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Ronin Of Dreams -> RE: =EC 2023= Grand Arena (8/19/2023 21:40:19)
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Step and thrust. Simplest cadence and simple assault. These things should have been straightforward as Sterling stepped in towards Elodie, but reality coldly declined him. He felt pressure pushing against him, gravity twisting round sideways. He'd never felt anything of the like before, but he caught bloody tears streaming down the maid's face. She crossed her arms as Sterling's stance broke, and he barely had the thought that she was behind this sudden turn of events before his skull cracked against something — or someone — and his world faded into Darkness.
Awareness trickled into Sterling's mind, softly scratching at his perception. Waking him glacially from deepest slumber, gentle waves of paralytic numbness suffusing his limbs. Such a deep unconsciousness was atypical for him, but felt ever so peaceful. Comfortably suppressed as his mind gently reached for wakefulness, led by a single thread of urgent nerve signals. He became aware of his breathing as a yawn dragged its way out from his chest; aware of being laid out on his back on hard ground. Nerves nagging him that such was physically wrong but the muddled mind struggled to divine reason.
It was…pressure? Very insistent, but not quite. No need for a latrine. The nerve signals kept tapping harder and harder. Pain! His body was in pain! Sterling's mind flooded with adrenaline, shocking him fully awake and jolting him to sit upright. The base of his tail was agony from laying on it for Lords knew how long! But no sooner was he sitting upright than he fell towards one side. 'Bwha?' More details filtered in through the fugue, as his cheek rested against a perfectly smooth surface. Sterling had reacted with the assumption of a counterbalance that wasn't there, sat up with no shield upon his shoulder. His eyes blinked rapidly as he assessed, and found himself wearing nothing more than trousers and a threadbare tunic. Wasn't I…just in a fight?
Disquiet sifted through his mind, wiping away the adrenaline surge and replacing any remaining lingering sleep. His surroundings were nothing he could have expected from memory, pervasive gray mists swirling above flat ground. Though Sterling's cheek still felt numb, the ground was smooth as could be. Glassy. "What in Heck?" Where had all this glass come from? Mists…okay, sure, maybe someone pumped mist into Twilight while he was out, but replacing wooden floors with a wide expanse of glass was a bit much.
Sterling rolled, getting his arm and knees beneath him so he could push himself upright only to find it wasn't quite as straightforward as he expected. This glass was slick, and he couldn't seem to find any purchase — physically or with the shadows beneath him. "This…doesn't make any sense. What even IS this place?" His disquiet grew with each passing moment: he couldn't shake the numbness, this place was unfamiliar, and both his gear and his glide were gone. It wasn't helping that everything seemed to be in greyscale, between the mists themselves and the glassy ground having a frosted look to it.
As he carefully turned around, he realized that wasn't quite right. There was a bit more to his surroundings then gray on gray. Sporadic bursts of color shone from below, pouring from cleared patches of the ground strewn haphazardly about. Not quite randomly — they all shared a measure of distance from each other, but Sterling was at a loss for any rhythm to the design.
Curiosity peaked, Sterling made his way towards the nearest. He promptly tumbled to the ground given the slickness, the everpresent numbness taking only some of the sting out of the fall — albeit none of the embarrassment. "Oh for the love of…ooof." With a shake of his head, he went and gathered himself back up so he could shuffle slowly over to the color. It was far from the freedom of movement he was used to, adding hints of frustration to his internal disquiet.
As Sterling peered into the patch of clarity and color, he found himself surprised. The scene beyond the glass? For the life of Sterling, it was a memory pulled from his own head and warped into a new viewpoint. He saw the house of Durgan standing tall, embraced by the early morning sun and full of shadows on its western side. An imposing two stories tall contrasted by the wee lad clambering up over the roof's edge. Sterling's mind slowly began to remember, his mind filling in details that cut through his numbness.
The muggy warm air of the late summer's morning clinging to his frame.
