Jump to content


Interludes in Suldenessellar - Chapter 1.3


  • Please log in to reply
No replies to this topic

#1 Guest_VigaHrolf_*

Posted 25 January 2004 - 08:10 PM

Disclaimers: Interludes overall rating Strong PG-13. Contains some adult situation/language, violence, occaissional disturbing imagery.

 
Jaheira howled a wordless scream of pain and despair. Without thinking, she swept Viga to the ground and clasped both hands over the slashed wrist. Applying pressure, she started crying and cursing, “Not you too. Not you too. I will not lose another.” Her world was spinning like mad, she focused on holding his wrist shut. Her mind raced and all she was aware of was the pounding of her heart and the growing lead ball in her stomach. She strained against wild emotion wracking her body to try and gather enough calm to cast even the most simple healing spell.

Her panic was so complete and her focus so total on that wrist she noticed nothing else. Dimly aware of a voice calling out, she ignored it, having no time for that right now. She clamped down on the wrist with all of her considerable strength, wrestling with Viga who seemed insistent on breaking her grasp. She planted her legs so that she could not be pushed away, and leaned into his shoves. Shoulders and grip straining, she prayed silently to Silvanus, begging for this life to be spared.

The prayer took the edge off of her panic enough for her to remember the chant for one of her healing spells. As she began the oft used chant, her panic-dulled senses started to register the voice that she had been hearing only subconsciously. It was Viga’s voice, pained and pleading. She finished the spell and felt the healing energy flow through his body.

As the spell dissipated, her mind began to translate his cries. She heard him shout, “Jaheira, let go! Please, I can’t feel my hand anymore! For the love of Mielleki! Let go, I’m fine. I’m not hurt! Look! Look at the dagger! Look at your hands!”

Not releasing her grip an iota, she turned her eyes to where the dagger sat, gleaming in the morning sunshine. She stared at, looking for the meaning, watching the sunlight play across its burnished edges. After a moment’s thought, the significance set in. The blade was clean, unblemished. There was no blood! None.

Looking down, she saw no pool of blood under his wrists or soaking her hands. Still in shock, she let go her death grip and raised her hands to her face. There was no blood on them, none. She turned them over and over, looking for traces of blood and there were none. There was none. The shock was enough that her legs folded under her and she sat down hard. But her eyes did not leave her hands.

Next to her, Viga pushed himself up onto his knees, looking at her. He rubbed at his wrist and flexed his hand, wincing as icy tendrils of feeling started to return. Shuffling closer, he apologized, “Jaheira, I.. I’m sorry. I never should have done that. That was stupid, it was cruel, it was heartless.”

Jaheira looked up from her hands and gave Viga a blank but speculative look. She cocked her head to one side, saying nothing, simply staring. Viga tried again, “Look Jaheira, that was stupid. I am sorry, it was..”

Viga was cut off as Jaheira leapt at him, bringing her right arm around and clocking him right under the jaw. Viga staggered under the preternaturally strong blow as another followed it, spinning his head in the other direction. A third blow knocked him off his knees and onto the stone ground. With a feral scream, Jaheira jumped atop the warrior and started raining blows down on him. Viga brought up his arms to protect himself and deflect the blows, but she continued to pummel away, striking ribs, forearms, anything she could reach.

Swinging another right that slipped through his guard, she screamed, “You bastard! How could you! How could you do that to me!” Her left fist connected with his ear, generating a groan. “How could you be so cruel! Did you think it would be some sort of a fun trick? ‘Let’s tear out Jaheira’s heart and see what she does!’”

Another fist connected. She swung again, her aim off from the tears that blurred her vision. “Was I entertaining enough!? Did you like the reaction? You wondered if you were still human? Would a human do this to another person? Maybe you are just the sick and twisted remains of a dead god. Maybe the man I loved died on the Tree of Life.” She stopped swinging and got back to her feet. “But I know this. If you want death, I will be more than happy to supply it. Maybe that dagger didn’t work, but I swear to Silvanus I can find something that does.”

She stared down at the form of Viga, still hunched into a defensive posture on the ground. Her voice cracking with emotion, she shouted, “Don’t you have anything to say? Anything?”

