Line reference in The Coming Twilight expanded upon, and fleshed out a bit more. There's also a particularly lengthy "memory" sequence, denoted in almost all italics. It was written from a log made almost ten years ago. Omg, teh ancient history~!
Ayreg turned his head as the lantern flickered a bit. The High Priestess of Rhilshen was there, again, forming from the mists of the darkness on the edge of vision. She stood with her arms crossed, quietly observing Jodiah as if she had been present for quite some time. At length she spoke; her voice that smooth contralto again, without the vile spite it held mere moments before. "Jodiah... what are you doing here?"
Moments before, she was on the other side. Now, she was there. No longer vile, no longer cruel, no longer hating. She sounded as warm as the Emperess ever could, or did. Compared to the image of her before, it was a considerable, considerable change. For the better, of course.
"...Alysia?"
"Mmmhmmm."
She half-smiled at him, then glanced over her shoulder. Her expression as quizzical, if not a bit concerned. "Are you quite alright?" The priestess clasped her hands at the small of her back, the half-smile still tugging at the corners of her lips.
"...You are a dream." Feeling exhausted suddenly, he lowered himself to the ground. This was becoming too tedious to keep up each, and he imagined there were going to be much, much more.
"Just a moment ago you were readied to cleave me in twain for abandoning Rhilshen. And now this...? This is insanity. I must be dreaming."
A gentle shrug of her shadowsilked shoulders was made before she seated herself on the ground before him. She stretched her legs out, leaning back onto her hands. "Maybe I'm just moody," she suggested with a voice that was entirely calm.
So different from moments before, with her barely-contained rage.
"And I've been called a dream of death before. Not for years, though." She wrinkled her nose, as if swimming in the memory of being called that, and that it was not a pleasant dip at all.
"You always were a bit moody, Alysia. I remember that well enough." He smiled, weakly, the sudden change still a bit hard to overcome in his mind. She continued on as if he hadn't said a thing.
"But with all that... with what's been said, there are other things I should say, or I'd be betraying my own sense of honor." Alysia set down Angylsblud at her left side and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around her legs. So different in her reactions and manner. Ayreg could do nothing but stare, very nearly slack-jawed.
"Your treachery... abandonment... probably was only a matter of my wounded pride. I never blood-bonded you, and you were always free to depart Rhilshen." The priestess grinned a little, and nodded at the black blade of the soulforged sword on the ground near her hip. "But even if there was betrayal, you remedied it, Jodiah."
He listened as she spoke.
She never had to bond him - then or now. Inside Ayreg's heart and mind stirred a dark secret that he would never reveal. Not to anyone. Perhaps, at one time, many years ago he would have said something of it, but now?
No.
Never.
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He had identified himself by his first name. That was the way Alysia had known him as, for the most part. From within, the Black Queen — the Emperess — listened to his voice, and then the heavy steel bolts on the iron-strapped thick wooden door slid open ponderously. "Jodie?"
He looked up as she opened the door. Clad in a robe blacker than pitch, his thin lips twitched, while his eyes wandered across her pale cheekbone to her scarlet eyes. "Hello, Alysia."
She leaned against the frame of the door, looking him over quickly. She was not incautious, and it was nearly instinct that drove her to examine everyone as if they could be an assassin sent against her in these tumultous times. Perhaps, also, there was a bit more there. "What's up?"
She was younger then. A bit impetuous. No more than he. Neither were nearly as dignified in their speech and manner as they were now.
Smiling, Jodiah's head canted slightly to the side. "Oh, I was just dropping by to say say hello... you know? See how you were doing?"
Such a fool he was.
She smiled to mimic his, crimson lips parting to reveal perfect rows of neat front teeth. "Was watching the stars..."
He looked up to the ceiling, overhead. He blinked once, staring at the cut stone of the Rhilshen fortress, then looked back to her. Brilliantly green eyes flickered red for a brief instant, though it was likely the ambiance cast by the magelights dotting the corridors. "I can't see them from here."
She shrugged, almost carelessly, and reached out. Pale white fingers wrapped around his as she took him by the hand. "Of course you can't, there's a ceiling over your head." Into her chambers she led him, out to the balcony. With a singular glance back to him, the Emperess pointed up into the midnight sky.
He had made no motion to remove his hand from hers. Niether did she, for a moment. It was a very short few seconds of staring upward before she turned and lowered herself onto a chaise out there on the balcony.
