Topic: The Seven Days of Creation

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-11 13:28 EST

Raithmoore all but forced his new captive along, that sunny cheer that had so easily drawn the delicate Sera in replaced by a wicked darkness, a smirk that spoke worlds of the pain that was soon to come. Icy cold fingers, clamped around her shoulder with the iron grip of a great beasts gaping maw, the fingertips like wicked teeth digging into skin. He ushered her along with that sinister smirk, speaking still, in that same honey sweet voice.

?Come along Sera, my garden waits just ahead,? he said again and again as they walked up the path that led to Citadel Raithmoore.

And true enough to his word, his garden was just ahead. Sadly though, it was a garden quite unlike what Sera might have been expecting. There were few flowers, little plant life that wasn?t a distorted array of failed experiments warped into grotesque forms.

Rather than rows of flowers, there were mutated forms of people, flesh and plant life fused together in a horrendous display of this man?s perverse experiments gone wrong, or right. One could never tell with the workings of the Raith.

On either side of the pair, stood structures that seemed to be made from bone and mottled flesh, decayed bodies and fresh corpses. Death was a smell that permeated the air without end. Perhaps worst of all though, it was quiet, no, silent. The ?garden? of Citadel Raithmoore was home to no sound, save for the distant trickling of what might have been water.

The source of that single sound was found soon enough though. A bend in the path, had them standing before a fountain of sorts, but the basin was made of flesh and bone, the liquid the red ichors of life, blood, running from the mouths of opened skulls, bleached white in the pale sunlight.

He was once again, that calm and peaceful figure, with another kindly smile despite the death grip he held on the delicate one?s shoulder as he ushered her past the fountain, and toward the dark tower that stood before them. As they walked up black marble steps, toward the great set of obsidian doors, he spoke aloud once more.

?And thus, dear fallen one, you?ve seen my garden, now come and have a look at what?s inside my home,? he grinned, a grin that seemed all too sweet, but one couldn?t help feel the disturbing air that came along with it. ?I?m sure it will prove to be a most enlightening experience for the both of us.?

And Raithmoore finished speaking, the black doors opened, revealing the vast antechamber of Citadel Raithmoore, a black hall, a circular room with one window only, thus letting little pale light filter through, giving it an air of being abandoned, a place long since dead, like a ghost town.

?And welcome, Sera, to Citadel Raithmoore.?

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-11 15:56 EST

Pain... The first of so much more to come.

So fragile, so frail; that fist of a grip he made in her shoulder was enough to bring a strangled cry of surprise from the delicate maiden's lips. She shuddered beneath his touch, finding out quite quickly that struggling was a vain thing to attempt. It only resulted in those tight fingers pressing further into her, threatening bones.

Those doe eyes filled with a dark mixture of horror and disbelief. A macabre garden worthy of Satan's leisure hours, decadent in it's nightmare inspiring gore. Art carved from flesh and bone and pain...

Pain that was soon to be Sera's.

The fright was a numbing thing, leaving her feet dumb and leadable as a domesticated calf. She stumbled once or twice, her face too stricken for even the first tears of terror to collect in the corners of her eyes. Dark and sleekly ebon as those wide pools were, they never held such darkness in them before. The voice only made it worse. Oh yes, that honeyed voice; so smooth and out of place in the misshapen devil's walkway they passed through now. All those faces, all those broken limbs and unnatural contortions of bone and flesh.

It made her throat close, for the empathy she held seemed to flood with the echo of old horrors. Sera wilted in upon herself, trembling by the time that those massive doors opened to the deathly silent halls of the Citadel.

Courage, a fragmented thing it was, sparked to life for the briefest of moments, and the delicate one whorled in place, giving Raithmoore's grip a mighty jolt. Such a force for such a small creature, where did it come from? In the most dire of straights, some say even the meakest of creatures can find inhuman strength.

Though she may not have lost the Lich's grip, though she may not have done more than cause herself more pain, she tried, her voice a fierce cry as it tore to life from the sonorous timbres of her throat.