Delightful triumph upwelling from within, tugging his mouth into a grand smile.
Cassandra's voice filtering up from the ground, calling him an idiot most profound. More sass than concern, as was her wont.
He had been…maybe seven or eight at the time? Young enough to have that adolescent impulse to climb any tree in reach — or in his case any shadow deep enough for purchase. Childish enough to have no plan whatsoever on how to get down afterwards, much to Cassandra's chagrin at the time. Young Sterling had seen the western wall drenched in shadows and simply focused on the challenge before him. "Lords, no fear at all back then." It had his adult self laughing at the audacity, knowing his child self hadn't quite grasped the full mechanics of his shadowglide. Grip enough to climb, but no eye for depth of shadow to control one's descent.
Sterling both watched and remembered what followed. He had challenged Cassandra's assertions about getting down with boundless confidence as he backed away from the roof's edge. Took a few steps…then ran forward. Casting himself into the sky all laughter and smiles, trusting in the shadows to be enough. Utterly foolish in the most innocent of childlike ways. The youth caught at the shadows with his feet, but they weren't being cast strong enough to slide and grind upon. His small frame hitched in midair, tail lashing as what little purchase tilted him inevitably backwards. Crashing to the loam below, skull cracking back to Cassandra's piercing shriek.
The raw strength of the memory had Sterling wince, reaching up with panicked speed to feel about his bald pate for lumps and contusions. He had knocked himself out cold with such an impact that he felt it anew decades in the future. Fingers felt and probed, confirming his skull was intact and still bound by skin and scales. As he looked back towards the patch however, he found it smoked over like most of the expanse. No illumination of how he'd been treated at the time.
"Well, that was spectacularly painful. But…why?" It was a painful fall, but he hadn't died. Durgan had claimed his head was too hard and his body far too light at that age. There wasn't a clear reason behind that memory being shown. Perplexed, Sterling shuffled onwards to the next patch of color. Then another…and another.
He was beginning to believe he was being reminded of 'Hubris', as the next half dozen such patches held similar reminders of falls. From the tumble of his undermined attempted hook back in Twilight, to skinned knees on the cobbles of K'eld Varlish. Spills at high speeds and trips during technical 'tricks'. Sterling was finding his mind battered by reminiscence, his confidence beaten low…and his body was taking a fair share of being knocked about thanks to the perilous terrain as well. No matter how slow and cautious he tried to walk and shuffle, he just. Kept. Falling.
Frustration kept him shuffling along, thankful for the numbness that continued to hang heavy along his limbs and dull his pain. Sterling was tempted to not bother with the patches, but he still saw no other landmarks amidst the mists. No obvious escape from the timeless expanse he found himself trapped within. So he shuffled along.
The next patch of color had him frowning with immediate recognition, a memory he didn't want to revisit which had nothing to do with the echoes of physical pain. All he saw at first was a simple window. A simple cracked window, frost spilling in from the chill of winter, misty tendrils of palest white. "No. Not this. Anything but this." His words had no effect, the scene cared for nothing but plundering his memories for greater detail as it panned towards the bed nearest the window. A bed where a trembling tail poked from underneath doubled blankets.
Sterling shivered, both then and now. He hadn't wanted to wake up, freezing breath stealing what rest sleep was supposed to provide. There were more bodies in that bed than just him, and he was clinging to his closest bedmate for warmth. It wasn't that Durgan was stingy with blankets or fire, just that Old Man Winter had a grudge against K'eld Varlish and its surrounding villages. So spratlings huddled, up to four to a bed, bundled under as many blankets as could be spared. He shivered all the harder as the memory became more real, he could feel a girl wrapped in his arms. 'Sophie! Thank the Lords it wasn't Bella back then…' Felt how cool to the touch she was, how she shivered in his grasp.
