[Couronne] Something terrible

[Arkash]

Frost 12th 4621

"Taelian!!"

Arkash called the moment his clawed foot passed the threshold of the door. "Taelian, it's awful!" he called as he began to remove the various pieces of noble attire he'd been stuffed into in preparation for the meeting with Brilan Ald. Off came the coat, the footwraps, the vest, all that was left was his shirt and pants when he'd worked his dull claws into the bowtie and pulled it apart.

Silence came the stern reply.

Arkash furrowed his brow. Was the Godling out? At this hour? Not likely. A deep breath flared his nostrils and he shut his eyes to differentiate between the scents in the room, the various smells that clung to the lavish furniture of Taelian's rented suite, then turned his head as he followed the source of the smell... When he opened his eyes, he found his muzzle pointed in the direction of the bedroom, beneath the pale light that shone through the tall windows.

A shake of his head came while his mind raced, and he pushed through the living room to that narrow hallway, opened the door, and immediately set his night eye on the sleeping lump in the bed. He paused for a moment, reevaluating his strategy. Did he really want to wake Taelian up over this? It only took him a second or two to decide that yes, yes he did.

Through the moonlit space of the room, Arkash quickly closed the gap with broad steps, climbed onto the bedding behind the man, place both sets of claws on his side, and began to shake him back and forth. "TAELIAN!" He spoke in a harsh whisper. "TAELIAN YOU HAVE TO GET UP!" He whispered again while he continued to shake the Godling. A pause saw him think for a second. Was there a better way to do this? There might have been, but he couldn't think of it in the moment, so he continued to shake the hulking Elf.

"Taelian," he spoke at an ordinary volume with his dry, raspy voice. "...Something terrible has happened, you have to wake up..."

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[Taelian Edevane]

As a sudden wash of sound intruded his peaceful musings, Taelian squinted, resistant to awakening as he tried to endure through whatever was seeking to disturb him, a presence he quickly realized to be Arkash. He had only fallen asleep less than an hour ago, and that meant he was resistant to surrender his state of peace. He had court to attend in the morning, information to provide Eloise regarding the Wintry Accord, and a whole slew of things to do in preparation for... the information he had received from Lady Ash. He had finally received an audience from her, after all, and she had informed him of her plans; the things he would need to do in order to secure her alliance. Things that would make the Daravinic taboos irrelevant -- things that would propel her far beyond the bounds of the Entente, no longer needing to succumb to their standards, or even to acknowledge them.

It had been a tense last few days, as he pondered much within his own mind. He pondered still in his sleep, only for one particular, clawed man's intervention to wrestle him from that evening bliss.

"No..." he muttered, trying to shake him off. Taelian even extended his hand, half-stuffing it in his face to get him to go away. And yet, he persisted. Something terrible has happened. Finally, the words clicked in his mind, and his eyes shot open.

"What?" he muttered, blinking as he tried to lock himself into consciousness. He had no shirt on, his muscular frame becoming clear as the man rose from the mattress, only covered by sheets starting at his lower abdomen. "What's... the issue, Arkash? Is everything alright?"

Presumably not, considering something 'terrible' was apparently unfolding, but he decided to let him explain before jumping into a state of panic, or severity. If Arkash was relying on him, the man needed to be strong in the face of that; dependable. So -- he quickly forced out the last vestiges of exhaustion from his features, and made himself sharp.

[Arkash]

Taelian outright refused to wake up, and even put his hand in Arkash's face to shoo him off. The nerve! Did he not realize the whole world was at stake? All of Atharen was at risk unless they did something immediately. Even so, he resisted the urge to bite that hand and delivered the message that something terrible had happened, because it had... Well, almost. It was going to happen. That seemed enough to stir the elf, who woke up in the end and asked what was wrong.

"Well it hasn't happened yet, but it's going to," he clarified. "Something terrible is going to happen," he corrected with a turn of his claws, the other remaining on Taelian's leg.

He peered at the claw for a second while his night eye shined in the low light of the room, then began to revert to his humanoid form, scales yielding to skin, claws withdrawing to nails, bone structure shifting and adjusting, and the color of his eyes changing. "Sorry," he said when his transformation was complete, and a full head of springy locks appeared from his scalp. "I didn't poke you, right?"

