"Rimieh"

[jujumojo]

Pawns.

After the long conversation with Siriandur, Rimieh made his way to the gardens.

Once in 'his' spot by the tree, he sat for some time, silent and thinking, until he finally took out a quill, ink and tore a piece of parchment to make a note.

He wrote one line in elvish words and lettering, and studied it for a long time, before smirking faintly, then adding more. Another single line, on the back.

Using a single arrow, he pinned it to the half-shedded bark of the tree beside him, more to the side facing the wall so that it were not immediately noticeable on first glance or to a casual passer by. The first line faced outwards for any who may sit close and observantly enough to see it.

One particular silver-eyed moon elf in mind above all others.

__________________________________________________

"It was never a game played with my own rules. You saw to that." Lukaan reclined back as he spoke, studying his trusted enemy.
"Whereas I enjoy playing, it seems you are more concerned with having a game in the first place." A look of mock concern came over his features.
"Please, do not tell me you have lost all your pawns..."

... Pawns... the word had inevitably leaked back into his mind.
Were they all weaknesses?
The solitary hunt, the solitary battles and mind games gave freedom to maneuver and control as one would and yet... Rimieh saw that image of Lukaan in his mind, the words he spoke rang with a soft, mocking clarity.

Pawns. Such ordinary pieces, the playing style of some would use them as mere shields to protect and guard the more powerful pieces.
Some would use them as diversions and fodder, sacrificing them so that the powerful pieces could move and attack at full power without hindrance, swiftly, brutally...

He recalled Talis'mae's voice questioning him in that sinister yet oh so gentle fashion.

"Do you desire to be subtle all the time? Is it not nice to be seen every now and then?"

Subtlety and intrigue. Not forcing pieces to move across a whole board but making them want to move that way themselves.
The game was quiet, the board was still and the players were considering their pieces. Their next moves... each other.

The power to move people had its place.
Those powerful pieces on the chessboard had their places. Oh yes.
But true subtlety is the art of using your pawns to win.

[jujumojo]

Playing Fetch.

Oenemi had parted ways some time before in the inn, and afterwards, he had spent the much needed time of reflection with Lustig, Catherine and... Fletch. Much as he knew what he needed to do, he knew also that it would be pointless doing so without first some time for thought, physical activity to distract and put things into perspective.

It helped. And soon the time came for him to take his leave from that also.

He searched far for the small, turquoise-green coloured creature. The search proved not to take nearly as long as he had expected, despite the defiant words that rang in his head to convince him it "should" have been otherwise.

It was never difficult to bribe a pixie... Or a dozen. Make a game of anything, make it exciting, and they would generally come on-side unless they had reason for suspicion. The attitude reminded him vaguely... but his thoughts did not stray down that path on this occasion.
The pixies made the searching that much easier, though of course, only half the number he'd sent out returned back to him with any or no news. Easily distractable as they tended to be... or perhaps they underestimated the 'game's' urgency.

It was luck, more than anything, that had one of the pixies chance across the small turquoise creature not far from the very place which he'd sent her away.

The weary gladness was plain in his tone as the creature finally fluttered towards him.

"Ethys..."

[jujumojo]

Off Guard.

No sooner had he turned away, listening to the footsteps and the sylvan murmuring fade in the opposite direction... than, completely sure she was gone before allowing himself to do so, he slumped down hard on the ground, his back against a boulder. Exhausted.

It was not until after soft words were exchanged with Oenemi, and she left, that he peeled off his clothing to examine the grisly wound at his side.

It was a wonder he had still stood at all... such incredible feats one could perform under the effects of distraction.

Two bandages left.... no food, no fuel for a fire... and no presence of mind left to have asked Oenemi for some before they'd parted ways...

Damn.

He gazed down the road dizzily in the direction Riell had taken with Ethys.

Not a smile. Only nervousness... and yet Ethys was with her now. He had murmured to the faeriedragon to brace himself against any manner in which Riell tried to push him away. He could only hope Ethys was as strong a friend to Riell as he ought to be.

Surely she'd not end herself whilst ever Ethys was with her. That was all he needed to know... provided the faeriedragon didn't fail.

He stared down dumbly at his mauled side, blood seeping through the quick bandage job he had done amidst the battle when he'd found Riell.

His thoughts began to drift to those places he had forbidden them, then.... they drifted and vagued away and he thought unconsciousness would take him.........

Until he heard a twig snap somewhere quite a ways behind him. He turned slowly to look around the boulder, and spotted the troll there, closely followed by three others, skulking towards him.

No spells left. No invisibility potions. Two bandages... a wound that would prove fatal if untended....

Two blades - already subconsciously drawn from their scabbards. The movement so familiar, and yet the blades so strange in his grip by comparison. His vague thoughts skimmed the instinctual notion of drawing the first blood or taking the trolls down with him as he fell should they catch him in this state...

Damn.

[jujumojo]

The Broken Bridge.

Rimieh woke up, alone and in a fresh change of clothes on the broken bridge high above the thrashing ocean on the edge of the desert.

As odd as that should strike him, the elf found the oddest part of that the mere fact that he 'woke up'. That alone told him that he had been unconscious. 

He looked around hazily, taking in his surroundings and got to his feet slowly... He had come here looking for a meeting between two, beautiful and deadly... no. That was what happened last time - the first time he had caught sight of the illithid.

He shuddered.

That made more sense. This time, he had come back searching for the creature that had overcome him. He remembered arriving on the bridge....

This wasn't making sense. The illithid must have closed in on him, it must have...-

He took a few wary steps towards the desert city. Then frowned, turned and took a few steps back toward the violent ocean and sky. 
He remembered snow... He shouldn't be here... This didn't make sense.  

He turned back to the city again and was suddenly and completely thrown off his guard by the sight of someone dead. 

The world seemed to turn on its side, and in his shock the elf stepped sideways with it as though trying to gain balance that just wouldn't come... in a moment he felt his footing slip on the gravelly surface beneath him and the world turned again - now he was falling, downwards. He had misjudged his step and had now tumbled off the side of the bridge towards the sea. The water came up to engulf him just as he closed his eyes before he was drawn under... 
Deeper. 
Deeper. 
The water closed in around his breath for an endless, agonising moment before...-

...He woke up with a start, alone and in a fresh change of clothes on the bridge leading to the desert, overhanging a violent ocean.

As odd as that should strike him, the stranger feeling was "waking". It alone told him that he had been unconscious. 

He knew that he had been dreaming, and he looked around for the one who had done this to him, drawing both blades, two blades that should have struck Rimieh as wrong, yet they felt incredible in his hands. 
Even with fresh clothes on, he smelled of the sea and his hair and skin was lightly caked in salt dried by the desert sun. The familiar cold, staring eyes from his dream were nowhere in sight, the world was normal, not distorted or twisted in any way.. so he warily got to his feet.

This place was cursed. It was time to re-think this course of action and figure out what was going on. 
He took a hold of the rope secured to the bridge and climbed down toward the wretched boat churning on the waves below. 

"Sanctioned murder." He heard himself speak the words as some automatic response as he stepped down... The hells?? Then he heard the voice. 

She was asking him what happened. Her face filled his eyes. Out of nowhere, it started to rain.

"I was looking for a mindflayer..."

"Ugh... you mean that mindflayer..?"

She pointed...

Rimieh turned slowly to look....-

When he woke up, he was on the bridge leading to the desert city. He knew, firstly before all else, that he had been unconscious... as elves do not sleep, to be able to wake up.

It was raining. He felt the droplets hitting his skin and welcomed them...

... Until he heard the excruciating whimper and he realised it was not rain at all, but her blood spraying his face ... 

"NO!!!"  

He jerked into consciousness, drenched in sweat and tearing a good number of new stitches painfully as he pulled himself to sit up, wild-eyed on the bed in the Valkur's Roar healing house.

He did not even hear the soothing voice  of the healer trying to restrain him for another twenty heartbeats. His wound had opened again and she bade him drink a potion.

"Those trolls roughed you up good, elf... You're lucky we found you."

No more than several hours later, he found himself firmly bandaged and searching fruitlessly again, all night long, and the next night... And in all his free time in those following days, because pride and stubbornness were harder to shake than nightmares and drowning on the edge of oblivion.

[jujumojo]

Hanako.