"VILRATH!" This sound was not a song, no. It was a heartwrenching thing, enhanced only by the otherworldly glory of the delicate one's voice. A Seraphim's ardor was not meant for fear, and the shriek of her savior's name was enough to shake a mortal to their very soul, a rift through the air of true terror and despondence.

Somewhere deep down, Sera knew it was already too late to escape what was to come.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-12 11:17 EST

Even that single, momentary struggle, that admirable, though ultimately futile attempt at escape, and horrendous cry, only amused the dark lich king that was Raithmoore, as a dark hand lifted, and then flew outward, the back of his palm connecting against the woman?s cheek in a single movement that prompted silence.

?Hush, Sera, you?ll wake the guests,? he cooed gently, such an odd sound coming from that wickedly twisted mouth.

And like that, the obsidian doors slammed shut with a resounding bang, leaving the two of them alone in Citadel Raithmoore?s antechamber, cut off from the rest of the world. Perhaps Sera would notice the otherworldly tingle in the air, the subtle hints that alluded to the fact that Citadel Raithmoore, wasn?t entirely on the material plane.

?Now then, Sera, time to show you your new room, I?m so glad you?ve decided to visit us and stay for a while,? he said as he led her forward, to the large stone slab in the room, that slowly opened with a deep, grating sound. The black stone twisted, slowly rotating into a full circle, before splitting into two segments, one that went left, the other right, and revealed a stone staircase that led down, down, and down into the darkness of whatever laid beneath Raithmoore?s dark tower.

?Come small one, you don?t want to miss a step and fall, that?s an awful lot of steps to fall down,? said Raithmoore, his voice never faltering from that sickly sweet tone, that contradiction of his very soulless existence.

Raithmoore took an odd and ultimately sick sense of pleasure in her horror, in that confused terror that claimed her hauntingly dark eyes, his own vibrant orbs literally aglow with his malicious intent.

The staircase was a long and winding one, going down in circles beneath them, while the hole above closed with a deafening rumble, leaving them in the impenetrable darkness of the underground. But Raithmoore?s eyes saw as clearly as day, in that pitch blackness that surrounded them, and their viridian light, shone in the darkness like eyes of some lurking beast, stalking its prey from the shadows.

Down, down, and further down still, that winding staircase went, until finally, level ground was set beneath their feet. They found themselves in a hallway, long, narrow, and dimly lit with an ethereal green glow, with a source that was not apparent, as if the source was in fact, the pair walking down the length of the chamber.

?And this, dear Sera, is the gateway to the catacombs, and my city L' Che'el d'lil Elghinyrr, I certainly hope you?ll find it interesting during your stay,? he spoke, as if he was giving a willing guest, the grand tour, his voice and tone ever holding that amiable quality, that had drawn Sera to him in the first place.

As he led Sera through the city, her senses would no doubt be assaulted on several fronts, by the sights, sounds, smells, and overall feel, of the horrid city. The Tombs, which made up the first part of his City of the Dead, filled mostly with large, tomb like structures with the walls and doors carved into symbols of faith, reverence, and fear, to countless dark gods, and Raithmoore himself. A horde of undead crowded the streets, the vast populace parting smoothly before Raithmoore and his ?company?, never falling within ten or so feet, of their unholy lord.

They watched Sera with an open, hungry interest, a ravenous desire plaguing each of the undead denizen?s eyes, their fingers curling and uncurling in the manner of an anticipating child, eager to get his or her new toy. As for the sounds, those were the sounds of madmen. Screams of horror, pain, and sadistic pleasure permeated the air, a never ending myriad of ear splitting shrieks, the crack of bone, the sound of bodies being crushed and disemboweled, and the moans of the twisted citizen?s pleasure, in response to all the torture they induced on their own captives, and even each other.

The smell was one primarily of death, decay, fungus, and a dank, underground cavern complex, for that?s what the city had been built in, a vast array of connected caverns, and a network of underground roads that even led far down, into the deep and dangerous Underdark.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-12 22:38 EST

Limbs shook, her steps faltering despite the deceitful tone that ushered her further and further through the darkening boundlessness of the Lich's Citadel. The flourish of a bruise was a cruel thing against such lily-white flesh, the beginnings of a plum pallor blossoming in the wake of Raithmoore's swift rebuke to her valiant, yet short lived attempt for her safety.