They were lucky. Shivering as they were meant warmth, meant life. He grumbled softly, not wanting to wake up to the lightening skies of morning, curling in all the more against her. Doing his best to ignore Durgan's morning call for assembly. Sophie was a fair bit more well-behaved, and stirred to the call. She had opened her eyes, and seen their other bedmates laying still. Eyes never to open, lips blue; cold and still. Tamriel and Maggie had also clung to each other in the unconscious night, but hadn't survived the witching hour where temperatures had flirted with sub zero. All because no one had noticed the crack of the window in their shared room the night prior.
Her shriek had a piercing ringing to it, straining the spines of his ears and digging sharp nails into his skull. Sterling couldn't hold back tears as he watched his younger self jolt into the horror before the pair of surviving spratlings. The house erupted into activity, Durgan's heavy footfalls leading a stampede to check on the children. But there was nothing to be done. Death had come and gone, two more fragile souls added to Their collection. The next few days were a blur, children being reassigned to different beds and that room being cordoned off until repairs could be made. More appeals for charity and funding that often went unanswered.
It had been The Worst Winter. Two became three became more, a steady toll upon the Dolls growing throughout the season into double digits. Sterling remembered growing numb then, inside rather than out, just to make it through. He had lost his bedmates — Sophie passed mere days after that fateful night, having caught a sickness of the lungs shortly after — lost more Dolls in a single season than he had seen pass in his short life up to that point. It dimmed the spark of his mind. Left him with difficulties in grieving, unable to properly celebrate the lives of so many dead in short order. He closed his eyes, tears silently running down his cheeks as he forced the memory to close.
Sterling sank to his knees for a long time after. Took as long as he needed to let the swell of emotions from that memory process through his mind; his heart. That had been heavy. Far heavier than any of the patches prior, each of which 'only' had slashed at his ego. Rising on shaky legs, he wrapped his arm tightly around himself. "Whatever this place is…I want out. OUT!" The mists swallowed his shouts without even the pleasure of a distant echo, leaving Sterling to scowl behind reddened eyes.
There was only mists and frosted glass, punctuated by the same patches of color. Fewer now, though Sterling struggled to notice that. Part of him wanted to pitch a fit, that petulance of adolescence that still simmered in his soul alongside his childlike whims. But there was no measure, no means that would matter. So he shuffled on again with a defeated sigh, trying to ignore the patches for as long as he could.
Lacking any sense of the passage of time left boredom as a concern. He could only go so far before he needed something more than shuffling steps to occupy his mind, and the allure of color played against his natural curiosity. Eventually, they won out, drawing him back towards looking through the viewing glass.
What he saw this time wasn't a memory, though it was a familiar scene. Sterling saw Timothy sitting near a pond's edge, fishing kit and crutches off to one side. Pants rolled up to the knee as the taller Doll tried to massage some life into his mangled lower limbs. Sterling's head tilted to one side as he spotted fresh bruising and decay. "Oh Tim, what's gone wrong with you now?" Timothy was akin to Sterling, born and bred 'wrong', with both his lower legs permanently twisted and ill-suited to support his weight. This Doll also equally matched his stubbornness, as he insisted he was capable of walking with paired crutches rather than being bound to a wheeled chair. It was that spirit that appealed to Sterling, and contributed towards them becoming fast friends as wee lads.
Watching Timothy appear so vulnerable on his own, pain and discomfort writ large on his expression? Sat like a leaden weight in Sterling's stomach. Timothy was reliable for not showing weakness, a brother in spirit if not by blood. It felt…perverse to be peering at his brother's private suffering. He deserved better, much better than a noonday's peace of fishing to distract himself from his body's slow decline.
"Catch something grand, Timothy. I'll remember to visit once all this is done."