He did not touch the gift with his bare hands, but donned gloves before accepting the silk pouch from Hanako in Suzail. She was perhaps the single person whom he did not care about giving the satisfaction of seeing him so wary in her presence.

"For rememberence of times past..."

Dark green eyes scanned through the words of the poem three times. And when finished, he chuckled quietly in disbelief, giving Hanako a strange look where she sat across the square before putting the gift away and removing his gloves.

Oh yes, he remembered indeed.

"Smashed and cracked, splintered apart,
A broken mind,
A shattered heart."

He remembered taking a breath and submerging himself in water. He remembered surfacing without a voice.

He remembered those hearts, used and damaged. He remembered his own.

He remembered weakness and the word "Monster" uttered with contempt by she who was a monster. He remembered exactly what that meant.... and he remembered the calm, logical consideration of a cliff's edge which followed. 
How easily they had twisted each other like coils of rope forming their own nooses. 
Minds so easily cracked into pieces... A lust and a challenge for the inconsolable dust that could not come from pieces, but only a shatter.

"Love, hate, fear and grief,
Of life long-lived,
Yet all too brief."

He remembered the tale she had told him. Loss, vengeance, love, pain, coping. He remembered the change and tremor in her voice as she spoke of a woman as though she were someone else.

"Lust, anger, intense pain,
Sundered apart,
A naked shame."

He remembered pleasure and pain at once. Sadism on both sides, and eerily sweet threats and dark words of velvet whispered and relished, into human ears...

"Joy and sorrow, loathing self,
Emotions scattered,
Nothing felt."

He remembered weakness overcome and grieved for, and fate's precious love of irony. 
The games....... Gods how he remembered the games.

"A tear is shed upon the floor,
For once was whole,
Is whole no more."

Images of a single teardrop falling and breaking itself on a wooden floor mingled and blurred with the sight of the red and the blue gem, irreparably shattered into thousand pieces and mixed together before his horrified eyes where he sat on a floor of unforgiving marble. 
Hanako, standing above him....knowing exactly what it meant.

The tedious hours which followed, he had spent, silent, continuing to sit where he was, taking painstaking care as nimble elven fingers took each tiny, sparkling shard or speck of glittering powder and tried in vain to have them fit back together to resemble what they once were.

How he had ignored the pained pleas of those close to him who watched the heartbreaking act, to give up, and leave it be....
How he would have driven a blade through the throat of anyone who dared sweep that pile of gem mess away from him.

How good it felt to have broken she, the monster with no conscience, to tears....
How excruciatingly perfect it was when she finally took her revenge that day on a mind broken behind dark green eyes and a silent voice.

How even then she could not shatter him, nor could he find the pieces again amidst her own dust.

"Pieces taken, pieces lost,
Heart of fire,
Soul of frost."

... Elven eyes rolling back at the touch of poison...
 
No guilt, no remorse. No regrets. 
A gift so softly given yet ever unreturned, and he knew what it meant...

... Lia dancing under the stars ...

He remembered dark desire. 
Sheer lust for the hatred itself of Hanako.
 
He remembered the hatred of her knowing him.

"All is gone........

All is lost."

He remembered.

[jujumojo]

Hours

The hours he passed with her were fair and haunting, much like the People themselves. In those hours he had told her more than others had learned of him across the spans of decades. She did not push. There was softness, yet he knew he was being manipulated and he complied anyway, if only because it felt good. It reminded him.

And, too, it was a test. How far he had come in the past twenty years. Manipulation or not, there was untested weakness he had not yet had exploited against him... But this one was forgiving. Should confidences be broken, he did not fear the effects... He did not fear what she or the others could do to him. Perhaps that was progress he had made... He could not tell.

And the hours continued to slide away and fade into intense blue eyes he was finding increasingly difficult to put out of his mind.

Those same hours which, every day, gave way to more searching alone. Unforgiving hours of one step after the other and endless scanning of surroundings that mocked and refused to produce the one he searched for. Not so much as a footprint or a lead, anywhere he asked.
After the previous times he had seen Oenemi, the promise which it now seemed would creep up on him again gave him a sinking feeling... Yet he knew Oenemi would accept it if it came to that.

He did not put it past the one he searched for to do that to him, and that was perhaps, the worst thing of all.

The time to leave and expand the search beyond Cormyr crept closer every day she evaded him.

Perhaps this was what she wanted.

With a price on his head and Oenemi's, and with spending so much time alone and searching, the danger and resentment built.
 Still, it was not enough.

"Failure to achieve something in the past isn't an excuse to stop striving for it."

The hours continued to pass.

[jujumojo]

The Forked Path

He had stopped searching days earlier. Not having given up. Only having learned that the one he sought was no longer here to be found at all, unless there were more lies afoot.
He would follow soon enough, if she did not return, but to not give her at least the chance was reckless and wasteful.
Impatience gnawed at him.

Pebbles were arranged at the base of a tree, not every night, not even most nights. But enough to be considered often. The hours he'd have been searching he spent instead at the camp. When Oenemi was not there with him, he spent the time instead with open books, a quill and a vial of ink.

He took notes of the cities and the people in them. How things were run, who was running them. The well known, the famous, the wealthy, the merchants, the beggars.
He took notes of Lycanthropy, shape changing, polymorph spells and transmutations. He sought information of creatures and races with great strength. Anatomical constructions of such creatures, and any magics which could possibly relate to the various ideas which came to him.
He read accounts, theories and research of sleep, dreams, and elven reverie. Noted the differences between. Searched out information of creatures which required little or no rest at all, and those which required much.

And still he found himself with spare hours left over. These were the hours taken by others, and in particular, Alindariel.

...But this day was different...

Rimieh sat beside the rock. Body tense, teeth gritted, mind plagued.
He stared intently at the man on the ground before him, a bandit. The sound of his gurgled, dying chokes filled the air as his lifeblood spilled steadily away from the slash at his throat.
He was taking a particularly long time to die. I am rusty in my technique, better to come in from less of an angle the next time, though Rimieh had to give the man credit for his defenses before he'd slipped.

Pleading grey eyes found him several times in those last moments. He met them squarely and only felt disgust. The elf could have ended him cleanly. "Should" have. But he didn't move from where he was as the agonised chokes continued and the desperation of the dying man intensified in his writhing.
The realisation must have set in as he began to fade away, that he would not live to see the morning, or likely even the next hour, The tension in Rimieh's body finally began to fade as did the pathetic choked sobs and broken pleas.

"You need to let go, and afterwards there will be peace with a friend by your side" she had said to him. Even as she had said it, he knew she was right. It would pass. And for brief moments he hated her for it. He hated her for remaining, for being right, for trying at all. He hated her timing and her persistence. He hated that everything in him wanted to blame her when he knew it was not her fault... Yet It seemed now that he had let go, of something, anyway... and it had indeed passed. Though, not as she had intended.

The nameless man on the ground finally shuddered and fell bitterly still, his eyes staring towards a sky he didn't see, and Rimeh continued to stare.

Not a friend, exactly, but close enough, he thought blankly. A dozen other bandits in the surrounding areas lay just as dead as this one.

He glanced away, towards the place where she had followed him to when he had left her outside the inn. He knew she wouldn't be there when he passed. Perhaps she was still following him even now...

Why are you HOPING that she is? His own thoughts hissed at him and he tensed again, abruptly drawing a dagger and hurling it as hard as he could at the corpse. It struck the dead bandit hard in the neck and stayed there.
Nothing else happened.
It made perfect sense, nothing else "Should" have happened. The dagger hilt mocked him from where it protruded, for expecting anything otherwise from a slab of meat.
Rimieh didn't even know why that angered him even more, but it did.

Eyes and faces plagued him. He knew the unease was coming, and it did, as a slow wave washing over him. He knew there were two ways out, to welcome the unease and allow it to overwhelm him, or to deny it completely. Both options spooked him. And he got to his feet stiffly, his pulse quickening and a cold sweat of dread breaking out over his skin.

He wanted Lin.

You know where this is going to end.

He looked around, and his eyes were as lost as Talia's. As empty and wild as Riell's... As cold as Veristan's. He did not notice he was shivering.

I don't care...

Get a grip. You are not thinking clearly. Let it pass. Stay away from her. You know what she and the others will do to you. You know where this is going to end. They can't help you.
Let it pass.