Fear... It wrought the weariest of havocs upon her senses, each pitch and lurch of her emotions their own sweet, odious echo. Murderers would swoon, sociopaths would weep, and even slavers would quiver in revels they'd never felt before, in the face of such an intoxicant from so undilutedly pure a creature.

It was those eyes that kept her throat from pitching again.

Even after the body rending shock of Raithmoore's hand against her face, the delicate maiden was numb, horror-struck with a fear beyond her greatest imagining. Those eyes... They held all the sadomasochistic joys of mad men and women in some unknown circle of hell. Such tortured souls, so many twisted bodies, the stretch of their skin and the ripeness of their delighted pains; it was too much for Sera to hold herself together.

Not a word escaped her lips, but that didn't mean those itching fingers in their vain eagerness to strike out and claim, didn't render her voice a fearful quaver of gasps and half masted utterances. Her body writhed in her captor's unshakeable grip, whimpering useless noises like that of a creature in fright, terrified things...

Pained things.

The empathetic nature buried deep within the fallen damsel began to echo from the inside out. Despite the wicked vibrance of the forms and cries that surrounded her, Sera's origins called from a place much deeper and stronger. The lusts of a mob engulfed by their master's evils were no match for such a soul, though her psyche was a thing as fragile thing as her body; the ardor of her inner spirit could not be held at bay by even these unimaginable abominations.

Could the Lich feel the unconscious swell from within her delicate body? The growing brilliance, like a candle flame that beckoned from the end of a vast hallway? Those dark eyes began to dilate, widening further and deeper within their frame of neat, porcelain skin; and despite wrack of fear that claimed her body, lissome fingers uncurling from the tight fold they'd taken upon themselves. Her hand traveled slowly, lips parted in silence as the little owl began to reach out towards one of the mad throng.

"Please.." The barest, breathiest utterance.

A strike of flame amongst a drenched wood, Sera's power was manifesting, an enthralled victim from her own hidden light.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-13 16:29 EST

This manifestation of power, that light that pierced the inky darkness of the city?s aura, did nothing more to Raithmoore, than anger him. And before such words could be heard from her, before they?d had a chance to be registered a dark pulse swept over the city, a nearly crippling wave of energy from the very void that was his heart, engulfing the throng of mad men in a feverous wave of psychotic fury. They shouted, screamed, begged for blood, demanded it, Raithmoore was only too willing to oblige.

He lifted the small woman with that one hand, bringing her to hover up in front of him, then another furious backhand swept across her face, with the biting of nails that had grown long and sharp to scrape along her cheek.

?Dear Sera, you?d do well if you silenced your efforts, for no matter how valiant they are, they?ll not help you escape,? then a flick of his wrist sent a wave of power down his arm, a pulse that shot into her stomach, to toss her forward, nearly into the maddened gathering of undead.

Skeletal hands, decaying fingers, even half broken jaws opened and lifted, hoping to capture this pure creature that had been made to fly right over head. One even used the others to leap high above the crowd, rotted hands grasping for the poor girl?s ankle.

But the demands of their master silenced them all with the wave of black that parted into inky tendrils that ensnared his captive around the wrists and ankles, reaching out into some unseen darkness, and clamping down forcefully. He made a display of her in the city, for a few moments, sending jolts of energy from those dark lines into her body, with waves of nerve wracking pain to follow, and once he?d been satisfied, she was lowered to stand beside him once more, with that iron hard grip falling into place on her shoulder.

?Now then, sweet Sera, let us be off,? and he started off, his honey sweet voice having faded to the cruel darkness that was indeed, Raithmoore?s very being, dragging her along if he had to.

The city had fallen silent with the display of their dark lord?s power, falling back, their eager hands falling still, lest they too, suffer Raithmoore?s wrath. And soon, they left that first section of his city behind, and were walking toward the gates of the Necropolis.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-13 17:13 EST

Copper was a fine, bright taste in her mouth then as she stumbled along with the angered Lich. What had happened? A ginger risk to her now swollen cheek resulted in a sharp sting, teeth finding the softness of her lower lip as a reactionary hiss deadened behind her teeth.

