"Ash..."
A whisper from far, far away. Breaking through the night like a calling. Summons. Or perhaps even an omen. However the drugged apprentice could not open her ever.
"Ash..."
It persisted as if carried by a fleeting breeze, or the waves of the sea. Just barely making it to the shore, licking the golden sands with success, but eventually recalled to become one with the ocean.
"Ash..."
And there always the same sense of blackness. Like a grasp, or a veil thrown over the background to wrap her in a cocoon and detatch her from the dreams that she would see. But no, this was not right. She could not see dreams, she was not sleeping. There was only a constant limbo. Haze. But even in that, she could tell one thing. This voice she did not know. It was not the one that would follow.
Of all nights that Celysiel was destined to remember in the future, this would be among her worst. A certain sense of fall relaxation had taken over her senses. Somewhere inside, all her instincts were protesting and screaming for they could not reign. They were locked away in a little box and forced in slumber that they tried to defy. What good did these riots do? Nothing. Only a key came to sometimes unlock the prison and let them out for a while. A key, a Heart.
Every now and then, not only limited in the duration of the night, but the morning as well. She had not left her tent given her dulled senses, thus the struggle continued. Every now and then the cold embrace of shadow would come to awaken her and offer her mind clarity, but it could not completely defeat the drug that had been administered to her. On and off these two changes would come. It was even more nausiating than not having her locket at all.
Whispers took strong hold of her mind. That not even Irtheas' potion could change. In fact they were louder now and more dominant, trying to rouse her sleeping mind. The voice was always the same. Sometimes they retreated in order to let certain impressions and cold sensations take over. It felt like a touch of ice, but she accepted it.
Memories of radiant Light eventually came with the clarity, but the voice inside took the pain away. And still it did not stop the girl from whispering in a vindictive tone in her sleep, or the hours that she was still and awake. Just two words.
"The paladin."
His face was clear in her head through the flashes of holy fire. For reasons beyond her, he kept focusing her the entire night, perhaps having sensed her to be nothing more than an apprentice, the weak link. Was her misfortune so great that she had to taste his wrath of all people? That of one whose faith was in the Light?
Ywaq puul skshgn. whispered the voice in her mind. She could not let it be so. But the voice continued, giving her the weapon she needed. Uttering but one word for her to seek. Uuyat. Uuyat. Uuyat.
"Agony." she whispered next to the other words, tasting this one. Sweet torment would find the enemy for what he had done to her. "Agony." The apprentice demanded it. Never before had the tendrils of revenge held her so tightly.
And so the haze was pushed back by clarity, but clarity brought pain with it. A necessary evil. Although she lacked her reflexes and the ability to think quickly, the voice did not let her rest. It did not let her forget. It pushed her outside the tent as the light of day began to die.
Demanding nothing more than a taste of the paladin's blood.
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