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  1. #31
    Legend

    EXP: 59,606, Level: 10
    Level completed: 51%, EXP required for next Level: 5,394
    Level completed: 51%,
    EXP required for next Level: 5,394


    Stare's Avatar

    GP
    150

    Name
    Avis Tsakaka
    Age
    16
    Race
    Kenku / Tengu
    Gender
    Female
    Location
    Corone
    “You… you love her. You really love her.”

    They were words from another time. Some months ago, when the worries of today had not majorly been an issue, when Stare was able to walk free by herself and operate in business of her own accord. When she had not known she was immortal, when friends were simply friends and her god was just that, when Nevin had figured out the truth of what Vitruvion was and spoken the words.

    “You… you love her. You really love her.”

    Later that same day Vitruvion had translated it to Stare as the love a god has for a subject. Nothing more, nothing less. She was his high priestess in another life, his genesis of a kingdom he longed to build but was ultimately forbidden to do. That had been easy to understand, to come to a sane conclusion about, and it had been the easy truth for sometime.

    But now. Now …

    “You’re actually in love with her.”

    That was another matter entirely. Stare looked at Sable as if she was mad. Because the woman was, it was crazy, suggesting such a thing. Vitruvion was her god, not some lovesick fool who chased around a girl just because he fancied her.

    But then, he had never chased her around. Instead he had linked their minds, made her his legal possession and made her immortal just so she could stay with him for eternity. Indeed, the former two had been during the time when she had been fighting his authority, but the latter? What had Vitruvion said when she asked why he had made her immortal?

    “I decided that I refused to live without you. Not that I could not live with you, but I would not. I refused, and I still refuse.”

    Refused to live without her. Had this conclusion been staring her in the face all this time and she had just refused to believe it was even possible?

    Maybe it was not though. Maybe it was just a suspicion on Sable’s part. With that in mind, and that forming the process of her mind she sucked into her breath and filled herself with confidence that that was all it was. Because he couldn’t. He wouldn’t …

    Looking up, she prepared herself to see his denial.

    What she saw, however, changed her entire life.

    He did not look at her. Instead he was facing Sable, and his eyes were wide. His body was rigid, and now he was leaning away from Stare, his hands by his side, curled into light fists. Unsteadily his chest rose and fell, filled with anxiety, which was not an emotion she normally would associated with him and his eyes - his eyes …

    Were lacking in anger. In hatred and spite. Instead they were filled with a great loss, an insecurity that Stare had never dreamed to see in him before. Slowly he swallowed, one fist clenching as he tried to open his lips to speak, then failed. There was a deep sorrow somewhere within him that refused to die, and was now living wild and free, alongside a desperation in his stance and reluctance.

    Reluctance to admit it?

    Reluctance to let her go?

    Holy mother of …

    Stare pushed herself rapidly away from the wall. Her attention was on him, disbelief, shock and horror flooding through her. How could he? How could he be in love with her? How dare he first of all, with all that he had put her through, and secondly how … just how?! It made no sense - or, if you looked at it, it made perfect sense. All his obsession with her, all of his desire to keep her near him. It was not just possession, it was beyond that, it was a deep love that he had never expressed, probably tortured himself trying to deny it, hoped to never even tell her until now.

    Quite desperately, she backed up against the corridor. At first she slid along the wall, but then she was walking backwards. She saw Sable gasp and point at her, Stare decided to turn and begin to run because all she wanted was to be out of that place, away, outside, away from him, from it all, from all of them.

    Arms caught her. Strong, warrior arms. They wrapped around her upper body, pinning her arms to her side and someone deeply whispered in her ear, “It is okay, Miss Stare.”

    A deep voice, a familiar voice. One that she had not heard in a long time but had once been the only friendly one in this life …

    Brer. Gently, but firmly he held her as she struggled, twisting against him. “Let me go!” she yelled at him, “let me go, bloody hell!”

    “Miss,” he grumbled, holding her. No, hugging her in comfort. “It will be okay.”

    “NO!” she yelled. “I want - I need to - just -”

    A sudden blue light appeared. A shimmering rounded thing, pulsating rhythmically and familiarly. It grew, blossoming out before it was a portal of sorts, a void in which one could step and be away from this forever.

