Consequences IV

[Izrail]

((Contains some sexual dialogue, tamer than some OOC conversations I've seen here. ;) ))



Late, I'm late, for a very important date, she thought. She pressed her black-gloved hands against the obsidian wall and murmured, "Az amir soranaman, az soran. Az amir soranaman, az soran. Az amir soranaman, az soran." A crackling green glow spread from her hands to the wall, which burned away like paper dribbled over with acid. She slipped through to find the confrontation already in progress.

[Izrail]

Hardened


"I know you." Neltai's hardened nails raked the inside of his red and scaly forearms, drawing blood and pus. He rocked back and forth on his haunches. The young blonde stood there and stared down at him from three yards away. Across the room, as far as they could be from each other. A fly buzzed by Neltai's ear, and he slapped it dead. "Where did we meet? I know you."

The blonde pressed his lips together and did not speak.

"You're as bad as Marren, my dear. Giving me the silent treatment. And what for? I'm a nice guy. I should mention, I gave up women to get away from the silent treatment." He laughed at his joke. He should have been a comedian. The young man just stared. "I'm not sexist. You know me. I'm a nice guy." Neltai's head itched. He scratched it vigorously. Another clump of hair fell out. "Balding, and not even two hundred. Ah well, no use crying over split ends."

Still, the kid just stared at him.

"I fucked you though. I loved you. I know that." Neltai could see him now, that melancholy look that Neltai liked to chase away with jokes and soothing words. He had been a bit younger, and in normal clothing, not otherworldly armor that sparked with purple lightning. "We were lovers. What did I call you?"

"You killed Marren."

Neltai whistled in dismay. "What kind of parents did you have, to give you such a dreadfully morbid name?"

The nameless old flame's jaw clenched and he looked to Neltai's left, where Marren was pretending to sleep.

"He's not dead," Neltai insisted. "I'd never hurt him. I'm a nice guy." That cold stare. "You don't believe me? Ask anyone. I respect the boundaries of every submissive man who trips and falls into my bed. Or over my couch. Or table. Anyway, I'm sensitive and--and peaceful." The memory started to return. "You were one of the ones I rescued. From that thrice-damned prick. What was his name. Something with hellfire." Neltai licked his parched lips.

"Everfire."

"The man with the cane. I always thought he was compensating, the way he carried it around, fondled it." Neltai rocked back and forth. He wondered why he'd never rocked back and forth before Bliss. Now the old lover scowled at him. "Stop that, you're going to wrinkle."

"Why did you kill Marren?"

Neltai looked at Marren and sighed. "Didn't your mother ever tell you if you made a funny face it would stick that way?" Marren was good at pretending to sleep. Not even the flies crawling across his face could shake him from his stubborn game, and his curled fingers had been held in front of himself, motionless, for longer than Neltai would have believed possible. "He's not dead. He's pissed at me because we had an argument."

"About what."

"Bliss." Neltai shuddered. He sneered at Marren. "He said it was from a mutual friend, but he was lying. He was always a bad liar. That's why Emett caught on to you two. I've looked all over the damn flat," and Neltai laughed to show he was not as angry as he was pretending to be, "but I can't find it here. Bliss. You ever heard of it?"

No answer. Just a dead stare.

"It's amazing. It is the best thing you will ever swallow, and I know you've swallowed a lot. It makes you harder than diamonds, and when you come you shoot fireworks. There's colors and this buzz. You connect with eternity, become a Titan. God. A Titan-God. The whole time you feel like you've plummeted down a hole filled with black stars, you are the black stars, and falling never felt so fucking good. Fireworks, old lover. But it makes a certain kind of person want to spread horrible rumors about you, tell everyone you've gone cruel and mean. I'd never be cruel. I'm a nice guy."

"He stopped delivering it to you."