It marked a paradigm shift in what the patches were showing, pieces of the present rather than plundered from his past. After Timothy's peace came Cassandra. Confined to careful shade with her skin so pale, he wished he had caught her sassing the new crop of spratlings indoors. But akin to Tim, he caught her vulnerability. How she grit her teeth and gently pulsed the leather bag in her hands, pushing fresh blood through a tube that snaked around her leg and buried into her thigh beneath her dress. The Vampire Doll, whose condition demanded transfusions of fresh blood every few days, keeping her bound to Durgan's charity. To this day, he still didn't know where Durgan acquired such a precious commodity.
Frankly, he'd never asked.
More Dolls followed, from the older sets under Durgan's care. More secrets behind how they had to cope, just to get by each day. It left Sterling with a mix of perverse thrill at the discovery, and a growing burden upon his heart of a task unfinished. "Why here, why now? Why am I not in the Arena? I don't need these reminders to know I'm the lucky one. To know why I came here!" They deserved better, the Dolls in Durgan's care. Deserved more than to survive a span of days, their lives celebrated by eulogy when Death caught up with them. They made the most of it, without a doubt, but each Doll suffered.
His suffering was the weight of theirs. A bleeding heart so sensitive he had broken away from the family he cared for most. To fight and steal every ounce of coin or provision he could pass back along to Durgan. As an anonymous charity, that way the Old Man couldn't refuse them out of pride or misbegotten loyalty to law. Sterling loved their smiles, their laughter, their brightness all and wanted — no, needed — to help secure their futures. It wasn't just for Bella…though it always came back to her. Patch after patch he searched for her, scrambling on hand and knees, but not one showed him an iota of Bella. Because he knew where she was? In theory at least, she had been in the stands.
"What do you know about angels, son?" The words startled Sterling, cutting his worry short as his head whirled around. Patches shimmered and disappeared entirely, leaving just the swirling of mists around him. Nothing else seemed different to him.
The topic also had him off-guard, leaving him to challenge the unseen voice after stumbling for words. "I…who's asking, exactly?"
A figure strode forth, parting the mists with its presence. One which was vaguely familiar to Sterling, though he had to cast his mind back very far indeed to recognize the features. Not because it was someone he hadn't seen in decades, but because the figure before him was far younger than the present age. Younger still than when they had first met, but still tall and angular. Blonde hair pulled tight into a short tail, eyes flashing with the blue hues of a clear sky. "Come now. Not like anyone else gets away calling you 'son', son."
"Durgan…" There was something about his elder's grin that was unsettling. It was more than just lacking the lines from age, it had an edge. And the topic? Durgan knew he wasn't religious. "Why are you asking about angels?"
"It's a simple question." Seeing nothing forthcoming from Sterling, the elder continued on. "Well now, you see, the things about angels? Sometimes when a man has made such a foul and tangled mess of one's life that death appears to be the only option." Durgan gestured towards the surrounding grays, endless and timeless.
Oh. Well that explains a few things.
"Well, then an angel might appear. And offer one a change of life." Durgan reached out a hand to help Sterling back to his feet, surprising him with both stability and strength. His elder didn't seem to be affected by the slick surface beneath them, and was steady as a rock. "I should like you to think of me as your angel, Sterling. I'm offering you a second chance, as it were. Though, perhaps I should point out that door behind you." Durgan trailed off, pointing over Sterling's shoulder with a thin smile.
Sterling blinked, at a loss. There wasn't a door behind him! Nothing was present in this greyscape Heck, but when he whirled about, so there was. He approached the door, which stood between vast monolithic rock walls. A rich oak, the color itself a stark contrast from the rest simply by having any color, with a bronze handle on one side. The youth clutched the handle, steadying himself before opening it wide. He very nearly stumbled into the pitch black maw beyond the precipice, an enveloping pure Darkness. Sterling glanced back towards Durgan, who watched impassively, then he reached into his pockets.
Finding a coin, he flipped it into the Darkness. Tilted his head and craned to hear the soft ring of metal against the floor. His heart beat in his chest, keeping time amidst the timeless expanse, but the silence reigned supreme. Sterling's brow knit close as he stepped away, heading back towards Durgan. "What is this, Old Man?"