    “Go then,” a hoarse voice said quietly. “You need to go, then go. Brer, let her go. You stay here, however.”

    The half giant paused, but loosened his hold. Softly he murmured to her, “it's the only option for now, Miss.”

    Stare shivered, and leant against the man. She tilted her head up to him, tears beginning to run. “I - I -”

    He nodded slowly, and pushed her towards the portal.

    “See you soon.”

    More figures moved at the edge of her vision. One of them was tall and pale, with laboured breathing. That one she did not want anywhere near her right now, even though he had just said that he never wanted her to leave his side now, that she was to remain within his sights. He had made a portal - Stare did not know where it would go. Hells, it could lead to a cell, in which to keep her prisoner forever and day. But so long as she was fed - right now anywhere was better than here.

    So she shrugged away, and staggered through the light. It absorbed her, swirled around her and enveloped her.

    She breathed out, stepped through.

    Was carried beyond.
    Crows: Old nursery rhyme "One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for a funeral, Four for birth, Five for heaven, Six for hell, Seven for the devil, his own self."

  2. #32
    Legend

    EXP: 59,606, Level: 10
    Level completed: 51%, EXP required for next Level: 5,394
    Level completed: 51%,
    EXP required for next Level: 5,394


    Stare's Avatar

    GP
    150

    Name
    Avis Tsakaka
    Age
    16
    Race
    Kenku / Tengu
    Gender
    Female
    Location
    Corone
    She staggered as she landed, her feet weak and her body trembling. The floor beneath her was cold, but it was comforting as she unsteadily stumbled over it, reaching for the first piece of furniture she found. That was an armchair, and she hung off the back of it for dear life, her breathing and pulse capricious.

    Unsteadily she looked around her, glancing to see where he had sent her. Part of her hoped it was some wild garden where she could run and be free before he came after her, another part wanted it to just be a cold-barred cage, where she could curl up and starve herself. Instead it was a place that was familiar - the antechamber within the Hollow, with the fake fireplace and the door that led into his bedroom. Comfort and familiarity, but not as good as her bedroom in the mansion would have been. Carefully she sucked in her breath, trying to still the tears that were running in rivers down her face from eyes that had never cried since her liberation to the mansion.

    How long had he realised? How long had he denied his feelings for her before he finally opened up to them, admitted to himself and likely sworn never to tell her? Perhaps he had tried to pretend it was not true. Perhaps, when Sable had first said those words he had growled and shaken his head and threatened her. Because that was his way. That was what he usually did. He was a sadist, a demon of a god whom she abhorred to think had those sort of feelings for her, but whom she could now, most definitely, never get away from.

    Unless she left now. Now she could get a rest bite. Some minutes of running free before Brer found her and held her still again.
    At least the giant was back from his adventures of leading the security at the Celestial Brewery.

    She looked towards the door. It was not that far from where she currently stood, and it was emotions, not a lack of physical energy. Though in some ways they were one and the same. Stare had to find something within her, a might that was deep. She shook though, uncontrollably, as more tears wrecked her body, as life’s hardships became, in this moment, too hard to bare, as the knowledge that he had never told her … Ansaldo's balls beyond.

    The wall would do first. Summoning what courage she could she stood tall, and then pushed herself away from it. Two staggered steps took her over to the wall, which she slumped against. Swallowing tightly she tried to end the tears before rolling onto her side and using the wall as a support to head over to the door.

    Slowly, but surely, she made her way. Her claws scraped out and grasped at the handle. Using it as the newest crutch she leant on it heavily, tugging it open violently.

    Behind it were three guards, blinking at her. One was Granit, the dwarf she knew vaguely who smiled awkwardly at her. He had a crossbow supported readily in his hands.

    “Ah, Miss … Miss Stare …” he said with uncertainty. “You're …”

    Stare could see the other guards shifting anxiously and twisting to face her. Eyes narrowing past the wet she stared at them one by one, clearly an issue in their minds.

    “What is it?” she asked coldly.

    “Sir - Sir Elssmith said if we were to see you that … that we should not let you leave that room. That if you were elsewhere to take you to it and to … keep you in there until he was back.”