"No one knew what the hell I was talking about. 'Mutual friend.' He said he had no idea what was in those little tins he gave me, oh no, he was just the messenger. But he knew. And then he stopped. He had the nerve to preach to me. To me! Gods how he nagged nagged nagged." Neltai drew back his fist and punched Marren in the ribs, good-naturedly. Something cracked and gave, but if it hurt Marren would say so.

"His supplier forgot about him."

"He's kind of plain, I don't blame them."

"No, Neltai." The lost blonde lover had a thousand-yard stare, aimed in Marren's general direction. "Whoever gave him Bliss to give to you forgot to bring the next shipment. Things happened."

Neltai surprised himself with a sob. He turned it into a laugh. "I need it. I can't even get it up without it anymore. I haven't had any in a week. I'm not addicted. It's just medicine, and I need my medicine." He didn't want to sound weak in front of an old lover, so he turned to Marren's twisted, frozen face and told a joke to lighten the mood. "What do you call an armless, legless gnome you have just tossed into the---"

Whoosh. A projectile of flame hit him. The red and orange heat spread over his skin. Fireworks, he thought.

[Izrail]

The room looks like someone let a wild kodo trample through it. Books are strewn everywhere and torn apart, the cheap furniture ripped to pieces, clothing tossed around at random.

I took his whole soul and let his body burn. I tried to control the flames to be confined to his body alone, but the rug he had been rocking on was blackened. Now I hold his whole soul with both my hands. The succubus blood that tainted him left a mark on it. The crystal has a sickly cast. Bliss. My pills. A mixture of magical dusts and essences and distilled succubus blood, given to him in doses of gradually increasing strength.

I wanted to do that to him even before I had received false messages from A'dal encouraging me to.

"For what?" Shade is in the form of Yundes again. I do not have to look at him to know he gives me a wry smile. "What was his crime?"

He used me. Passed me around like a pipe filled with some choice leaf.

They talk to me in pairs mostly, Shade and Ray. Whatever they are. But never has Ray's voice been as vividly audible as when he says, "You're coming with me for questioning." It is not the silent speech they usually use. My ears hear it.

It is not Ray.

I turn my head to the hall that connects Marren's bedroom to his common room. A guard of Silvermoon, solid and real. Maybe someone complained about the smell Marren's carcass was giving off and he is here to investigate. "Oh," I manage.

"...soranaman, az soran!" The air between us splits, with a crackle of fel energy and the smell of sulfur. Through a rapidly expanding circle I can see cold, hard blackness. A portal. But not a mage's. The guard steps away as quickly as I do, and something cloaked and elf-sized flips out of the portal, dual-wielding long curved daggers. The portal sucks back in on itself once she is through. She lands on her feet with a gentle grunt, bounds forward in a swish of heavy black cloth, and slices the guard's neck open before he can lift his shield.

I am too weary of life to be afraid. There is a chance I am only imagining it anyway.

She turns to me and extends her blades, crossing them in front of her. Her heavy black cloak, with its oversized hood, covers too much of her body for me to recognize her or not. Glimpses of red skin, red hair, red lips. "That was too close." If lynxes spoke Thalassian, they would sound like this as they gloated over their prey. "Be a good little boy and hearth back to Shattrath before I get nasty. Mmmm?"

Marren is still on the floor, stiff with rigor mortis. His terrified face stares at the ceiling, and the back of his skull is cracked open. Flies are on the pool of blood under his head. "Marren. . . "

"We'll take care of it. Don't worry. It's all a bad, bad dream." She crouches low. It is a rogue's stance. I hate rogues. Behind her the guard makes choking sounds as he dies. Three corpses in this reeking mess of a home.

"It is not my fault," I tell her.

"Don't worry. None shall ever know you were here."

I do not want to try to understand. Nothing has made sense since Visant forced me to see the truth of "A'dal." I pull the hearthstone from my pocket and let it take me to Shattrath, where I know Ray will try to speak to me in the voice of that great Naaru.

It is getting harder to tell the dream from the waking.

[Visant]

((Shit, poor Marren. :( I'm looking forward to the last bit.))