"Well. If you wish to leave, simply step beyond that door. Whatever happens then is, well, purely your own business." An endless pit of Darkness hardly felt like any business he wanted a hand in. "You see, the interesting thing about angels is that you only ever get the one."
"I'm not following."
"You see, son, you happen to be a survivor. A rather good one, among a whole flock of survivors. One who deserves a bit of a second chance, you might say. I am here bringing you an offer from someone who could use a good survivor."
More about this visage of Durgan kept sounding wrong to Sterling. The word choice, the inflections. Surely some of it was youthfulness, being near on par with Sterling himself, but… "Still not following here."
A smile broke across Durgan's face. It had a feral, threatening edge to it, leaving Sterling to gulp softly. "Boy, let me make it clear. Either you can take your chances over there with utter Darkness obscuring your fate. Or, perhaps, you might find yourself willing to play for another team. What do you think, hm?"
Sterling felt poleaxed for a moment. Now this was entirely out of the blue, but the mere offer made a few things click in his mind about his surroundings. There were hints aplenty, he just hadn't put them together. The numbness was from cold. The floor? Was frozen all along. Just the perfect unbroken stillness of a pond in the depths of winter. This was an entreaty from Ice for him to turn colors.
Well, it wasn't like he was religious. Bella could be Creationist for the both of them, though she would be tickled pink at this. Loritihia provides. "Hah!"
"Okay, okay, I see what you're laying down. You want me to turncoat and make an enemy of Darkness, right? All because your crew couldn't measure up to my talents, eh?." The grin that blossomed into being for Sterling matched Durgan's. "Right. Okay. Let's have a chat."
To call what followed 'negotiation' would have been strong, but Sterling was not about to accept terms without trying to have a say. Going into the Finals blind? That would have been stupid, idiotic, and throwing every lesson he had ever learned out the proverbial window. But Sterling couldn't pass up the second chance, the guarantee of making the Finals. He knew it, Durgan knew it, and the leverage was clearly against Sterling. The chill of winter would suffuse Sterling's body and warp his natural talent into something more befitting a Paragon of Ice. A small price to pay, really.
As the business concluded, Sterling could feel a tug, a pull. Time may not have purchase in this place, yet it was nearly Time all the same. The inescapable finality of Finals was nearly upon him. He strode past the visage of Durgan, happily so, but he turned back around before he left this odd domain entirely. "You know something? I appreciate the guise, but you're not Him."
Durgan raised a brow, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Oh?"
"You know. Him. Or Her. Or it. Whatever their followers might call the Ice Lord."
"Careful now, boy."
"Not only do I think you aren't Father Frost or Governess Glacier; I'm betting you don't even fit in the hierarchy. Not even ranking Viscount of Verglas."
"What's an overgrown spratling like you doing using words like 'verglas'?"
Sterling couldn't help but smirk. "Hey, I listen to Bella. Sometimes. Occasionally. But that's besides the point. I've got the feeling you have nothing to do with Ice. Why would they care to convert, or coerce, or cut a deal on terms to turncoat?"
The mists began to wrap around Durgan, the air growing even colder still. His surroundings growing just as dangerous as his line of thinking. "Then who am I?"
"Honest? The Boon is real, so why can't the legend of life be true too? Only one thing I think has the right to make any demands here. You. The Arena Itself."
The visage of Durgan snorted lightly, disappearing behind the shroud of mists. Neither confirming nor dismissing the claim outright, leaving Sterling forever without an answer. Just a remark at the gall. "Cute."
"Darling, I'm adorable." Insane giggles spilled from his lips, the stress of it all popping in one great bubble. "Now I've got some work to do."
The Grand Arena was a sight to behold, even from behind barred gates at ground level. It was the walls, the stands, the stature of the place rather than the field of battle that was grandiose all surrounding the most level of playing fields. Scarlet sands, initially unbroken by any feature. 'Bloodsoaked, as the stories go, holding fast to every drop since the beginning of the time itself. Or at least since the arena's birth as a monument to mortality. Was the Boon always present, or did that come later?'