I don't care!

He stumbled away from the dead bandit, back towards Valkur's Roar. To Suzail. Speaking to none, only searching until his feet led him to the Hullack.

He wanted Lin.

[jujumojo]

True Silver

It was so noisy.

He took out the book and had tried to write. But the words were akin to a poet's. They flowed too easily and spoke too much. He longed to press the quill to the page for hours without stopping just to see what happened, but he knew better, so he did not.
It was too raw. He had no desire to see the pages meet the flame just yet.

Instead he walked. He found himself back at the waterhole, alone. Stripping off and wading in, he held his breath and lowered himself down to lay on the bottom on his back, completely submerged.
He stayed down for as long as his breath lasted, and when finally he could hold it no more, he slowly floated back to the surface to take another. Not taking his head out of the water as he did so, only his nose and his mouth, then he lowered himself back down again.

He repeated this for hours as his thoughts unraveled themselves slowly.

There was always peace down here, silence. Thoughts that were noisy and muddy before were now sharp with clarity.
The past few weeks... people, conversations. Demands. Acts. Words, looks. Eyes..

Sapphire eyes searing into his. "I hope you come home soon."

"Charlatans, and fools. They parade your court clad in yellow... but they are painted green underneath. Perhaps red. And their steel has met you in the sight of none, for to be silver as you speak, is not a colour a painter can paint himself."

"I did the right thing"
"If she could not have accepted all that you are, then yes, you did."

"Three words... and you will never trust another thing I say." Silver eyes surveyed him with longing, and he knew she did not believe him.

"What matters the most is not in the past, but intent for the future."

"Should we be doing this?"... "Should is a weak word..." ...Those eyes again. Intense. "Rimieh... Should we be doing this?"

Eyes of certainty. A rich brown. "I met a silent elf, who was a diamond amongst the rough. But you have lost that about you now. You are just another one of the sheep. I do not trust you." .... "You would be a fool to trust me."

"You are my friend. I forgive you for this already. I will not leave you to your suffering alone." The tone so calm... so unwavering.

"Water is a liar."

Slanted handwriting on a piece of parchment as the flames consumed it, each letter writhing before it was lost to black.
"The queen with a pale crown
Cuts out a thieved heart
With a diamond dagger
And it is perfect."

"Namaarie, ..." She said his name. The hazel eyes glanced back his way from the door.

"Lake. Is being deception. Is meaning one who deceives, or thing being hidden. Lake teaches not be taking surface for appearance, some thing not being seen until travel deeper."

Silver eyes locked onto his. "You cannot see what you have given me..." ... "I see that I can change people. I see that I can make them so much better. I can learn their pieces. I can take those pieces apart and in doing so I know exactly how they fit back together."

A red gem, shattered on the floor, it's glittering pieces mixing irrevocably with the blue.

The silver glint of a dagger's edge.

And the colour of midnight without stars.
The colour of drowning.


He surfaced and sucked in a sharp breath, glancing around... But he was still perfectly alone...

And it was so quiet.

[jujumojo]

Knowing

The quill tip touched the next fresh page for the first time in weeks, held by a nimble hand, and Rimieh began to write.

"Intrigue visits me often, else it has abandoned me completely and I invent my own like a madman.
 
I see it in fire, in ice, when the Serpent slithers forth, delivers her baited words and looks, then leaves. I followed, for it had always been that way. Yet all things change. Fire and ice will become less than they are in the end.
She still wears me like a scar no matter how many skins or scales she could shed.

I see it when the wind falters and hesitates. When a breeze breathes back unto itself, to turn about - meek, pretty - then die. Just as any pampered rose wilts and rots at the end of her lush parade.

I see it in the phrase given to me, passing, "I have never met a man so foolish I could not learn from him" and in the colours, words of a poet.  

I see it in the disconcerting laughter of his insanity. Ultimate trust and loyalty to one whose mind is touched as mine, one who is as cruel and as ironic.
In another life I would hate and pity him. In this life, it is akin to what most call "love" that I feel in its place.

I see it in eyes that weep with no tears. Eyes empty as loss. Fatalistic human eyes that mirror Forest to perfection. 
It takes a strange courage to maintain such sorrow.   

I see intrigue in her warmth. It too, is akin to mine for it is cold also, despite the flames that leap with her every touch, every word and want, every shiver.

It is a taste, all a taste. And it is mine, for I feel it. I know it.
It is mine.

- R.E."

[jujumojo]

A Long Walk

His original second guessing of the note was defied overwhelmingly by cold, iron logic. Almost instinctive was the desire to cling to that small ray of hope which he knew was no better than one of Viere's airheaded fairytales, but with that too, logic and experience told him better. You could not persuade someone against something they were convinced they wanted.

Still, he read the note over three times. Slowly, coolly. Left another note with Kale addressed to Isabel, then started walking.

For all the false hopes Riell had ever suffered, he supposed this was some payback, at least.

[jujumojo]

Gone

It would have been so easy.

Silence. The numb. The reassurance when it was over, everything was as it should be. Cold. Certain. Grey.

It would have been so easy ... Because Riell was gone.
She had pushed him beyond any other, and more than any other ever would again, yet she was gone.

She had said she would do everything possible to hurt him, and now she had. She had stolen herself beyond recovery. Beyond him. Beyond anyone.

"There is not even a WORD for her."

Outcast.
Traitor.
Fool.
Liar.
Coward.
Faithless. The word sat beautifully haloed around her.

But it was not easy, because Lin was with him.
It frustrated her to stay. She had seen so much misery in him. She had provoked so much. He hated it.

"Let go" she had said, let go. But he could not, for he had promised.

He held no love for Fenmarel. And yet he implored him on Riell's behalf. Implored as he would never dare implore his own god.

"She is as you are. Save her.
Succeed where everyone else has failed. Do not let her go so easily. She has followed you forever and never realised it.
Save her."

This pain was uncertain. It wavered, the feeling itself reminded him of Riell, "Forest", in every way. So uncertain, so ... nervous. Second guessing. It sickened him, but there was a bittersweetness about it, long yearned for by one whose love and grief was jaded.

"Golem" she had said. The word he had used on Riell herself. The word he had used because he could not use any other to express the loathing he felt for it.

But the words, they came wavering. They came as Riell had always been to him, and he took no comfort in speech.

The call of silence was beautiful, and he wondered if it had always been that way.

Not always....

[jujumojo]

Three words entitle his next entry in the journal.

"Solace, Intrigue, Wind.

Long have I sought solace, but long also was the time I did not know its name or that I sought it at all.

I find solace in my own strength, a gift of determination and acceptance I have given myself over the past two and a half centuries. A gift I have needed, and one I have seen in others who strive for it. For inner strength does not exist on its own, it must be created, wielded and maintained. 

Intrigue still finds me in what Alindariel calls "the greatest lie of them all" and I still see honesty there, pleasure, pain and irony. But I still remember the taste of what lies outside of it. 
It is no longer in my own hands as to whether or not I will seek more than merely a taste as Lin wants me to. Perhaps that is all this is, just a more elaborate taste and hope.
It is still cold, and she alone provides a false warmth. Ironic.

Intrigue finds me again in poison and eyes of shadows. Perhaps I will look upon such differently now. Perhaps not. The feeling is still the same and in the face of such, I crave it. I love it.

Three words I have given to Erevan. Three words cut into changing soil with the blade of a good man and a killer.
Three words that say more than any others I could give to a God and have meant so much to me for a long time. I will live and die by them. But I do not know if it is enough. 

Always, there is the wind. And the wind never asks for what it takes.
But I do not know if it will find me again.

I hope for Everything.
I hope for Nothing.

Both will find me again, because Fate Loves Irony.

- R.E."

[jujumojo]

// Please be aware this post contains a suicide reference. //


Subconscious.

Unconscious again. Not surprising given the blow he'd just suffered from the giant.
______________________________________________________________________________

He sat on the edge of a cliff, drunk and sunk into such a pit of despair that there was no escape, for his every thought and every emotion kept him imprisoned within, and he was alone... so alone.

Everything blurred together until there was some vague, unfulfilling satisfaction in the numbness that the alcohol provided. A knife glinted in a hand... his own hand. He noticed every tiny detail, the keenness of the edge. The parting of his skin at its push and the sting of the cut. He welcomed it bitterly.