    So he had returned here, then gone to the theatre. Rather than look in her mind and make the connection again so quickly he had relied on instinct, been told where she truly was and ended up meeting here there. Clearly his plan had been to have her escorted her just in case she was wondering through some street somewhere.

    “I could take you all,” she growled darkly. “Kill you even. Right here and right now.”

    There were sharp breaths. She saw one of them grip the hilt of his sword tighter and another begin to lower himself into a ready fighting crouch. Granit, however, was the one to quickly speak.

    “I have no doubt you could Miss, but this is Sir Elssmith. I do not want to but we have been permitted to say it is an order.”

    Stare glared at them for a moment, her body trembling as she breathed in fury. She stood there, on the threshold of indecision as she faced a very temporary freedom against a direct command from her god. It took many things, including her own personal pain, to stop herself from wrecking agony on all of their bodies. An order. He had given them.permission to say it was an order. How dare he, in this circumstance. Even if he hadn't known it would come to this, she didn't care. How dare he, how fucking dare he!

    She slammed the door in their faces, then twisted sharply around. Finding a renewed strength in her anger she slumped over to the closest sofa and threw herself down on it. For a while she lay face-down, tangled in amongst the cushions and thinking about how much she hated her life right now, and how much she hated him. She let out her stare upon the cushions, causing skin death the thing that wasn't living before the discomfort became too much.

    Then she turned onto her side and faced the back of the sofa, lying there into the small hours, and the light of the candles all but ran out.
    Crows: Old nursery rhyme "One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for a funeral, Four for birth, Five for heaven, Six for hell, Seven for the devil, his own self."

  3. #33
    Legend

    EXP: 59,606, Level: 10
    Level completed: 51%, EXP required for next Level: 5,394
    Level completed: 51%,
    EXP required for next Level: 5,394


    Stare's Avatar

    GP
    150

    Name
    Avis Tsakaka
    Age
    16
    Race
    Kenku / Tengu
    Gender
    Female
    Location
    Corone
    It was many hours later when the door opened. Stare had not slept at all, but rather cried until no tears could come anymore. Then she had curled up tight, closing her eyes and lying there in silence, listening to just the emptiness of her haunted mind. The mind that was not free, her body that was not free, her whole life that was not free.

    The door slid open and there was no need to question who it was. Footsteps scraped across the ground, and a soft, weary sigh came from between lips as the figure carried himself over the floor. They were in almost darkness, but he was a god and could see as well as she could in it. She heard him slump into an armchair, somewhere close by, the furniture creaking - then quiet fell again.

    It was a long few minutes before she spoke.

    “You're never going to let me go, are you?” she asked quietly, painfully, in a croaked voice that needed water but had refused to get up.

    A low murmur told her all: “I cannot, Stare.”

    There was a long pause before he whispered again, and the voice was honest, brutal and self-loathing. “I think it best,” he began slowly, “if we agree to never speak of this night. It was never meant to be uttered, and it would be best if it never were again.”

    “It doesn't change the fact that it was though, Vitruvion,” she whispered. “It still - still -”

    Hurt? Scarred? Made her furious, and panicked and highly anxious to the point where all she wanted to do was scream into the air again and again and again ...

    “And if it were not for Sable, it would never have,” he replied quickly. “She also swore to not talk about the ownership issue.”

    “Fuck you,” Stare breathed, “for ever doing that to me.”

    There was no answer to that, only a sharp draw of breath. Stare could hardly believe that the man who would enslave her was also in love with her, even if he was her god also. For that she was talking to Vitruvion as a mortal, a simple fellow man of maximum seventy years or so. If he had been better, if that had all been true then maybe …

    She shook herself, burying her beak between her arms. No, that was stupid to consider. This man had begun their relationship by kidnapping, then raping. That was not normal, no matter if - she paused as a thought struck her. He had not used Sable or Blaze for three months, had not touched them or had them abused. Was it possible that that was because of how she felt about it? Because she was so disgusted and it filled her mind everyday that those thoughts had become toxic to him, changing the way that he thought and acted? Pausing, she blinked, a rare moment of bliss in this terrible time. Was it actually possible that she had succeeded in that? Making him behind to hate his own actions, which had begun as a campaign to take his revenge out on mortality which he saw as an enemy, but now he had ceased in part because he was fond of her? Who had once been a mortal?!