Her head reclined back against the chaise lounge, peering up into the sky. After a few moments, she turned her eyes back to him; scarlet dancing. "There's a meteor shower happening... you can see the stars flying across the sky every now and then. Some superstitious types say it's an omen. Only time will tell. I don't have the gift of foresight."
But she did have many other gifts.
He had removed his armor. Overlapping iron plates, snake-like in appearance, with spikes and skulls and large leather straps. Worn beneath was much more form-fitted black leather, not nearly as massive or imposing as the vicious Thrakan armor that now lay on the cut black stone. He leaned against the chaise, eyes trained upward upon the sky again, but not before sliding down her figure. They discussed business, for a moment; there was a tournament being held within the Undead Association. She had asked him to fight Lord Fabian, since the two needed to be rematched anyway. Once that business was completed, she rose to her feet and moved to a cabinet against the wall just inside the stone archway of her chambers, "Something to drink, Jodiah?"
"Sure. Surprise me with it."
You always liked surprises, didn't you?
"Are you a blood drinker?" she asked, glancing back over her shoulder to him. He had turned his eyes away from the sky, though, watching the graceful motion of her body beneath the shadowsilk robe. Enticing to the senses; he was, after all, a man.
"Yes, mi'lady..." Jodiah Ayreg was no vampire, yet he knew the taste of blood. The coppery taste was known to him both on the field of battle, and the field of rituals. Many of the Nihilian rituals involved the drinking of the blood of the one being sacrificed. At the time? He had even grown a taste for it.
She smiled, very slyly, as she pulled a glass stopper from a fluted bottle, spilling dark, glittering liquid into two glasses. "Good."
She turned, returning to the chaise and sitting upon its edge. Handing him one of the glasses, she went about to explain. "Vintage bloodwine, with Tsend bloodspice."
She explained to him the purpose of bloodspice; that it was a drug, of sorts. It was his first time having tasted it, and it gave the bloodwine a bit of a tangy aftertaste in his throat. "So tell me, what does this 'drug' do?"
"Different for everyone. Alters your state of mind, drops you into a light empathic trance, makes you hallucinate or have true visions... puts you into a killing frenzy." She offered a lazy, relaxed smile as she drank lightly from her glass; it turned into a grin. "It usually enhances my empathy. You did say to surprise you, Jodie..."
"Wouldn't put me into a frenzy. I go into those by myself."
"Mmm. So do I."
Not a peaceful man at all. She was about as equally peaceful. The two were engines of destruction; both as reckless as the other in these times — these Golden Years.
His head tilted to the side, feeling the heady sensation of the bloodspice wondering at his senses. Blotches of color sprang to his vision, but were gone just as quickly. Even so, he did take another sip. "Good stuff."
"Yes," she started, watching him evenly, "and very, very rare. The Tsend elves aren't too keen on donating blood to get someone else high."
He looked up to her, then, his eyes peering over the rim of his glass. His face was smooth, then; Jodiah was a young man at this time. Not even thirty — but not far from it. "So I am special to be sharing this with you, then?"
"Of course you are," she replied, matter-of-factly.
Ayreg smiled.
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That night, a fire was put to wick. That candle still burned for her, as it has since that time nearly immemorial to him now, but she would never know of the flickering little flame. Not from his tongue. He had no great desire to have it cut off by the Emperess for being so impertinent.
Looking up to the illusion that took the form of Alysia Skye, he nodded faintly -- with a little grin of his own. "Remedied it, did I? And to think — all over a damsel-in-distress wandering the streets alone, one night."
Then his expression turned more serious. "I will serve you until such time as you force me to depart Rhilshen under pain of death, Alysia. I feel as if I can never overcome the debt I owe to you for my deeds."
She shook her head remotely."You saved my life, Jodie." A wry smile now to take the sting from that unlikely nickname, used previously as a taunt mere moments before. "And you have killed for me, those who would have killed or destroyed me. And you regained Angylsblud. I could go on and on and on..."
Alysia Skye, the High Priestess and Emperess of Rhilshen extended a suede-booted toe, nudging his own booted foot lightly. "And now I'm in your debt. But what I really wanted to say is that there are no debts unpaid to me, Jodiah -- even though sometimes I might feel otherwise. And you should know by now that I'm a creature ruled by quicksilver emotions. Do not let guilt over some ancient perceived treachery darken your thoughts overlong, hm?"
Ayreg remained silent. What else could he possibly say?