The panther came, and it pined for him like a mother as her cub's blood seeped away... such a small cut, so small and yet it bled faithfully. Vague already from the alcohol, it dimmed the feeling as the blood loss took its toll... and finally he fell into unconsciousness again … the last image in his mind was one of his own face, grief stricken as none had ever seen him before, despairing.... sunk to his knees on a broken bridge which led out to a furious sea. Someone else's name was on his lips and tears were in his eyes.
______________________________________________________________________________

Green eyes. Glittering emerald green. Pale skin. Dark hair. Soft laughter. Then a sword with a name – her sword. The weave had slipped from his knowledge in the dark, and the sword had taken it as a mild aura that was all his own. It was selfish, and it was addictive. He pined for it, but the blade was no longer there, and now he was dancing with her. When she dipped back and gazed up at him, her eyes were no longer green, but intense sapphire blue.
______________________________________________________________________________

He stepped out of the room. But just as he had closed the door behind him and begun to leave, it opened again.
“Rimieh...”
He paused and turned. She approached, and out of nowhere she pressed her lips against his. He didn't pull away.
“....Thank you.” She whispered, smiling.
______________________________________________________________________________

“I think you are easily manipulated” She assumed of the one she had only just met, meeting his eyes. He wanted to laugh. But a feeling stirred beneath the surprise and the amusement... it felt like a lifted weight. Relief.

Nobody had ever said something like that to him before. Such an innocent assumption of him sounded so good to his ears... even after all this time...
______________________________________________________________________________

She could not trust him. Everything she spoke was so factual and simple. It was not her speaking, not as he had once heard her. There was much she wouldn't say and he could hear it as plain as a bell.

“We spend too much time being worried when I want to enjoy it for as long as it lasts without the worry. I want you to stop telling me I shouldn't be happy with you and I should be elsewhere.”
“You know where this is going to end as well as I do.” he had replied.
“Then let's just enjoy what is while we have it.”

False hope. Elvaledith had been right, it was there and he knew it. Perhaps it was Riell all over again, or perhaps Oenemi would live up to her words. Whatever happened, he wanted nothing more than to trust her again as he did. He wanted her to be able to offer it in return.

But trust was never something that could be conjured out of nowhere... and she was not his equal, nor his strength...

Then, what was she...? His own question and Elvaledith's, rang in his ears.
______________________________________________________________________________

“I think that you're here because you miss speaking to me.” He told the red-haired human simply. She nodded, “yes”.
“You should tell him.”

And then, days later... a question, and her answer. “Yes.”

An awkward silence wherein laughter hid once more. He was glad for knowing now what he did.
______________________________________________________________________________

Two equals, he had told Lustig. Veristan and Alindariel.

The human said to Rimieh that he would die for him if worst came to worst. Rimieh studied him for a long moment at that.

“You would die for me... even realising I would not do the same in kind for you?”
“Yes.” Lustig said, meeting the elf's gaze.
Rimieh continued. “You would die for me, even knowing that had Veristan chosen to kill you, I'd have stood back and watched? … Even knowing that, if he had had trouble, I would have stepped in beside him?”
“And I'd have killed you both” Lustig replied without missing a beat – hastily adding “Or tried anyway.”
Rimieh's gaze did not leave Lustig's. The human's eyes stoic as ever. But Rimieh knew beyond a doubt he had struck some semblance of a nerve. As ever with Lustig, determination won out.

Interesting.
______________________________________________________________________________

Dark green eyes forced themselves open and Rimieh found himself being yanked to his feet by one he trusted more than any other as they continued their travels.

[jujumojo]

Betrayal

Teeth gritted. Eyes bloodshot. The hooded figure clutched a book and stared at red flames dancing before him, isolated in the woods. His mind chanted at him, over and over again.

Weak.

He lifted the journal with shaking hands, and gave it to the flames.

Hatred flared in his eyes as he watched the pages crumple and burn.

[jujumojo]

Strength.

Dark green eyes stared upwards and to the side. The bench of stone cast a deep shade in the warmth of the early autumn afternoon, and it was half in and half out of this shade that Rimieh lay as he stared. There was a single word engraved into the stone on the underside of the bench. It was a promise, a defiant one. The way it had been cut into the stone had been so crystal clear and sharp, yet now it was a promise frayed – the edges of the letters deliberately blurred by elemental magic. Where the edges of the engraving had been sharp, they were now tired, and yet the word endured.

Sunlight filtered down through the leaves of the tree above, and reverie found him easily. He stayed where he was until morning, when the new light pierced his eyes.

Alindariel’s eyes filled his gaze frequently, and he found that more and more, he could not get enough. The comfort and renewed faith she was so intent to bring to him was not what made him wish her close. A reminder of someone lost, she had been to him at first. Time and time again he had enjoyed the reminders, yet time and time again, he desired knowledge more wholesome of the woman before him, and not the ghost in her shadow.
Both longed to show the other as much as they could teach. Lessons were taught both intentionally and purely by chance, or even frustration, second guessing and mistakes. Always through challenge, precious intrigue and the strongest kinship Rimieh had known in a long time.

But there was another gaze that haunted him during the red autumn. Hazel eyes of a silvery-haired wood elf. Riell had become so desolate with a grief and a depression none could have hoped to pull her out of. Her eyes were the eyes of sorrow… and then they changed. Sorrow mingled with madness, expressed as hatred, arrogance and solitude. None of it meant anything. Yet from Riell, it drove him to the very edges of those things himself - and sometimes over the border. She was his weakness beyond anything else.

And then she was gone. Her life was taken by her own hand, upon the edge of a cliff. Drunk. Alone. Despairing, and ultimately betrayed by him. For all he had done… and because it had been the single time he had not followed her.
The driving stopped. The pushing stopped. There was anger. Fury so heavily suppressed he could not even speak of it. But most of all there was pain, and cold, bitter irony.
This time, though, he wasn’t alone… the weakness passed tentatively. Heaviness remained, unvisited for now – and perhaps for decades to come, as was ever his way with grief. A sapphire gaze remained, and eyes the colour of a unicorn’s shine.

The Seldarine, The People beckoned him home in a way he had not thought possible in over a century.

Weeks passed. Autumn cooled and began to fade.

“Fate Loves Irony”. The three words that said so much, the three words he had carved into the soil for Erevan’s witness alone. The three words he had lived by ever since the Change.
The words he gave with a pure passion, conviction and meaning. The words that said much more than any other he could have chosen, or any action he could have possibly taken.
They, too, were a promise… as the carving upon the stone bench. They were defiance, a challenge... a game, a desperate plea, and a new loyalty all mingled into one.

“I am not sorry… For I have given everything I have. I have had it taken from me in the worst ways possible just as I have taken in kind from myself and others undeserving.
I have given everything I have, and so I am this.
Take what I have become. For I can hold worth to you, still.
Take what I have become. Do what you will. I am listening. I am waiting.”
__________________________________________________________________________________

To be continued.

[jujumojo]

Strength Part Two

When he saw her, the first thing he noticed was the bow, Seeker. The picture would have struck him as wrong regardless, but that weapon made all the difference.

Isabel had told him Riell was alive, and he had flatly not believed her… for how could one so resentfully faithless in life, and so longing for her own death be brought back from such? Isabel offered him words she wished him to take faithfully, and yet Rimieh could not take words based on no logic whatsoever. He disregarded the claim. He disregarded Isabel.
When Viere had made a similar such argument, he began to doubt.

Surely it cannot be Riell. There is absolutely no possibility she could be back save by the hand of a god. And what god would work to bring back one who was so utterly faithless and willing to die?

When he finally laid eyes on Riell in the square with Seeker, he shrouded himself in invisibility and took the bow from her, using it to lure her outside the city gates. Surely this was some imposter. Some strange enchantment performed by her crazy father, Lanya… or a necromancer’s sickening work.

She followed, so easily… so desperately for that bow that it disgusted him. When she finally came to him, she attempted a spell. But he was ready for it. The spell had no hold over him and he responded in kind with a far more powerful scroll… Knocking the elf who was supposedly called “Riell” to her back helplessly.

He nocked an arrow and aimed it at her throat, using Seeker... drawing the string back.

“Who are you?” He hissed coldly, staring down at her.