"Anyway, Brilan Ald," Arkash said, at last, eyes focused intently on Taelian's in that dark room.

"She's going to destroy the world."

"She wants Chronomancy, which is like a type of time magic that was lost ages ago... And when she gets it, she's going to open up some kind of portal and dump LOADS of corruption on her enemies." His voice wavered a little while he spoke, eyes recounting something while he delivered the news.

"Taelian, we have to stop her."

"We have to stop her now." He added with no limit to his sense of urgency. "If we don't, thousands of people are going to die... It's... It's going to be so much worse than the butchering."

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[Taelian Edevane]

"Er - you might have poked me, I... don't worry about it. I was too unconscious to really feel it," he said, muttering. The man rubbed his eyes, blinking them open a little more. He was met with an immediate correction of the flow of conversation; Arkash needed to inform him of Brilan Ald's terrible plans, how she needed to be stopped. He recalled that Arkash would not have even been able to tell him, had he not also sworn upon the Mnara, meaning there was no point in going into detail; they were both on the same mission. Did he not know that?

Regardless, he let him continue, eyeing him steadily throughout his panic. She's going to destroy the world.

He tried not to smile -- that was an amusing take on it all, but he supposed it wasn't entirely far from the truth. Brilan Ald intended to annihilate much of their current world order, to shift things away from what they were now. Whether her objectives were good or 'terrible' largely depended on the subjective views of the person she spoke to. To Taelian, her methodology was - perhaps - a bit lethal and extreme, but her intended goals were not far from what resided in his own heart.

"I already know," he responded. "She invited me to a dinner with her and some man named Lord Levis; we spoke of her intended goals, her plan to retrieve the Lost Magic of Time. Did she not inform you that I am meant to accompany you to cull the Worldbreaker?" Taelian asked.

He sat up properly, settling his hands over his lap, which was covered by sheets. "Regardless of how you feel about her, we are incapable of stopping her. It... appears to me that Brilan Ald may be the strongest mage to ever walk upon our world, and she is a Lich; a being nearly completely unkillable, surrounded by a faction of other Liches who may be of comparable levels of power. To contend with her would be like contending with a God -- it is not feasible," Taelian said. "And to ignore her request would be equally foolish. We know too much, now, and can be hunted and killed if we insubordinate or flee. I also have no idea what the pledge was; it was in Old Eldhan. For all I am aware, this very conversation could be going against that oath."

The man closed his eyes, sighing. "What I am saying, is... we have no choice. We cannot resist her, and we are too privy to her goals to be allowed to simply walk away, or live. Brilan Ald must be at least fifteen centuries old. She has planned every detail of this mission to its finest letter -- we are, completely, encircled."

[Arkash]

Taelian remained calm through the delivery of what he'd discovered in the soiree, the story he'd been told. Though he hadn't anticipated such a reaction, it was easily dismissed by the fact that he'd woken the elf up to tell him. Perhaps he was just gathering his senses? Waking up?

There should have been a sense of urgency, some sort of panic, but even when Arkash finished his explanation, Taelian barely reacted.

"Well," he began in response. "Yeah, she said you'd help us... She told you everything?" That was a couple of nights ago, wasn't it? Was the elf any more distressed then than he was now? he couldn't recall. Concern and confusion lay visible in his features while he thought.

'Incapable of stopping her'?

"...What do you mean?" So came the elaboration that Brilan Ald was possibly the strongest mage to ever walk Atharen. But so what? She was still flesh and bone, wasn't she? "So?" he asked with a furrow to his brow, a slight shake of his head. "Taelian, you can just laser her, and my magic is really strong too. You know I-" he paused to cough into his balled fist, a hacking chesty motion that saw him curl his nose as he pursed his lips, and promptly swallow with a cringe. "-Ugh. I- Obliterated like twenty badlanders in one move just last month," he finished his explanation once he was done swallowing the mouthful of corruption he'd coughed up. "Sorry," he added as he pushed his balled fist to his chest and thumped lightly to help it settle.

"We can totally take her," Arkash said with a nod, completely confident in his tone.

