeper then just skin and stories that were more then just words. Malagen couldn’t know and didn’t have the time to deliberate on it, because soon his fingers were caressing the tanned smoothness of her torso, descending between her breasts, caressing their softness, brushing against the subtle muscles of her stomach. But they refused to stop their exploration there. After another lengthy clash of their lips, his hand proceeded, following the curvaceous line of her hips, down her thigh, making him back away from her just enough to allow his hands to move down her calf and take her shoes off. And then she lay completely revealed to him.

It wasn’t just her magnificent body that he beheld then, not just the way her perfect breasts raised and fell as her body fought with desire or the vague vertical lines that accentuated the muscles of her lower torso. This physical part of her was ravishing, but not as much as her eyes. They were speaking to him, whispering, singing the song of a siren, and even though Malagen couldn’t quite hear it, even though he was still unable to understand it all, they made one thing perfectly clear. There was two of them in that room, and despite all the pain and anger and hate, despite all his coldness and ruthlessness, she wanted to be with him. Even somebody as blind and heedless towards the subtle emotional signs was able to decrypt that message.

Conquered again by her allure in this battle of intimacy, Malagen had no choice but to yield to her and to the feelings he denied for as long as he knew. And the sounds of their battling went on throughout the night.

***

With its darkness paling, the sky witnessed to the fact that the morning was still at least an hour away. The night still struggled against the inevitable sunrise, spreading its chill in tendrils of breeze that swept across the land. One of these sneaked past the wings of an open window of a room on the third floor of the New Leaf Inn, wrapping itself around the naked body of a muscled barbarian, tousling his long black hair. He didn’t shiver though, didn’t even acknowledge the wind as he sat on the windowsill. His focus seemed to be on the blade in his right hand, the whetting stone in his left, the sound of one scraping against the other and the serene beauty that slumbered amidst the crumpled sheets.

She wasn’t dead though. She should’ve been. She probably would’ve been if Malagen was still Malagen and she wasn’t Ira Shinkara from the distant place called Astaka. Ira Shinkara, the disturber of his balance. Ira Shinkara, the defiant woman that had somehow managed to crawl underneath his skin. Ira Shinkara, the woman whose warmth he could barely stand away from. Last night was an undisputable proof of that; it was the first sensation of that kind for both of them, though in a different sense of the words. For Ira, it was the first time she had a man and Malagen knew it, felt it, saw it in the shiver of her body and the stifled whimper she locked behind her lips and the startle in her eyes. And he wasn’t glad. No, ‘gladness’ was too soft of a word to describe what he felt. He was honored that something so pristine was offering to share this unique moment with him. For Malagen, it was the first time he felt this emotion towards a woman.

This wasn’t good, Malagen knew, this turn of events that started an avalanche that wasn’t over even now when she was asleep and he could escape undetected. There was still a part of him that wanted her dead, that wanted to get back to that cold corner where there was simplicity and equilibrium. But those rigorous voices of the past that had been dictating his actions up until this point were getting more silent, muffled by something chaotic, something that defied reason, something that made a person weak, his teachings said. Something that, according to Ira, made a person strong.

Which of the two was true, Malagen didn’t know. All he knew, as his eyes looked over the calm of her sleeping visage, was that he had to stay with Ira if he wanted to find it out.


SPOILS: Hardiness – Despite the multiple wounds he took in the futile battle with the Fallen and the major blood loss, Malagen still managed to carry himself and Ira to a healer and get out of the bed before his wounds were properly healed, thus discovering that he is more resistant when it comes to injuries. He can take considerably more hits and lose more blood then an average soldier without losing ability to fight back.

Something cool brushed against the naked skin of her shoulder. Shivering, Ira snuggled more deeply into the sheets trying to stay warm, trying to cover herself as much as possible. She hated the cold and wondered why the window was open, as she never left it open. The more she awakened, the more her senses slowly returned and she realised she was beginning to hear the strangest sound. Like some kind of scraping but she wasn’t quite sure. Against the urge to just fall back to sleep, Ira cracked her eyes open just enough to see the empty bed. There was no one sleeping beside her and for a moment she wondered if he’d left while she’d been asleep, then she heard that noise again. Rolling over onto her other side she looked out towards the only source of light coming into her room, the open window. It was also where that cool breeze that coming in.

Smirking, Ira took the moment to observe Malagen as he sat on the ledge, holding his blade in one hand. He looked gorgeous and the light accentuated just the right parts of him while leaving the rest in shadow. But she knew what they looked like and felt like. She knew where every muscle dipped and how there was this one particular spot on his back that he really liked when she scraped her fingernails down it. He hadn’t even cared that she was a virgin. He’d been a little surprised when she’d gotten that quick look of pain and discomfort on her face, but that was it. Not to mention the things he’d done to her had quickly made her forget about that small nuisance and practically every else. She couldn’t think when he had his hands on her; he knew just where to touch her to make her lose herself.