“I'm the one who's going to rip your arm off if you don't give my bow back to me.”

Rimieh used his foot to nudge the hood off her face.

“Who are you.” He asked again flatly

“Which answer would you prefer?” She replied, the arrow pressing uncomfortably close against her throat preventing her from standing or moving, even as the spell wore off.

“Give me the best one you have. Your time is short.”

“It's always the throat.” She said with that ugly smirk she wore so ungracefully.

Without another word, Rimieh released the string, driving the arrow through her throat.

There was no fear in her eyes. Nothing but spite. It made the bile rise in his stomach to see such a look worn upon the face of her… the first time he had seen her since he, Isabel and Lin had buried her on the beach…

The answer was vague, it was mocking and cold… and it was not good enough.

He kept her pressed to the ground as she bled out before his eyes.

This was not Riell. This time, he would make sure none could bring harm to her corpse ever again. He would burn her so that she might, finally, be left in peace.

He began to drag the body further away from the town as she choked and gurgled, drowning in her own blood. He took her enough away that his further actions would not be noticed. He hadn’t planned for this encounter to take place so soon, a few broken boxes serving as the firewood… a tinderbox at the ready.

Finally, he looked the dying wood elf over for anything noteworthy on her person – anything that could hint at what was unfolding here.

That was when he saw the markings upon her arm. The twelve names of the Seldarine.
It felt like something had struck him in the gut.

So this was Erevan’s sign for him. This was the Seldarine’s rejection and justice against him. Ironic and cruel, just as he had expected – and yet it was overpoweringly worse.

He felt, in that moment, desperation. Every ounce of hope… every restored light in him that Alindariel had worked so hard to achieve, left him… He felt the Seldarine laughing at him, far away… He felt Erevan’s smile. But it was not ironic and beautiful. It was spiteful and cruel.

Riell’s smirk flashed through his mind again, and seeing the names again upon her forearm, clear as day, he felt as though he was already dead.
_________________________________________________________

To be continued

[jujumojo]

Strength Part Three

A way of life, something deeply accustomed to, is never easy to change. It clings as a shadow under any given light.
She was meant to be a sacrifice. For it had always been that way… and yet not always. It was love, and love was a tool. A means… a currency. What better gift, what better sacrifice to offer a dark god than the gift of something so dear?

Time had passed. And she had changed him… bit by bit. Pushed him. Things he had never truly given thought to, now plagued him. He found that he could not carry through.
He failed… a debt ever since, owed to his God. A patron and a way of life he was so accustomed to, that he did not dared to think he could change. Not now.

Yet Lin had urged him on.

And now… now, Riell had taken her own life – because of her own foolishness and self obsession most of all, but also because of him. He had asked Erevan for a chance, and this… this was his reply. Erevan, who knew that he was too accustomed. Erevan, who had made a judgement and was now punishing him for the asking.

Riell had been brought back against her will, to mock the pain and the grief felt by himself and others at her passing, and to take his place.
It was perfectly ironic that he’d have died for Riell once, to now have the Seldarine give Rimieh’s chance of redemption to her. A faithless wood elf with no desire for life.

He revived the dying wood elf, and she, upon seeing his anguish, spitefully left.

Rimieh prayed, then. He prayed upon the mountain top in High Horn for days, without eating or drinking. He prayed to the Seldarine. He prayed to his darker god. He listened. He waited. He despaired and fell into faithlessness.

But it was her, Oenemi, who came to him and drew the attention of his long forgotten goddess – the one he had never heard above a whisper.

It was Oenemi who drew the one simple response. The only one he had ever needed, the one she used to give him.

“Guess.”

Take me away from here… just take me somewhere else.

As ever, Oenemi did not even need him to say it. She just did.

Dusk turned to midnight and beyond. A dark, soothing voice haunted his thoughts as Oenemi rested in the room. Suggestions of a dark god’s actions, suggestions of the cure for weakness, and questions. Questions about her.
The voice was familiar, and it was comforting – even through the heaviness of the drug given to him through an innocent cup of tea. It was just like Lin… so warm and yet so, so cold.
Just the way he liked it.

But it was not that voice that soothed him the most. The words of Elvaledith. The simple phrases that put things into perspective where his own thoughts impeded upon each other. She had that effect on him so many times, and yet this time was the most important.
The dark, soothing voice haunted him – and so did her words. Her touch…

It was the most convincing comfort he had known in months.
____________________________________________________

To be continued

[jujumojo]

Strength Part Four

The edge of winter glinted, sharp on the new breeze, and Thril’s words rang both hollow and true. The defiant glare he had shot Rimieh’s way the evening on the rock in Greatgaunt haunted and reminded him. The clenched fists near the camping spot in Bramblewood spoke volumes.
The mere mention of Alindariel from Ri’s lips seemed to have Oenemi on edge and bothered. At a slip of her tongue, he harshly bade her to leave, and she did.

“When we spoke, Alindariel mostly talked of you.”[/b] Thril had told him in that low voice. Two sets of piercing, dark green eyes locked for a few moments in an intent stare, and the tension was tangible.

He had tried not to ask. But the moments passed, and he could not help himself.

“… What did she say?”[/b]

_____________________________________________________________________________________

He caught sight of the maroon coloured hood drawn up over her head, a woman of small stature sitting alone on the couch by the fire in Suzail, and he abruptly paused from his way to a room and approached her.

“Lin?”[/b] He asked softly, but it was Elvaledith’s chuckle that responded as she turned a hazy, drunken gaze upon him in amusement.

Hours, he spent sitting at the place in the Suzail gardens where he had given up searching for her and gone to rest once before, only to find her waiting.

Oenemi came, spoke softly, and left. Rimieh remained, waiting… waiting.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

“Everything has a price, Aley. Everything. There are always consequences to every action. They are to be expected and counted upon. Not surprised by. The question you need to ask before every action, is whether or not you can afford the price of that action… That is how you live without regret. Stop paying for things you cannot afford.
I know there will be consequences for this. But for this... the price is one I am willing to pay.”

The jewel glittered in her hands as she cupped it like a secret and their eyes met. He closed his own hands around hers and the gem to obscure it further from prying eyes.

“Oenemi… some people would kill for such a gem.”

“It is as starlight hitting the ocean… I thought that you would appreciate its beauty.”
Her choice of words startled him… and still, she spoke, their eyes still locked.

“I wanted you to have it…”

“I have already taken much from you that I can never repay… you found it, you should keep it.”[/b] he said softly, even as she slowly but insistently turned her hands over to place the jewel into his own.

“Love is not about keeping record of what is gifted or received… there is pleasure to be found in the giving. I want you to have it.”[/b]

His fingers closed around the tiny, glittering stone, and staring into eyes of the unicorn’s shine, he did not know what to say.
____________________________________________________________________________________

“Rimieh, Riell was not returned to life by the Seldarine.”

A weight lifted inside him.
Another weight… a different one, settled.

Sapphire eyes, eyes of silver –blue… and an ugly smirk accompanying one of the hazel-eyed wood elf’s many unintentional yet ultimately cruel lies filled his mind, along with glistening visions of the most beautiful gift he had ever received.

He heard the call as clear as day. He knew what this meant. A message, a taunt, a game... a lesson from his dark god who, once accustomed to, was not so easily ignored.
Dark words spoken in a precious, soothing voice haunted him once again... and a powerful name, never to be spoken.

Rimieh found himself wanting to laugh like Veristan had that day. Reckless. Despairing. Defiant. Insane…

…But all was still.

He nodded to Thril without meeting his eyes.

“Thank you.”

[jujumojo]

Sparrows and Storms.

He traced his fingertips over skin that once would have been flawless and soft. Now, it was lined with scars.

Every raked line along her arms, every mark across her body held power, strength and pain. Every tiny flaw was one stone in a wall.

He opened his eyes in the early morning light to regard the one lying beside him, one of her arms draped across his chest... she had previously shied from the slightest touch.
She was not the prettiest elf in the woods, but he knew she could have been once.

The familiarity of her felt good. Reassuring.
Every touch held more meaning with her than the others. She was harder... yet also far more vulnerable. Not deprived of her innocence, but relieved of it.

He continued to trace his fingertips over her skin.

She continued to let him.

[jujumojo]

Unseen.