"God, shmod-" he spoke with a wave of his claw, then paused as a look of realization struck him. "Except your dad, he's alright," he added.

"A pledge is just words, words change all the time. Besides I didn't swear to shit, just repeated what some old lady told me to say; that's not an oath." The thought seemed to curl his nose a little. "Nah fuck that, I didn't know what I was saying, I'm not honor-bound to follow through."

'We have no choice.'

Arkash curled his nose. "What do you mean?" He started as Taelian continued, only to pause and let the elf finish his sentence. His breathing quickened a touch, drawn through his flared nostrils while his brow accumulated a stern furrow. "...You're just giving up without even trying?" He asked, voice low, accusing in his tone.

"Taelian..." He started, shining eyes darting all about the elf's features in the low light of the room. "I don't think you heard me," he spoke after a moment of composure. "Thousands of people are going to die, Taelian. A thousand is... A lot... It's hard to imagine what that looks like... But I was there, piling bodies hundreds a day in... Shitty run-down homes through all Lower Nivenhain." he paused a moment, eyes seeming to stare through Taelian before he parted his lips to speak. "...All these cold, lifeless things... All their faces just... Stuck there, all of them a different look of horror and disbelief, frozen forever. It wasn't just men and women either... Those tiny limbs and bloody baby teeth scattered in the snow..."

He sat back on his legs as he loosed a shaky exhale, then lifted his hands to his eyes. The shine of his night vision disappeared while he rubbed away the tears that welled there. "This is worse than that, Taelian..." he spoke quietly, wholely sober as he lowered his hands. His eyes took a moment to fix on the elf while he let that sink in. "This will be an entire city at a time, not just a district, an entire city." He spoke again with greater emphasis. "Not just once, but as many times as she wants. What do you think she wants with power like that? Peace?"

"You don't kill thousands for peace... You kill thousands for conquest."

"You know this is wrong."

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[Taelian Edevane]

It was clear, very early on, that Arkash understood very little of what it was to be a Lich -- of how strong they were, of how strong Brilan was. They were both powerful mages, but she was on an entirely different strata from them based on her capabilities alone, and that wasn't even considering her effective immortality. He could tell, though, that Arkash was distressed; he was hurt by his inaction, by his complacency towards defeat, by the fact that he would do nothing merely because he could not. Would not, because he could not. How did he word that delicately -- how did he do so in a way Arkash would understand?

"You don't seem to know what a Lich really is, do you?" Taelian questioned. "Brilan Ald is a Lich, and she was apparently the first of her kind. They are nearly impossible to kill. How else do you think she's survived for fifteen hundred years? I can think of no other person who has lived for so long."

He shook his head, lowering his gaze, locks of hair falling over his face as he grit his teeth. "She's too powerful, Arkash. Even if we managed to damage her form in a surprise blow, she could recreate herself, and likely use Resonance to call upon her allied Liches. Brilan Ald alone is almost like contending with a God -- imagine fighting several mages like her at once? We would be decimated within moments."

That wasn't to mention the second component of this: the Oath, one Arkash seemed all too willing to disregard, as if it were nothing.

"It doesn't matter if you're honor-bound," he said, narrowing his gaze as he peered up at him properly. "You're magic-bound. Whatever that Oath was, it will compel you to perform it. She's cornered us; she's forced us to take an Oath we do not know the contents of, knowing we would have been slain then and there if we did not. The Oath, though, likely will prevent us from harming her objectives. What if we formulated a plan to attack her, only to find our bodies physically incapable of doing so in the moment? She would kill us, obviously, and it would be purposeless."

Arkash appealed to him, then, his unwillingness to even try, his acceptance of all of those deaths. It wasn't so straightforward, for him. Daravin was a land of war; Brilan Ald was simply taking it to the next step, employing a weapon other magisters were not aware of. One more sick twist of the knife, in the endless game that was the Candor, and the Entente. But perhaps her ascension might be good, he wondered. The Sil'Norai would have their home again, and a powerful mage beyond compare would be able to mediate the woes of their world. She could be an ally for the good, perhaps -- she could be honed like the edge of a blade, by words and appeals. Brilan Ald was, like every Lich, an ideal. Her ideal was historical retribution, and her means were questionable, but were they truly unreasonable?