    But now, thanks to him, and his desperation to never see her go, he had made her immortal.

    “That is a decision I do not regret,” he murmured softly, “And I never will.”

    “Vitruvion,” she replied abjectly, “Please leave me alone. Please. I don't want - anything.”

    There was a long pause. Then the shuffling of fabric before he began to move, easing himself out of the chair. The noise ceased a moment as he whispered a few last words.

    “It isn't … safe anywhere, Stare. You need to stay in here. For your sake … and for mine. I know you will hate me saying this but I am still your god, and your employer.”

    She grabbed the cushion by her hands and pulled it over her head. “Please, my lord” she mumbled, “just go.”

    “And get something to eat, to drink. I'll have Brer come, you like-”

    “I want to starve and die here,” she rasped, “I want to fall away to nothing, to dust and not be seen again.”

    “If you do, then I'll see you when you are better, my dearest,” he replied softly. But that was the last thing he said. He twisted around and left the room, only footfalls and no tapping of his cane. Only the rocking of another door being closed.
    Crows: Old nursery rhyme "One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for a funeral, Four for birth, Five for heaven, Six for hell, Seven for the devil, his own self."

  4. #34
    Legend

    EXP: 59,606, Level: 10
    Level completed: 51%, EXP required for next Level: 5,394
    Level completed: 51%,
    EXP required for next Level: 5,394


    Stare's Avatar

    GP
    150

    Name
    Avis Tsakaka
    Age
    16
    Race
    Kenku / Tengu
    Gender
    Female
    Location
    Corone

    Epilogue

    He threw himself down on the bed, and it was not long until he was in a similar foetal position. Still, his shoes were on and he lay there for some time before he growled and licked them violently off. With his supernatural strength in assistance they flew across the room and smashed into the cabinet, making a loud raucous that would have sent guards running - had he not ordered them to stay that night, no matter what.

    Naturally, he had never once been planning to tell her. Instead he had hoped that those feelings that had blossoming, and which he had only fully admitted to himself around three months prior, would die away, like his love for all mortality had once before. After coming here, and then suffering the loss of his pegasus Venesse fifty years , anger had struck. He lost his position in the army, learnt he had been betrayed and his flying beauty killed by the same side. Various attempts at relationships, reasoning methods, therapy sessions, but nothing had worked. All the years of anger for being tortured by his own divine father had flooded back and he had reverted to that base, natural way of thinking about mortals.

    As his tools.

    But it could only last for so long. First he had met an elf named Raevin who and made him see value in treating those he employed at least well - a pact of loyalty being the integral part. Second he had then met a kenku, whose mind he had invaded originally in order to control her, but who had now slowly begun to remember what being generous and benevolent was like.

    What it once was like. It had not changed that he still craved power more than anything, and that his obsession with her and made him take various large steps so that she would never be able to leave him. Nor ever.

    Grabbing a pillow he shoved it where it was most comfortable for his head. He then shrugged off his jacket, pausing to feel the weight of his dagger at his side, before he huffed and took that off also.

    Sable had been unusually willing to assist. When they had got back to the Hollow - because, they all had to admit it, a secret underground world was the safest place right now and he couldn't exactly just let Sable and Blaze go - Sable had quietly asked to speak with him. It had taken only a few seconds for her to admit trying to seek a way to destroy him in the bedroom, when she had found the slavery papers.

    But then she had offered something else. Something that nobody could have even suggested, as she overwhelmingly leaked empathy and pity over anything else.

    “I don't need to be pitied,” he had spat.

    “No, but you do need to know what it is like,” Sable answered back. “I may have come here, Sir Elssmith as another frightened girl but I have made myself learned and smart since coming here.”

    “And how the fuck does that help my issue that she will not speak to me?” He growled. “No thanks in part to you,” and he shoved a finger in her face.

    Sable ignored it gracefully. “It does not. However, I can at least give you something she clearly will not. It's the same room, right? I do not need to look like her but …”

    And he had stared like she was mad.