A crumpled note discarded at the bottom of a trash barrel in Suzail, perhaps never to be seen, written in flowing, slanted elvish letters, the words common... reads as the following.

I saw you sitting in the mud today.
Night rain tore at haunting eyes
and the tears had nothing left to say,
but eyes met.

I saw you hide behind the wall of stone
Words of liars in your ears,
the truth a lesson lost in trust outgrown
but ears listened.

I saw you laugh at length within the crowd
Melody bright leaving soft lips
and smiles' light chasing sorrow's cloud
while I smiled back.

I saw you push and shove yourself away.
Maze trodden and walls built
I see your masks take shape as plain as day
I remember.

I can see you sitting with me, calm today
Jewel shine's gift within eyes meeting mine
I stay with all and nothing left to say
Except "Stay with me."

Edit:

*Several hours later, the trash barrel is full of other junk... and some unquestionably shady individual has "bin-scabbed" the crumpled note!*

[jujumojo]

The Twelve

The heavy, clouded noise of water filled the silence and made it even deeper to his ears.

He could hear his heartbeat, strong... steady. He remained submerged, laying on the bottom of the bay, just below the docks. His eyes closed. His breaths held for as long as he could before he needed to take the next.

Twelve.

The number was ironic, yet those were the directions unveiled by the silence.

The first direction was that which had been yearned for over many years. Beauty beheld in a realm of heaven, despite the faults. Beheld once and now gone. Replaced by the pain of longing ever afterwards... The worst pain of all - and yet now it was within reach again. But could there ever be a return, truly, to the way things were? He was not like Thril. He had never been so forgiving... To return to who he once was, meant death. No compromise.

The second direction, the Thief, the Knife and the Crown. Such skill he had grasped out of thin air! Such work and effort to come to a place so high as he had eventually found himself.
Such satisfaction in those intrigues others would merely glance past and call 'simple' for they had no deeper thought... and yet such pain wrought, such a lack of destination. A lack of everything except the invention of triggers to satisfaction and worth. For true control comes at a high price.

The third direction, was the direction of Aley. A place without conscience. A place without plans, without direction. A place where satisfaction could be triggered differently every day. A place without loyalty, of chaos and uncertainty ... a place of power, yet ultimately nothing. No promises, no regrets.

and fourth, Hanako....
Gods, Hanako. The temptation to such a path was the sheer power. No fear, no sorrows. No weakness. This was the path of shatters, broken shards never to fit back into place ever again. The path of breaking and destroying... where new things might one day form, but would never be the same.

The fifth direction, a wholesome path of challenge, reconnection and kinship. There was a goal there, a piece of destiny and an adaptation of longing from the first path. The intrigue was gone... the skill out of place. The games bland and pleasant.

When the man walked through the heavens, he wept...

The sixth, one of love and devotion. A path so many had wished him to take, a path that he had refused. But with her, he knew that he could... He knew he would seek it... because she was nothing like the others, yet it was out of his reach. It left him craving it like a drug.
But then he always craved her like a drug.

The seventh road related to the second. Except it was hers. The woman he had so recently become "Acquainted" with in the bath house... and damned if he had not missed the games she baited him with. To follow, to settle and become absorbed in that very particular intrigue... the invitation was there and it tempted him.

The eighth road, one of isolation and solitude. The road of Fenmarel, of Riell... to give up all that he had worked for, to take it away in the hopes that nothing would affect him anymore...
But he knew that he could not live as such....he loathed solitude.

For the man had traveled through all the hells, and the heavens, and when he returned, nothing touched him for the rest of his days.

The ninth road was a road paved with masks and strength. To give up one thing for another, balance... sacrifice. Selfishness in exchange for wellbeing, power... wealth. Yet this road too, was isolated and lonely, without true meaning to it. Without purpose.

The tenth direction pointed towards humility.... forgiveness, apologies. Sickening smiles that showed a kindness offered out of duty. Remorse moaned ominously at the side of the road, and fear paved it. It was an unhappy path to tread.

The eleventh..... a road of destiny. A road of one great act above all others. An act that everything he knew was leading to... everything he aspired for and believed him. An act that would hurt... an act, that would lead to utter ruin and yet, an act that promised to be the most beautiful he had ever known.

"There is something sleeping within you that is trying to wake... The question is why, Master Rimieh... Why has Alindariel changed you?"

And the twelfth road. A path that would lead him onwards... over the water, past faces and memories and bitten, bloody lips.
The twelfth, not to run, like a coward.... for he had tried, so very hard, and reasoned until reason itself worked against him.
Not to run. But to catch the feeling of flight once again. For wind flies, and blood is noisy.

The silence of the water filled his ears.

Emerald eyes mirrored his own, somewhere.. far away.

"She asked me to make sure you weren't dead..."
"What would she care if I was dead? She hates me."

No.... Because that doesn't make sense.

[/i]

[jujumojo]

Lake Water.

The inn was grey, just as he remembered it to be. Upon the outskirts of a grey city, where, in the case of the one he was waiting for here, only survival mattered.

He knew she would come if she still lived at all, for this place meant something to her. This was the place she had almost lost her life once. Still, he waited until the morning too, came grey... the light from the fire spent into indecisive cinders.

It was in those grey hours of the grey inn upon the grey edge of a grey city.... that something cold and sharp pressed against the side of his neck.

He tilted his head in response to the dagger tip, further exposing his throat mockingly to she who was grey herself.

He knew she would come.

Her voice came in her usual soft purr.. though the suppressed fury behind it was obvious - as it was in her trembling grip on the hilt of the dagger.

"I thought you were gone."[/b]

Rimieh's eyes closed, tense at the feel of the blade at his neck, though his body remained at ease in the chair and he smiled.

"Relaxed a little too much in my absence?"[/b]

The woman swept around the chair he was sitting on before the fire, tracing the dagger tip along until it sat underneath his chin, her pressure forcing his head up to avoid the blade drawing blood.

"You're unarmed." She said after thoroughly looking him over. Her tone was hissed. Suspicious. Outraged.

Rimieh just grinned wider and opened his eyes to meet the ones staring back at him. Sharp, dangerous.

"Consider it a gesture of trust between us." By his tone, they both knew the statement meant both everything and nothing. Mockery and challenge, little else.

She snorted. He continued without letting any further silence settle, his tone no longer playful, but suddenly steely.

"You know where my blade is."

She narrowed her eyes, her grip on her dagger tightened as it remained under his throat. She pressed upward so that he could not speak without bleeding.

"You will not get it back. If that is why you have come here, you are wasting your time."

He closed his eyes again, his head tilted up at an awkward angle as he exhaled slowly. Resigned.

.............

By the time morning's light pierced the grey of the inn through the grubby windows, the two were nowhere in sight.

___________________________________________________

"Now I could see that this is unexpected... but then you always did have a habit of just appearing. So, in essence, by being unexpected ... it isn't. I'll treat it like an everyday occurrence.
To return your question with one of my own, however, what are you doing here?"

The knight's voice was as it always was. But softer with age. He looked far older than Rimieh remembered... calmer somehow, where before he had been so prone to fall into rage.


"Destiny?" The knight had said, "A result of an inevitbale series of events where your choices lead to a conclusion you cannot, by who and what you are and have chosen to be, turn away from."

Rimieh smiled faintly.

"Such definitions gifted to me thus far, have been ... intellectual. Cold, bland. Even those I expected to be better... I think I like yours."

The old knight regarded the sun elf carefully before chuckling, leaning one huge hand upon the railing of the balcony he stood upon, Rimieh seated on the ground beside him, leaning his back against it.

"I still have a way with explanations for you, then." A grin flickered over his face. His tone was wry.

"The light of your perceptions, Knight, is as light filtering down through the surface of a lake, the water clear but very deep. The light flickers from beneath. It's frequently missed yet, when it's refracted to just the right angle, it sparkles.
A few such refractions, and you can see the bottom of that lake.
A few more, and it makes the water look inviting."

The two figures spoke long into the night. For once.... never arguing.

[jujumojo]

Cracks in the Wall.

It was always snow.

How much longer would it go on like this?

No expectations. Hope was out of the question. Everything thus, was a blessing. Yet "nothing" was empty.

And on the other side of the scales, those to be taken for granted... Lost so easily. Too easily, for loyalty was more than that.