They had slain the Ald'Norai by the tens of millions, proliferated a genophage through their race to prevent them from breeding, locked them in Sil-Elaine and then caused their second genocide centuries later in the Bleeding. The people of Daravin had blood on their hands -- hands they continued to bloody every time they beat, murdered, raped or enslaved a Sil'Norai escaping persecution, or sacrificed a child to perpetuate their rotten Empire.

"What is the death and suffering of those people now, in the face of hundreds of millions of lives spared from corruption, warmongering, cruelty and avarice in the future? Millions of lives are lost in this nation every year to war, to initiations, to famine and disease. Necrodoctors, who could save so many from their illnesses, are the reserve of the wealthy magocrats. Food is harnessed for the Halamire while the serfs starve and toil. This land is due a rebirth, and perhaps the threat of its total decimation is the only thing that will incur that change. Arkash -- are you not opposed to corrupt hierarchies? Should we not seek an end to the Entente?"

He sighed.

"Brilan Ald is no longer a person: she is a machine, like an Artificed creation designated to perform her duty. Liches lose their individuality, their sense of self, and dedicate themselves to their ideals. Do you not wonder whether, in her, we might possibly achieve some truly moral hierarchy, as opposed to the corrupt and greed-driven madness we see around us in every land, and every realm? What if Brilan could change this world to be less gluttonous, envious, avaricious? Would that not be worth it all?"

Closing his eyes, he furrowed his brows, the two strips of hair tightening together, peaking into his glabella as he pondered. There was no easy answer; every avenue carried risk. What if Brilan incurred another event like the Bleeding -- or what if she prevented something like that from happening ever again?

"The Gods have abandoned us, Arkash -- my father included," said Taelian. "In the face of that, perhaps we need someone with supreme power to guide our destiny. We languish, now, in fear of the Unbreathing Horde, in fear of hunger and infection and the unknown -- but must we always? Brilan presents an opportunity to annihilate the rot of this world, and I am not convinced that she is a lost cause."

[Arkash]

"It's... Whatever kind of elf-" He paused, and furrowed his brow. "An... Ald'Norai. It's like that, right?" There was distinct hesitance in his answers when it came to his knowledge on magical scholarship, or any sort of scholarship for that matter. That wasn't to say he was incapable of understanding, as his brows raised and his eyes widened with Taelian's explanation. "Fifteen hundred..." he considered aloud. "...So it's kinda like a blight?" he reasoned, uncertain.

"Okay, but-" he started, then held his tongue as Taelian continued his explanation. He began to grow tense as his breathing picked up, nostrils flaring and narrowing while he drew shallow breaths. The shine of his eyes stared on, somewhere else through his thoughts. "Well, what if we don't?" He reasoned in regard to finding their bodies incapable of acting against her. "What if we can? We don't- We don't know for sure."

His lips pursed again, his thoughtful stare and racing thoughts all but visible through the shining window of his eyes. There was unspoken conflict, heavy disagreement at the tip of his tongue, but he remained still, listening while his thoughts writhed and churned.

"...I would'a begged for my life."

"If 'ew told me I 'ad to die so my tyrant would die too, I would'a begged to live." He began to explain. "Even though I worked every wakin' moment for pennies to pay for my Dad's medicine an' scraped through alleys for rats an' bugs to eat for fuckin' years, I would'a begged 'ew not to kill me."

"Of course I am!" he returned on the question of corrupt hierarchies. "I fuckin' hate 'em all, but I'm not believin' in some fairytale where fuckin' Brilan Ald is gonna be any different than the rest of 'em! This isn' the end of tyranny, it's just a change a' colors. She's-!" he paused again as Taelian went on to explain what the Treveyn really was, how she wasn't all that Arkash perceived, or even remotely close to mortal in mind or body. His breathing was still quick, his watery eyes still darting all about the elf's features while he considered what was said.

"It's different," he said with a shake of his head. "No one tells 'er what to do, and she does what she wants. A golem can't work wivout orda's, an' it doesn't want shit all."