Mysteries aplenty to this place, he supposed with a shiver. Sterling couldn't shake the cold that still lingered deep within, and 'wore' several new scales of raw rime along his skin. He would let the Dolls mull those over when he told them the tale later on. Though speaking of Dolls, his eyes scanned the stands in a vain attempt to spot Bella among the thronging crowd. A difficult task at the best of times, made near impossible as the Chorus burst into sound, with the Arena following suit. Explosions of activity marked the arrival of living statuary, prior Champions to look onwards upon the Paragons announced. It was a captivating sight. Utterly distracting from his desire to find proof of Bella's support.
It also gave him names for his opposition back in Twilight. The maid was back, annoyingly enough, as was his partner in crime. Elodie and Chiyi, musical names for a pair of known threats, and he owed them both for earlier in differing measure. Later, perhaps, after the field was reduced. Three Paragons from the same Trial did make for a tempting power bloc…
Next came a trio of unfamiliar names, and though he strained to sift clues from the Choir's call, Sterling was left with very little gain for the effort. So what if Spike had been particularly bloody? That didn't tell him about Mooth or Ezkeraz's grit directly, just that they had been present for the bloodbath. Vosta would be one to watch warily, perhaps, since weapons that could 'shatter the air itself' had some fell connotations.
Then his gate opened, and the Choir called him out to the field. "A rebel with ties unbroken, to family detached and bound. His graceful movements drew diversions throughout the Veil of Twilight. Witness Sterling, Paragon of Ice!" Sterling smirked as he strode out onto the sands, gliding forward on skates of raw ice for several feet. At least until his tail, dragging behind, brushed against the trails he now left. Proof of his bargain, the pact behind his presence. Ah, right. Can't afford to waste even an inch.
Sterling shifted to a casual walk, still playing up to the crowd with the shine of his smile and the gleam of iridescence. He moved up alongside the grand statue of an ursine champion of the past, suppressing a shiver that was part cold and part awe. "Well now, aren't you a sight." Talking with a statue probably wasn't that normal, but what was? Sterling shrugged the shield slung tight on his left flank and continued, uncaring about the last two making their entrance. "Betcha good money you'd be angry, a little turncoat like me out here threatening to take your place. You'd probably charge the field, too. Be a living glacier for the rest to chip away while you devastated them with those jaws."
He smirked and shook his head. Tradition was not his style, and while bantering with the Bear would earn him no favors, there was no harm in it. “We now bear witness to the Trial of the Desert Sands. Let the Judgment of the Arena begin!” To business then, and Sterling's smile grew wider. What better way than for a bit of mischief, drawing some lines in the sand?
Sterling wasn't quite as fast as the rage incarnate from his left, and though he brought his fingers to his lips he found himself compelled to wait. Vosta was very angry, roaring to the field in a language unknown to him and throwing something that shattered against the pillar of energy itself. It broke apart into a cacophony of crow's cries, drowning out all else for a long couple of heartbeats.
He was left perplexed. 'That…that was a thing.' Sterling made a mental note to avoid Vosta's ire if he could, though blind rage could make for a very good mark. Maybe he could feed others to her one by one. Something to consider, but for now? He placed his fingers to his lips and whistled keenly to regather attention. To be a distraction and lay down some lifelines of jolly cooperation moving forward.
"Oi! Looks to me like Twilight had the cream of the crop, and the rest of you lot are second helpings. And you know what? I think that means us survivors of the Veil ought to take out the trash first, then we can get back to the bloody of hashing it out ourselves. How's that sound, Auntie Chiyi? Up for putting a pin in the punishment, little miss Elodie? And let us not forget the great chonk of Master Bhonk over there, pardon but I'll not insult you by massacring your full name. Shall we put the rest into their place?"
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