Should have been more than that, but no one truly knows it anymore...

That was the very reason to take for granted in the first place, to truly enjoy something without fear. Without apprehension of what 'might' be.
No regrets when it was gone... for every moment had been savoured in the purest way imaginable.

But beyond all of that, it was natural for it to hurt.
And it did.

The snow continued falling softly as loving whispers of betrayal.

.........

Long hours later, when his silent, frozen surrounds glowed eerily in the moonlight... his limbs had long since stopped their uncontrollable shivering and grown numb from the stillness and the waiting... he finally pried himself up to his feet.

The last teleport thankfully spared him a long walk - one of the last things he needed just now.

Half frozen, snowflakes covering his clothing and in his hair, he came to her resting in the valley.
The various pebble piles she had left for him here and there, some of them scattered from weather and time... They'd have made him smile, but tonight he could not.

She was so warm, so warm to hold. And it was not long before reverie took him, as her warmth revived him just enough for his body to begin shivering again for the remaining hours that kept them there.

[jujumojo]

Watching the Ripples.

He watched her as she rose daintily from where they were sitting beside the water.

"I can see why he loves you." He had murmured the seven words softly as she turned to leave.

She paused and turned back to look at him, curious, sapphire eyes glinted and met his own gaze intently ... if just for a moment...
____________________________________________________

Seven words rolled off his tongue. They came all too easily. But Riell's expression dropped, not quite in shock...

Comprehension? He dared to hoped so.

It was all he had ever dared hope for with her...
____________________________________________________

"I'm yours, Rimieh... Yours." The words came, so certain and full of sorrow that it made him want to weep for the strength of them.

........

"I knew this would come eventually. I've known for weeks now." Soft words he'd given to Abi as she watched him more carefully than she had in far too long.

"I think you knew much sooner than that." she replied, and as ever, her words stung and mended him all at once.

You are second guessing yourself...
____________________________________________________

Alessa.
A game of a sister. Light heartedness and distraction in the most innocent sense of the word. Taken for granted... as with so many things, yet in the end, lost to her own whim.
What was lost was not even worth a single answer to her.
He was not worth a single understanding, regardless of the outcome.
So be it. He would still remember.

Elvaledith.
An "intrigue" she had called herself, and yet it was not that which he had succumbed to this time. He knew that sense of chaos well enough, potent lessons not so easily forgotten.
She did not have the patience or the will to understand or believe him.
Nothing taken for granted, nothing lost.
She would perceive what she wished, and he would still be there in the end.
So be it.

Closed books with the pages torn out.
____________________________________________________

Her corset was as tightly laced as ever at the top of her elegant gown. Long black hair sleeked down her back as though it had just been brushed. Sharp, brown eyes observed him as coolly as they did everyone else, and that sickening courtesan's smile flashed with professional beauty to any who passed them by.

Many hours, they sat... watched the coming and goings. Then, after all those months, Violet looked at the sun elf beside her, properly. A fleeting glance as she murmured, softly as a whisper in the snow...

"Do you ever tire of it, my lovely?"

No.

Never.
____________________________________________________

Thril grinned mischieviously, eyeing Rimieh.

"I don't think you realise what you are getting yourself into, becoming my apprentice...." he teased.

"Does that mean if I tell you that I'm not concerned or afraid about anything you could throw at me, you'll make the tasks more difficult?" Rimieh countered, amused.

"Yes." Came the response. Rimieh grinned.

"Consider it said, then."

Thril laughed.

"Consider the tasks harder then!"

"Do your worst."

Do your worst.

[jujumojo]

Fight for Me.

"He believes you are twisting a knife in him. Taunting him because he can't escape... can't refuse..."

As she spoke to him, the events fell into place. And it was no longer a challenge, no longer a test or a game. His mind was no longer stimulated, it was just .... old. Wearied. Disappointed.

Everything that was occurring, with Entori, with the Wardens, and Alindariel and Thril, it wasn't a coincidence.

Now Thril was deliberately (or ignorantly?) dragging Oenemi into it. Perhaps to test him.... but if it was a test, then it was no different to those he'd given and taken in the past. The tests of killers, manipulators and rogues.
It defiled all the reasons he'd have wished to be taught and tested by Thril for the Wardens to begin with.

"You are not a toy to me."

He'd told her. Though he knew that if this is where things were going, if Thril continued to push this as he was ... she'd be a toy, a prize to win, a bait ... a test. Else she'd be lost to him.
The latter should have been for the better, in a sense... but it conflicted him this time.
He knew this was wrong.

Thril, it seemed to Rimieh, was quick to create 'toys' of people. Perhaps that was owing to Rimieh's presence in the first place, perhaps Elvaledith had rubbed off on Thril more than Rimieh even suspected... perhaps his words to Nakiasha ran deeper than he thought, and Thril was "damaged" to a great degree - only just now finding destructive release... Or perhaps Thril had always been that way.
Perhaps the Wardens didn't truly stand for what had been made out to him at all.

Either fork in the path was failure.
He could not help but muse that "Ana" would have loved to have him in a situation such as this.

But it was wrong.

"Does he believe me to be so fickle?" Oenemi had asked him, frowning.

"He wants you to be fickle..." That much was clear as day despite any arguments Thril could make to the contrary. Though the answers to 'why' escaped all but speculation.

Lin's short sentence of reason brought him perspective and a clearer mind... but in the end, he was forced by his own strength to disagree with her.

It bothered and comforted him to realise that just over a century ago.... He'd have thought exactly the same as he did now.

As he realised, he knew he needed to choose.
As he realised, he knew that either choice was wrong, because of Thril.

"Ana" would have loved it.

[jujumojo]

Twice Shy.

He sat and listened to Isiolith speak. She always spoke so easily, he never had to pull teeth with her as he did with everyone else.
It was refreshing to listen to her tales, and he was inwardly surprised yet again to find himself slipping into telling her a few of his own.

He'd wanted her to talk, wanted her to take some time away from the tension of others. But he had to wonder, after seeing the smile on her lips before she walked away... who between them, had needed the reprieve more from the start..

The fleeting thought crossed his mind that perhaps that smile of hers was in fact, a knowing one... but he dismissed it quickly.
___________________________________________________

Thril's words. They reassured, they comforted. They flattered. Each one was designed to do so, each one was designed specifically to butter someone up. Rimieh could see it a mile away, he had known many with similar ways before.

He wasn't going to repeat mistakes, though, rusty as he might be. He was more on his guard now... and so akin to Isabel, no amount of conviction in a statement, or eye contact... would change the meaning of the words given. Or lack thereof.

Some answers did not fit so neatly within the lines Thril had drawn himself.

Some other answers fit far too well to be ignored.

"She is barely a ghost and a memory to me, even as you have her in your arms."

...

"I will never forgive you. While you can't indulge me on my one petty request of you, it will mean you are profiting from my pain and for that I can never forgive you."

That's fine, because I am not sorry.

....

"He was my Brother. Though not by blood. I was never like Thril when he wore his mask, because I forgave myself when I realised that if he had lived, he'd have forgiven me too."
____________________________________________________

Golden eyes haunted his dreams.

[jujumojo]

Somethings.

The umberhulk loomed before the trio, and no sooner had Rimieh nocked an arrow before his vision blurred and distorted.

The sinking feeling found him again... he knew that feeling. He dreaded it.

Somewhere far away, an arrow loosed and he heard someone cry out... But he was listening to another voice...

”They say that you swore to protect me... that you’d protect my back with your blades or your own neck...”

The handsome, quiet sun elf with the golden eyes looked to his brother, who still remained leaning on his bow, the only sign he had heard was the barest shuffling of his feet... Tehlar could tell he was awkward, though the elf beside him did well to show it so little.

The hells! He’d never said those things expecting the gossiping sods in the council would inform Tehlar. There are some things you just didn’t say to your best friend... some things that went without saying...

Nevertheless, Tehlar continued.

”I was the one who wanted to fight.. I was right with you at the top of the class, there was no reason I shouldn’t be fighting. Yet now, I’m afraid. I don’t want to be here...”

Rimieh squeezed his eyes shut.

Don't do this.

He loosed another arrow, and another, gritting his teeth. He knew that cry, it was Oenemi's voice. Oenemi's...