"No..." No supreme power, no guidance, no destiny. The shake of his head was slow, almost defeated. His hands came to hold his face while his fingers pressed to the corners of his eyes. He took a deep breath, then exhaled shakily while he rubbed away the tears there.

A long silence spanned the space after what Taelian had said, and Arkash did little more than breathe and sniffle in an attempt to compose himself.

With a sigh, he lowered his hands and placed them on his knees. "...Maybe you're right," he said at last with a weak smile that didn't show even a glimmer in his eyes. "I'm sorry I woke 'ew, Taelian. I'm jus' overreactin'," he assured with another sniffle. "Maybe that necktie cut off too much blood to my brain, I don' fuckin' know..." he continued with a sigh, then began to climb off the bed.

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[Taelian Edevane]

The man breathed sharply, his chest tensed, eyes narrowing so much as to appear nearly closed. In truth, he was in pain, for he knew this was a meaningful disagreement, and he wasn't certain that the two could see eye-to-eye. He wondered for a moment whether or not his words were just rationalizations, designed to protect himself from his own fear. Did he truly want Brilan Ald to wield that much power? The answer was -- probably not. But what could they do? They were her puppets, now, on a string, and he did not want to die. Like Arkash, he was desperate to live, and that meant - sometimes - doing things that one didn't want.

Taelian was accustomed to following the orders of others to the letter; Aldrin, Eloise, unquestioningly. In some way, he was even walking along his father's divine imperative, wherever that led. Maybe, he thought, this was just a capitulation because it was so easy for him to give in. He had been trained to be more slave than man, and so he was eager and willing to follow along. Always, it was for Elven revitalization, for the primacy or liberation of his kind. He'd fallen into that trap so many times.

"...Look," he began, scrunching his brows together and rubbing along the skin between them with his thumb. "Maybe you're right, Arkash. But you're wrong about one thing: that we have any chance of defeating her. There is only one possibility," Taelian muttered, looking towards the window that overlooked the streets of Amoren, structured and orderly. They were within Brilan's gilded cage, all the while conspiring for and against her. It was dangerous lunacy, but he was - perhaps - too foolish to simply turn Arkash away.

"...If I can become a fully awakened Draedan, then maybe we can succeed. I need--I need to go to Bel, to have my powers reactivated," said Taelian, curling his lips. "If you... want, you can come with me. And after that? We can really discuss potentially defeating her. But we'll need to be slow, and wise, and receptive to adapting our strategies. A frontal attack would never work -- first, my suggestion is that we find a way to undo the Oath of the Mnara, and then perhaps we might include some of her enemies in our strategy. Perhaps Ratheran, or Treveyn Velent of Indorin," he pondered.

Looking towards the other, he frowned, watching him slowly recede towards the door. Taelian moved to the edge of the bed before standing, approaching the Rathor and wrapping his arms around his small frame.

"Are you tired?" he asked, smoothly. "Why don't you come to bed with me, Arkash? I think you could use an arm or two and a night of rest. Let's lay down, my love."

[Arkash]

No conflict was pointless. When it came to the clash of opposing forces, only one could escape the fray victorious. There was always a cause in the young Rathor's eyes, there was always some motive or principal to promote in vanity or prestige, some value to assert the importance of.

The victory might come down to the count of lives lost by either side in a war, but a battle of the mind did not tally cadavers or the price of arms. It came down to the stances changed, the minds swayed in the exchange of blows. And just like any war, the outcome of some battles was worth more than any fortune spent on mercenaries and artillery. The outcome of his battle with Taelian had the potential to change everything. Every inch he could get meant miles down the road, and every word carried the meaning of a library.

It wasn't pointless, not to him.

He sat at the edge of the bed in his retreat, and it was there that Taelian spoke in his favor. Arkash was quiet, still in the dark of the elf's bedroom. His cheeks glistened some stray specks in parts as he turned to look at the elf, and he quietly lifted his sleeve to wipe them dry while he listened and resumed his intent, focused stare with naught but the shine of his night eye to herald so.

His eyes moved lower, falling a little at the prospect, but soon returned to the Sil'Norai with a slight nod; he understood. A frown hung below his accepting gaze, and a slight smile pulled at the corner of his lips before he nodded again. "You did say she's on par with a God," he affirmed his thoughts and followed with a low considerate hum.