One thing she quickly realised was she had no regret over what had happened. It was one of the many reasons she’d stayed a virgin for so long. She’d talked about it with her friends and many of them had shared regret over the first time they’d slept with someone and Ira could not understand why she would do something only to regret it a few hours later. But there was none of that within her. In fact she felt rather content at the moment.
Stretching and moving sore muscles that she didn’t know could get sore; Ira sat up in the bed, keeping the sheet wrapped around her body.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t look at her; he paused only for a moment before going back to running what looked like a stone over the edge of his blade. She had no idea why he was running a rock over his sword, wouldn’t it blunt the edge?

“I’m thinking…”

She raised her brows. Thinking? About what? She wanted to know but had a feeling it was something a little too private for him to tell her. It was the look on his face. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t smiling, it just seemed lost within his mind.

“Thinking, hmm? Well, I can think of something a lot more enjoyable for you to be doing than that, especially with those hands.”

Ira let the sheet fall from her body as he turned his head towards her. Even in the paling darkness she could see the change in his expression and the heated look that suddenly entered his eyes. Biting her bottom lip, she watched as he put his sword and stone aside before he crawled back into bed. His hands wasting no time as they ran up the length of her thigh and across her hip as he kissed her.




SPOIL: Fortify Me: This is the second time Ira has been close to death and able to hold on until the very last moment. Her will conquers the weakness of her body and allows her to push through until there is barely strength left in her and even then she may still be able to continue on only because she wants to. She can handle more wounds and more blood loss than the average person and can even push through the pain.

One trend that I’ve noticed on Althanas is that threads start off strong when the idea is fresh, only to dwindle later on when the writer just wants to finish and get the EXP. It’s happened to me a couple of times.

This, however, was the rare opposite. When it started, it seemed like your average Althanas battle thread. Sure, Malagen was intent on getting into Ira’s pants, but since when does a guy battle a girl and not have that natural urge at some moment?

Once you guys got to the actual storyline, however, I got hooked. I was actually somewhat sad when the quest was over. Malagen and Ira, as unlikely a pair as possible, seem to be quite irresistible to read about.

Now… numbers.

Continuity: 7 Malagen belongs in the Citadel. He didn’t need a reason to be there. Ira’s reason, however, wasn’t quite good enough. She lives in the middle of the desert in Fallien. What reason could she have to find herself in Radasanth? I do, however, appreciate that you decided not to use the cliché “mysterious note” or other such overused excuses for battle. Other than that, I had as much backstory as I needed. Solid job overall.

Setting: 10 The setting in this quest was done well. Now that I think back on it, I always had a vivid image of where Ira and Malagen were and what was around them, but it didn’t overpower the story. You’ve found the perfect balance here. I don’t like giving 10’s – I’m a student of the “there’s always something that could be done better” school of thought – but I seriously can’t think of a single thing here that you guys could improve on. Marvelous work.

Pacing: 6 You guys did fairly well here. You know how to move a story along. I thought the battle in the first thread was a little lengthy (it was longer than the encounter in the graveyard, and I thought the latter battle was more important to the story), however. Also, sometimes things got a bit repetitive (more on that in Persona).



Persona: 8 Stellar, for the most part. Both of your characters had very strong personalities, and their contrast only served to highlight that. My only complaint is that your thoughts were repetitive at times. Whenever the situation reached a pause, Malagen or Ira would consider it, realize that what they were about to do probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, and then do it anyway. It seemed to be a recurring event throughout the quest.

Action: 8 Good stuff. Ira was remarkably persistent, given how Malagen treated her through most of the thread… but if she hadn’t been persistent, there wouldn’t have been a story.

Dialogue: 9 Good. Just like everything else. Why can’t you guys do something bad every once in awhile? Makes me feel like I’m not doing my job when I have nothing to bitch about… *mutter mutter*… Oh yeah. Where was I? Dialogue. It was well-written, and I thought a lot of the conversation was imaginative and even humorous at times.



Mechanics: 7 There were quite a few missing words and minor typos. Ira, you tend to have a lot of run-ons and fragments in your writing. It doesn’t detract from the story, but it did slow me down in some places.

Technique: 9 Excellent styles and writing in general. You guys know what you’re doing; anybody can see that.

Clarity: 7 Like I said, a few grammatical things slowed me down here and there. I never had to reread, but it did slow me down, and that was a little bit of a nuisance at times.



Wild Card: Well now… all told, your score is 71 now. It’s mathematically possible for you guys to get a JC nomination out of this. All that stands in your way is my opinion. Now… do I feel like being an ass and scoring you low, or do I like you right now?

Do you feel lucky, punk?




…you should. Take a 10 here. Congratulations, guys. This was an absolute pleasure to read, and was well worth a JC in my book.


Total Score: 81

Malagen receives 2820 EXP and 650 GP.

Ira Shinkara receives 3490 EXP and 650 GP.

Requested spoils are awarded to both of you.

EXP added!

Ira levels up!!!

Movement will wait until the Judge's Choice consideration is done!