    “It's about respect,” Sable had explained. “You do not respect her as you should. You have been through hell, clearly, the last three weeks - but remember that she went through hell too. That you made her endure.”

    “I stopped as soon as I had any inkling of what she meant to me,” he had hissed.

    “Which is good, but you still stole her life. Like you've stolen mine,” she shrugged, confidently. “Now, Sir Elssmith, shall we?”

    And he had lain with her. He had treated he would a whore, spent a few gentle hours simply treating her well, stopping when she wanted, making love, but full of consent. No ropes, chains and certainly no cane that had been his icon. He had just opened himself to the idea that it could be, trusted himself to not harm this woman.

    Simple, basic sex was all it had been.

    Like a whore, he had used Sable, after the invitation had been from her. And it had been strange - but something he needed.

    Slowly he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Tightening his jaw he focused himself, throwing his awareness away from the world - away from Stare, away from his repeated attempts to mentally connect to Ventrua, away from the rock on which he lived. Away from it he pulled, letting out a breath as it felt his presence left his body and suddenly he was floating upwards.

    Towards the ceiling - but that quickly melted away. And then he was reaching out, extending through time and space as his mental capacity, which was gaining traits akin to a god now, expanded in the freedom of bodilessness. Nay, he could not be omnipotent anymore - that was still beyond him - but at least he could feel and be aware of many more things. He cycled through what was a familiar path now and came to a small, awkward world which was taken up by half a continent and the other half ocean. A second flying landmass also hovered some distance above the seas, but it was still far smaller than the first. Vitruvion gazed at this world, his home world, for one long moment, letting out a sigh of loss, before he turned to the sky.

    There he was … or should he say ‘it’. Ansaldo, the being beyond the stars, a selfish god in a lonely world. All snow-white haired in this, the non-physical plane, with startling blue eyes and a defined jaw that was so similar to Vitruvion's aside from the fact it supported a short, styled beard.

    Currently he seemed to be watching a war, that likely he had begun. And as was familiar these past few months, he did not notice Vitruvion.

    Which was good. Stare was useful for many things, and this was one of them. Making him powerful enough to be able to come back here, undetected. For a while he loitered at the edge of Ansaldo's planet, hovering and knowing that now he could never be the disgusting, murderer of a god that Ansaldo could be. That building his kingdom of the Hollow on the model of Ansaldo's world had all been a great mistake. Force your people to become your subjects, that was how it worked of course.

    Vitruvion squared his shoulders before focusing on the being before him, and then rushed the mind. Quite easily, like other times, he slipped past Ansaldo's defences and made his way into the memories. From there he paused, looking around the halls before choosing an avenue.

    Today he would continue with learning about the more intricate matters of molecular biology.

    He settled and began to look at the strands of what Ansaldo called 'life strings’ but what Vitruvion had decided to name 'helixi exemplum vitae’ or the 'helixes that copy life’. He huffed and tried to rid himself of all the mortal world's worries by improving his ken.

    And tomorrow ... Tomorrow he would stay quietly in the same room as her, not moving even when she begged. Because he couldn't let her out of his sight now, not when all hope had been lost with Ventrua.

    He couldn't lose the one being that mattered more to him than his own happiness.
    Crows: Old nursery rhyme "One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for a funeral, Four for birth, Five for heaven, Six for hell, Seven for the devil, his own self."

  5. #35
    Shattered heart and Soul

    EXP: 76,735, Level: 11
    Level completed: 98%, EXP required for next Level: 265
    Level completed: 98%,
    EXP required for next Level: 265


    Amari's Avatar

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    Name
    Amari L'Olfsden
    Age
    30
    Race
    Ar'Tuel
    Location
    Corone

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    GOLD
    432g

  6. #36
    Shattered heart and Soul

    EXP: 76,735, Level: 11
    Level completed: 98%, EXP required for next Level: 265
    Level completed: 98%,
    EXP required for next Level: 265


    Amari's Avatar

    GP
    4,933

    Name
    Amari L'Olfsden
    Age
    30
    Race
    Ar'Tuel
    Location
    Corone

    View Profile
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