As it had so long ago, the mind spell cleared swiftly as it had come. The sinking feeling gutted him, stealing his breath as he stared... Oenemi cringing at his side, an arrow - his arrow - protruding from a wound in her arm. Blood trickling down her white armour. She lived.

He had been cursed and spared all at once.
____________________________________________________

More martyrdom. More games, except these ones were games of folly and self pity. He knew the sort well.

...And almost every word from his mouth had been misinterpreted by one he had thought was wiser.

Such a pity. Someone had to pay for it eventually.. He wondered who it would be of the four.

Perhaps all of them.

He could fix it... but to what end, if Thril were to behave precisely as Elvaledith had done? Worse ... As Ana had done.

The cost in investment and effort would be steep if blind eyes were turned to reason.
____________________________________________________

He waited at the fletcher's with a handful of fire arrows, humming one of Alindariel's catchiest tunes to himself softly.

He waited too long, reverie found him with memories of whispers and snow until the merchant saw him out.
____________________________________________________

He used the word he had never intended to use upon her. A word that didn't fit her, nor did she deserve it as Viere did.
From how she spoke, she wanted to leave... and he wanted her gone. It didn't work as he had intended.

But then, with Elvaledith, it seemed that was the way things went. She was a hammer thrown into the works of intent. He'd never intended to lay with her either... it was a side effect of everything going on at the time. Just as their conversation was this day, and just as their treatment of each other had been the day she had walked away.

"That is sad" she had said to him, and the simple words, as ever with her, struck him... perhaps where they "should" not have at all.
____________________________________________________

Never answers with Lin. Because of course, he was supposed to know the answers. He was supposed to know her unrevealed responses. But "should", as ever, was a weak word and meant only failure in the end.

She only smiled at him, because coldly, she made him wish as none other had done in all these years. And that was what he hated and loved about her the most.

Coldly, she used him as she did. And full of the warmth she gave yet never gave to him at all, fierce for it... he wanted her to.

When she was gone, he missed her as no other in all these years, and the familiarity felt good.
Too good.

[jujumojo]

Glimpsed Feathers of the Raven's Wing

Succumb.

The water was cold and fresh against his skin as he held his breath... submerging his face.

Yield.

He abruptly pulled up. Dark green eyes glimpsed themselves in the looking glass by the basin. His hair was damp and clung to his skin as he dried his face with a clean towel. The symbol tattooed beside his left eye stared back at him as it always did.

You know it has always been this way.

He reached down towards his left hip. He knew the sword hilt wouldn't be there... for there weren't even scabbards on his belt these days. But he reached anyway, feeling the emptiness of the air.
Wishing for it as he wished for Lin.

You know you should stop fighting it.

The candlelight flickered against the dying wick. The one in the bed on the other side of the room turned over onto her other side, making the sheets sigh.

Stop fighting yourself.

Let go.

He glanced over to her at the movement, before silently making his way to the door and slipping out of the room.

Yield.... to me.
___________________________________________________

"I have tampered with your memories."[/i] the ghost told him.

"Do not follow your logical curiosity. To learn the answer will cost you your sanity and everything else you have. Everything you are left with."

"You know I cannot help it... I am of half a mind you are saying all this just because you already know that and you're enjoying the hell out of it..."

"That assumption would be correct."[/i] The game and the sadism was there, though the tone did not show a hint of mirth. Just stoicism.

"It would be pointless to ask what you took from me.... else you would not have done it in the first place.."[/b] the elf replied, studying his companion dubiously.

"I will never tell you. Ever."[/b] Came the unwavering reply.

Rimieh nodded slowly, before asking...

"Would I approve of it, if I knew what it was that has been done?"[/b]

The ghost turned to eye him, before replying coolly.

"If you were in my place, you would have done exactly as I did... without hesitation, and without remorse."[/b]

The sun elf nodded again, finally looking away... satisfied... and intrigued.
____________________________________________________

It was perfect. They both wanted it... She for the attention and the involvement, he for whatever hold it gave him. Whatever advancement upon the board...

And for Rimieh, the move was one of both ultimate trust... and ultimate betrayal. For there was a new piece on the board which 'should' never have been placed there...
She wanted to play.

He could not have resisted the irony of it if he had tried.......

....... At least, not with the memories and the obsession oh so close to heart.

This was messed up, and he loved it. If these were indeed 'side effects' of whatever the Ghost had done to him, it didn't matter. They invigorated him.

... "Love" was carefully jostled backstage and tucked behind the curtains... now coy and over-modest as Oenemi herself.

"You are a piece, now. And pieces are not granted the same privelages of trust..."

"Could one ever return from being such a piece?"

We will see.

"I understand..." She'd told him, oh so softly.
It was what she had chosen. It was what she wanted.... and yet she had no idea what she wanted at all.

The pieces would fall from this. He should dread to see where 'theirs' landed.....
But he could only feel sinister anticipation.

Sicarius's voice flowed through his mind like a swirling breeze.

"Ravens amongst the fowl"

[jujumojo]

Give and Take

*several days earlier *

It was sudden. It was touching. It took him by surprise.

Nienna had left when it happened, and returned with a bottle of spirits some time later after many soft words and an imploring embrace was shared between the other two...

Yet the other had broken her promise.

He would remember.

.......

Teary, wide eyes gazed up at him as she whispered the words he could only take from her along with everything else that night.

"You're beautiful...."[/b] he responded.

... Don't cry."[/i]

The hours became an amendment for both... and somehow it felt like goodbye.

Oh, he would remember.
____________________________________________________

* back in the present *

She gazed at him. Just gazed. Her eyes were blue and bright.. yet so different to Lin's. Patient, sad... coaxing, knowing.

It had been the first compliment he'd received in a long time that, despite the simplicity of it... he truly took as honest. No grains of salt.

A thousand questions formed silently between them. They had both seen enough years to know that not every question need be answered at once.

They had both seen enough years for the stubborn obsession to set in... to enjoy the questing as well as the knowing.
They had both seen enough to value every moment of the distraction preciously.

And so the thousand questions formed silently between them.

Oenemi had seen it, even when he had regained consciousness - not himself - in the Immersea inn. Just in that short moment of eye contact between the two, she had seen it.
He had denied it... and yet now, he knew she was right in a way....

About "Something" at least.

They took their reverie together for the third time... back to back.

... and all he could do despite everything was miss Alindariel.

[jujumojo]

The Promise Inside the Smile (For All the Lies)

"Does it mean nothing to you, then?" she whispered to him in the dim evening light of the forest.

The answer held within it a great distance. As close as it was to his lips, he dared not speak it.

Or dared. But could not.

His gaze left her as he looked away in silence.. Though his fingers continued stroking her hair gently from the side of her face.
____________________________________________________

// To be read "simultaneously" as though they are poems spoken or whispered from two different voices for the feel of the post.

I'm searching for answers Because something is not right. I'll follow the signs, I'm close to the fire. I fear that soon you'll reveal Your dangerous mind. It's in your eyes, what's on your mind. I fear your smile and the promise inside. It's in your eyes, what's on your mind. I fear your presence, I'm frozen inside. I'm searching for answers Not questioned before. The curse of awareness, There's no peace of mind. As your true colours show A dangerous sign. It's in your eyes, what's on your mind. I see the truth that you've buried inside. It's in your eyes, what's on your mind. There is no mercy just anger I find. I just have know, while I still have time. Do I have to run, or hide away from you? It's in your eyes, what's on your mind. I see the truth that you've buried inside. It's in your eyes, what's on your mind. There is no mercy just anger I find. Within Temptation - "A Dangerous Mind"

Where once was light Now darkness falls Where once was love Love is no more Don't say goodbye Don't say I didn't try. These tears we cry Are falling rain For all the lies You told us The hurt, the blame. And I will weep To be so alone I am lost I can never go home So in the end I'll be what I will be. No loyal friend Was ever there for me. Now we say goodbye I say you didn't try. These tears you cry Have come too late Take back the lies The hurt, the blame. And you will weep When you face the end alone You are lost You can never go home You are lost. You can never go home. Emiliana Torrini - "Gollum's Song"

//No association is meant between Rimieh and Gollum or LOTR - I just chose that 2nd song for him purely for how well the lyrics fit him. Thus have not posted the song itself.
These are the theme songs I'd choose for him. I actually found them very haunting. Enjoy //