|
Starstruck -> RE: =EC= 2012 Cellar Arena (7/20/2012 12:02:04)
|
Tiure coughed blood with alarming frequency now, and his body was frighteningly weak. With ears that retained their unnatural sharpness of hearing, he listened as the assassin spoke. His hand unclenched, unable to sustain the grip, and the spoons fell to the ground and simply vanished.
"I...I beg. But not...not for life." He was awash in crimson pain. The assassin's mask was impassive. "Kill me...quickly...please. Please do not protract.........my agony..." Tiure's body felt like molten lead, unable to move, but doing so anyway and burning as it did flowed.
"I didn't ask if you wanted to die." N'aschi cruelly pulled the scimitar out of his side, but Tiure didn't flinch. His eyes were glazed and unfocused, and his breathing was unnaturally even and calm for one so injured, as though he was controlled by an unseen puppeteer. "But if that's what you want..." The competitor was drawing it out, seeking humiliation from his opponent. With a flourish, he produced a knife. "Then...that's...what...you...get." Across the chest, down the right arm, a stab to the other side of the kid's hip, and a final, cruel twist of a dagger in Tiure's cheek. The bard gave no response, not even when N'aschi viciously pulled him up into a seated position, legs crossed, back against the pillar, propped up by his weighty bag. Suddenly, Tiure spoke just one word, fighting through a haze of intense suffering to deliver his final message to the world.
"Euterpe..."
As Tiure closed his eyes, waiting for the end, he felt his neck grow tight. As his eyes snapped open, glowing brightly with an arcane luminescence, N'aschi executed his finishing move. Though he was unable to breathe, Tiure did not gasp or choke; he was beyond pain, beyond fear, beyond life. He waited only for death's quiet peace.
"Vacuum Guillotine!" snarled N'aschi, tossing the scimitars, one bloostained and the other clean, high into the air. After going a short distance, the swords suddenly stopped and homed in on the source of the vacuum...Tiure's neck. The two scimitars zipped towards his neck at a very high speed, staggered ever so slightly as they broke the skin so as not to come in contact with each other but to still make a clean cut as their razor-sharp edges passed through skin and bone at lightning speed. An extremely loud pop could be heard as the vacuum was filled by scimitar, blood, and air, equalizing pressure in one brutal instant.
Just as the scimitars passed through Tiure's neck, the bard's eyes glowed and his hands showed magically glowing, blue, vaguely triangular symbols on them. The trajectory of the swords launched Tiure's head high into the air, his body lying as though cemented to the ground and the pillar as his head went flying, free at last. Suddenly, it exploded in a torrent of azure radiance, the body and head of the young bard shining in a harmonious unity. The young bard, though unable to produce sound by any discernable means, released a dissonant scream that pierced through the brightly lit air. It subtly resolved to a sweet, pure chord that filled a place of death with beauty, however fleetingly.
N'aschi watched in satisfaction as the head, still shining, landed precisely back on Tiure's neck. That was skill. That was excellence. Truly, the Wind Lord would be most pleased with his servant.
As Tiure's head landed lightly back on his severed neck, the shining aura left his body, forming an entity of energy in the vague shape of a slender young woman. She smiled sadly, brushed intangible fingers across Tiure's cheek, and flashed softly. In a swirl of harmonious sound, she dissipated, circling Tiure's dead form and thrumming in a soft song of mourning. The siren's melodious call almost seemed tangilbe, hanging in the air as though a rainbow forming in the mists of life. As the magical blast from the expiring golem spread outwards from the source of the blast, Euterpe's siren call exploded in sheer power. Memories became intertwined with the beautiful song, the power of music to communicate emotion made overwhelming, transformed into experience...
FLASH
A small alley, deserted, dark, and far from comfortable. A small child rests on a barely covered stoop, watching in awe as the stars come out at night. Its belly, pinched from hunger, its limbs, small and weak. As the clouds roll thickly in, as a deep fog shrouds the land in mist and humid darkness, as the rain patters softly, the child falls into a deep slumber, touching regions of consciousness and unconsciousness unknown to mortal man.
A curious spirit, floating, singing softly to the child. Its compassion, awakened. Its gentleness, infinite. It sees the child, floats for a closer look. Instinctual connections, powerful mental vorteces, a fight for independence and then for dependence. A mutually beneficial relationship. The memories are indistinct, but understandable.
Years later. Time skips by across the still surface of the water of life. Euterpe has begun to fade, her and Tiure forming a closer connection than ever before. They have become the same person. The melody is light and happy, dwelling on funny memories, times playing in the sunshine, times playing in the rain. Amidst the cheer of the tune comes a solemn, wailing countermelody; he is gone. We were together, and now I am alone.
One day, a disturbance. A ripple slides smoothly across the lake of time.
FLASH
"Why, hello there...Tiure, is it?" The Sage smiles kindly. "I've heard a great deal about you. Might I ask for a demonstration?" Tiure nods warily, but the tasks that the Sage sets are simple and easy. Just listening to things? In fairness, some of those things are harder than othres, but Tiure and Euterpe together are a potent aural force. They finish with picking out the sound of a pin dropping from two doors down and after that comes nothing but failure as the tasks get harder and harder. The Sage stops the demonstration, picks up the tired boy gently in his arms, and walks back to his tower. A fine meal is enjoyed, an offer is extended and accepted, and a tutelage begins. The boy and his symbiote learn more and more each day in a voracious thirst for knowledge. The art of Sonomancy falls under their grasp, but the art of Hydromancy eludes them. The Sage is an exacting master, sending Tiure on brutal, potentially fatal tasks with too little preparation, but the boy trusts him blindly. He learns Hydromancy at an astonishing rate, but the mastery of this branch of magic completely elude him, hidden and disguised by his wise mentor. He tries harder and harder, growing angrier and angrier.
Finally, the last command.
"If you want to be a true hydromancer...you must enter and win the Elemental Championships."
FLASH
Finality washed over the melody like a wave across the shore. The spirit, encircling the prone form of the young Tiure, pressed closed the open wounds of the deceased bard-mage and held them closed with ethereal energy, washing away with salty tears the blood that stained Tiure's clothes and surrounded his body. Those of the audience who had chosen to listen, which constituted a vast majority of the spectators, sat spellbound, silent for a few seconds. By normal standards, Euterpe's song could enrapture the strongest of men; empowered by grief and a great deal of outside interference, anyone who chose to listen had almost no choice but to see memories of times they did not live, and feel the pain of losing someone they never had.
She would weep over his death for a very, very long time.
|
|
|
|