"Alright..." He said in response to the ideas Taelian proposed, but most of his thoughts were left unspoken, as told by the pensive stare he wore. "...It'll take time, right," he nodded. "...Yeah. Maybe running in there with lasers blasting isn't a good idea." She did single-handedly make a room of nobles disappear. Taelian was right that it wasn't wise to challenge her head-on. He smiled a little more when Taelian proposed siding with her enemies. "...You're so clever," he said with a forgiving grin.

With a deep breath, he came down from the bedding, took a couple of paces toward the door, and stopped while he pondered. Thoughtful eyes remained locked on the floor while he considered, but widened when those arms came around him. Sharply, he looked up and behind himself to spy the giant from where he stood. Gently, he leaned against the taller man, and sighed deeply. "I'm really tired, but I..." He affirmed with a trail, then shook his head. "I don't know. Taelian, she's... So much stronger than I thought was possible. It was awesome when you cut that manor in half, and I imagined you as like... The strongest mage anyone can be..."

He shook his head finally, then brought it to rest against the elf. "It's so much... I wasn't ready for all this bullshit when I left Lorien..." he said with a slight grin. "I'll lay down," he agreed. "I'm sorry I woke you."

The fine clothes he wore to the Soiree accompanied him to the sheets, even once he'd made it under the covers. There, he exhaled deeply, eyes focused intently on the taller man. "I'll go to Bell with you," he said softly. "But... How do we stop Venedan from controlling me?"

Taelian had expressed such concerns before, and Arkash didn't know how to overcome such things. When all was said and done, he'd bring himself closer to the taller man and tuck his head against his chest. There, he stayed, and listened for a long moment before he spoke a soft "thanks for listenin', Tae..."

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[Taelian Edevane]

He hummed, chuckling faintly as Arkash admitted to once labeling him as 'the strongest mage anyone could be'.

"I'm far from it," he muttered, pondering a moment. "Eloise is a little stronger than me, but there are others stronger than her, too. Some of the Treveyns of Daravin, for example, and the Scatha Sil'tch -- the leader of their army. The Pontifex, I've heard, is unbelievably powerful. Any Ascended magi is leagues above a non-Ascended, really. Like Aldrin--"

He stopped, peering upwards for a moment. Aldrin was a Draedan, but was he not also a Deathstalker? Taelian remembered learning that such a thing was impossible. Was he lying about being a Deathstalker, then, or was Eloise wrong? He wondered.

Fortunately, it did not quite matter. Aldrin was the least of their concerns, far away from them, embroiled in a distant war. He wasn't certain that he had the energy or will to defy Brilan, either, but he would at least think on it all, if only to assuage the smaller man. "The world's full of bullshit, to be truthful," said Taelian. "Lorien's not the only place that's got it. In fact, once the civil war is over, I imagine Lorien will be quite removed from the level of violence and arbitrary suffering most of the world endures. That's why I'm trying to knob the bloody Kindred and get this all done with."

Stroking Arkash's back, he shrugged at the question of whether or not 'Venedan' would be able to control him, before his name-splicing sunk into his mind. "Venedan?" Taelian asked, raising a brow. "You mean Valteran? Venedak is my father. Hah," the man grinned, chuckling, before settling his lips so as to not embarrass him. "Anyway -- to be honest, I don't think he'd actually be able to just do that. And, if he does, I'll just open another portal and we'll leave. I think I'd be able to restrain you easily enough; don't worry about it."

Squeezing him as he laid against his chest, the man sighed out breathily, closing his eyes. "You know I'll always listen to you. I might not always agree, but... that doesn't mean I'm not here for you. Whatever the truth is with Brilan, we'll sort it out, and get it handled. Maybe we can take Chronomancy for ourselves -- accomplish some good with it, perhaps. Wouldn't that be a novel thought?"

He laid back, yawning as he opened up his arms, relaxing with Arkash atop him. The man stroked his hair, his mind running over dangers, possibilities. Maybe they were best reserved for another night.

"Sleep well," he whispered. "I love you, little lizard."