Viga lowered his hands from his face. His face was unmarked. She knew she had hit him, and hard, but there was not a mark on him. He wiped at his mouth, as if to wipe off blood that wasn’t there, and pushed himself back to his feet, keeping a safe distance from her. She shook with barely reined in rage, glaring at the ranger, willing him to say something, anything.

Once more he wiped at his mouth, mopping away imaginary blood. “All I can say is that I am truly and deeply sorry. What I did was cruel and stupid. I let my own pain cause you even more. Out of some twisted sense of dramatics.”

“There is no blood. No injury, on your wrist or your face. None. Why?” she growled as she continued to glare at him.

“I don’t know. I seem to be invulnerable to mundane injury. Some sort of gift from the hell trials.” Rubbing his jaw, he continued, “I still feel pain, a great deal of it in this case. But it does no permanent harm. No blood. No injury.”

“How? How did you find this out?” she demanded.

“This morning, I woke early. More dark dreams.” He didn’t elaborate on them but she knew his sleep had not been easy. “I poured myself some water but lost my grip on the cup. It smashed in the sink. I looked to see if I had woken you then started cleaning up the mess. Midway through, I heard you move and looked over towards the bed to see if I had woken you. I did it midgrab and my hand closed on a jagged edge. I felt the ceramic cut my hand, but when I pulled my hand away, there was no blood. No wound. I jabbed myself again, saw the edge go into my finger. It did nothing other than hurt. I grabbed that dagger and repeated the experiment, still nothing. The spike on Crom was different, that did break the skin.” He showed a healed cut on his left hand. “But mundane things did nothing more than smart.” His shoulders sagged, “That’s what I was trying to demonstrate. But in my melancholy I chose melodrama over wisdom. Even that jack ass Haer Dalis would have shown more restraint.” Viga shook his head, “Its just, with everything else, the prophesies.. it just overwhelmed me.”

Jaheira’s anger cooled a few degrees but she still seethed. “So you decided that you would put on your little play for me? Look like you were trying to commit suicide when you knew nothing would happen? Do you have any idea at all how cruel that was? How selfish and mean-spirited?”

Viga nodded. “Yes. Yes I do.” He looked down, and then back up at her. Through the haze of anger she could see the great pain in his eyes. “I don’t even deserve forgiveness for what I did to you. I was so wrapped up in my own pain I didn’t think.” He reached out with his right hand towards her. “You have to know, you must know it wasn’t my intent to hurt you.”

Jaheira glared at him icily, “Then what was your intent?”

Viga looked into her eyes. As she looked into his normally warm brown eyes, all she saw was two black pits of despair. Still reaching out towards her, he replied in a voice choked with pain. “I… I don’t know. All I know is, it’s tearing me apart inside. I never asked for any of this, never wanted any of this. I never wanted to be the subject of prophecy or the son of a god. All of this is like the ocean in a storm and it’s sucking me down. Every day I wake up and find I’ve lost a little bit more humanity. What I am was prophesied to rain chaos, death and destruction on the land. And if you look at the wake I’ve left, its hard not to believe it.”

He dropped his arm but never broke his gaze. “What if I can’t stop this? What if I am the thing talked of in prophecy? That I bring sorrow and suffering to everyone and everything I know? What if it is my destiny, my fate to bring about the oceans of blood so that my father can be reborn. Or even worse,” he went quiet for a moment. Then in a voice that crackled with sorrow, he finished, “what if it is my fate to take his place? Become the new god of death and murder?”

As Viga went silent, Jaheira looked at him in silence. He seemed shrunken, sunken in on himself. She remembered first meeting him, his life tempered by pain but so full of life. He loomed larger than his huge frame. And now, all of that was gone, sucked into the void that swam in the brown sea of his eyes. It was painful to see him like this. And now she knew what had been weighing so heavily on his heart.

She had a decision to make. To let her anger and pain at the horrible thing he had done to her rule, or to forgive and reach out to the man she loved in his dark hour. Taking a half step closer, she weighed her own heart. Weighed it against all the possibilities, both good and ill. With a curt nod to herself, she made her decision.




0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

Skin Designed By Evanescence at IBSkin.com