Without a Purpose
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 12:44 pm
Ichour sat in the main guild hall, curled up in front of the fire with her knees tucked under her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. Her armor, black metal forged of a titanium and steel alloy and inscribed with spells and runes of protection and strength, lay behind her in a neat stack, leaving her in just an old, ragged, off white tank top and shorts that allowed a good portion of her decayed skin to show, her pallid flesh marked in all areas below the neck with so many black tattoos that the natural white was more akin to stars in the night sky. Where the flesh had decayed to bone, below the knees and elbows, the markings continued as etchings into her very bones. Without her armor, she looked frail, small, like an adolescent one might expect living in the gutter and begging for change because they were too weak to do anything else. It matched how she felt at the moment. She stared into the fire, feeling none of its heat, shivers from an imagined cold running across her body.
He was dead.
The man responsible for her first death. The man responsible for her second death. The man responsible for two lives of bound servitude eventually escaped, of two tortuous breakings of will, of taking everything from her and leaving nothing but a husk fueled by hatred and rage as cold as the throne upon which he sat. She had devoted her second life to killing him, and was denied that goal by the point of his blade, and as her reward for her suicidal attempt on his life alone, she was rewarded with a third life, and slavery again. She had been forced to slaughter in his name, and because of the binding, loved it. Lived for it. In that time, had he directly asked her to die, she would have done so without a thought or regret, because he had asked it of her. That changed at Light's Hope, and once again, she was free of the bindings on her mind, free to direct her disgust and hatred at the man responsible for her continuing torment. And now...he was dead.
And she hadn't been there.
She had felt it when he died, but had not believed it until the members of the raiding party returned to the guild hall, battered, bruised, but not beaten, joyous in their victory over someone they had all suffered because of, in one way or another. The cheer and joy had a different effect on Ichour. She had been crushed. She had failed to exact her revenge. She had failed to see her task through, no matter the cost, and the cost had been great.
Ichour glanced briefly from the fire to her runeblade, a wicked two handed axe forged from purest saronite buried an inch into the stone. The souls of the living and the dead had been fed to it, to fuel it, to give it power. They were fodder, meant to forge a weapon for the intent and purpose of housing one soul in eternal torment for the lifetimes of pain inflicted on her. The rituals required for the enchantment had their costs, and Ichour had gladly paid them for the one chance at her goal, at vengeance, at justice, skewed though it may be. And now that was past. The axe whispered to her, calling for more souls, its hunger remaining unsatisfied, as it would always be. Its only goal would ever remain undone, and that left Ichour with a question that shook her soul to its very foundations.
What now?
Such a simple question, yet the answer was beyond her reach, and it left her paralyzed. She had sat at the fire for hours, her normal fidgeting and incessant movement replaced by the still only the dead were capable of, save the occasional scratching of one clawed finger against the runes on her shin bone. She had been trying to ponder the question, but an answer seemed so far out of reach as to be unfathomable. What did one do after the singular driving goal of two lifetimes had been snatched away? She had no other goals, no other plans, no other desires. Unable to even begin to think of an answer to her question, she just say, staring into the fire, ignoring the whispers that only she could hear.
((You are welcome to join in.))
He was dead.
The man responsible for her first death. The man responsible for her second death. The man responsible for two lives of bound servitude eventually escaped, of two tortuous breakings of will, of taking everything from her and leaving nothing but a husk fueled by hatred and rage as cold as the throne upon which he sat. She had devoted her second life to killing him, and was denied that goal by the point of his blade, and as her reward for her suicidal attempt on his life alone, she was rewarded with a third life, and slavery again. She had been forced to slaughter in his name, and because of the binding, loved it. Lived for it. In that time, had he directly asked her to die, she would have done so without a thought or regret, because he had asked it of her. That changed at Light's Hope, and once again, she was free of the bindings on her mind, free to direct her disgust and hatred at the man responsible for her continuing torment. And now...he was dead.
And she hadn't been there.
She had felt it when he died, but had not believed it until the members of the raiding party returned to the guild hall, battered, bruised, but not beaten, joyous in their victory over someone they had all suffered because of, in one way or another. The cheer and joy had a different effect on Ichour. She had been crushed. She had failed to exact her revenge. She had failed to see her task through, no matter the cost, and the cost had been great.
Ichour glanced briefly from the fire to her runeblade, a wicked two handed axe forged from purest saronite buried an inch into the stone. The souls of the living and the dead had been fed to it, to fuel it, to give it power. They were fodder, meant to forge a weapon for the intent and purpose of housing one soul in eternal torment for the lifetimes of pain inflicted on her. The rituals required for the enchantment had their costs, and Ichour had gladly paid them for the one chance at her goal, at vengeance, at justice, skewed though it may be. And now that was past. The axe whispered to her, calling for more souls, its hunger remaining unsatisfied, as it would always be. Its only goal would ever remain undone, and that left Ichour with a question that shook her soul to its very foundations.
What now?
Such a simple question, yet the answer was beyond her reach, and it left her paralyzed. She had sat at the fire for hours, her normal fidgeting and incessant movement replaced by the still only the dead were capable of, save the occasional scratching of one clawed finger against the runes on her shin bone. She had been trying to ponder the question, but an answer seemed so far out of reach as to be unfathomable. What did one do after the singular driving goal of two lifetimes had been snatched away? She had no other goals, no other plans, no other desires. Unable to even begin to think of an answer to her question, she just say, staring into the fire, ignoring the whispers that only she could hear.
((You are welcome to join in.))