It was then she recognized the taste as her fingers pulled away with a fine sheen of red...

Blood.

Confusion and pain were a precious painting across her features, somewhere between her eyes filling with the horrific, decomposing faces of the soulfully hungry undead, Sera found her body sailing over the crowded streets. The sudden jerk of her halt, and the cool, composed recapture from her assailant.

Raithmoore's audible displeasure cut away any form of voice the delicate owl may have had. Willowy digits gripped tight against the sickening, foreign sensations that throbbed through her little body, hoping to ignore the trickling scent of her own rended flesh. The power that'd been building had been snuffed out, shaken into darkness like a breath to a candle's flame. Sera still held no true concept of herself, nor her abilities, and in the face of such ruthless abuse, nature could only pulse so bright.

Dark pools, though no longer dilated, were still a dominating feature upon the small neatness of her face, and they were wide with the sights that greeted her wandering gaze. She was subdued, though trembling; taking one breath at a time, one bumbling step after the next alongside the undead Drow. Dazed eyes beheld the sight as though from another body, as if she were an observer of a demonic play of torture and tragedy. Her abdomen gave a mighty lurch, and a sudden wave of nausea stole her fast, her stomach a series of trembling nots, quaking from the abuse of the Lich King's anger.

Who was this tiny woman wobbly-limbed and weak in the grips of a dark madman? Who was this owlish creature that quivered with the aftershocks of pain? Where had that little house gone with it's fairy tale walls and charming decomposition of nature and time? Where were her feathers? Her feathers!

Up shot a hand to the wild tangles of her midnight hair, relief serving as a welcome flood in the face of pain her body was still echoing from. One, two... Where was three?

Count again, little Sera.

One, two, one, two, one, two... It was a mental mantra that brought the first glimmers of tears to those ebon eyes, the loss of that piece of plumage. Like a hare in the throes of alert from the encroaching steps of a predator, her gaze flared with a mad fear, her fingers wilting as they vainly stroked the place where that third feather should be tucked.

She'd just lost the first piece of herself.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-13 18:41 EST

And the Necropolis came next. Those ancient, black gates opened with a loud creak of protest, granting access to the Necropolis, the main section of Raithmoore?s city. The homes there were fit for the Victorian era, large manors, almost palace like with their lush decoration, but dark symbols of the city?s unholy faith in their dark pantheon, and lord, Raithmoore.

The undead there seemed less, enthralled and maddened, than the host of creatures that had been their initial welcoming party. These citizens, had a more regal and refined air, though were no less dark, cruel, and sadistic, than the others. They watched their master pass by, with his captive, in open, though restrained curiosity, smirking at the fear that they could practically taste in the air around the poor girl.

Murmurs of welcome home and praise toward Raithmoore followed the pair throughout the city as he lead Sera to that great, and dark tower that stood as a tall edifice to symbolize his dark rule, in the center of the terrible city. As they neared the tower, the howls of ancient and cruel beasts began to sound off, just before the hellish creatures emerged from the shadows cast by the towers walls.

They were odd, scaled creatures, with canine features, long muzzles, four legs, and the like, though they held no eye sockets, no eyes, and had tails that broke off into four sections, whipping about with tiny sharp spikes, if you will, on each end. There were a dozen or so of these creatures, flanking the pair as they walked, growling at Sera, snapping at her heels should she prove to slow, acting as just another scare tactic from the lich king.

The tower itself, had no visible doors, no sure sign of entry, yet he continued forward, and touched his hand to the obsidian surface upon reaching it, which prompted a sudden burst, and warping of the image before them, heralding the black snaking lines that shot out, and engulfed Raithmoore and his ?guest?, to draw them in, through the walls.

They appeared, were deposited, into a chamber made of stone, with chains hanging from the walls, shackles ready to bind prisoners, and the remains of the last guest, old, brittle bones, that were slowly crumbling to dust. He waved a hand, which cleared the room of those remains in a blast of flames, literally vaporizing what was left of the captive, before he moved toward the shackles, that had began to glow red hot, with the heat of his cleansing fires.

He cooled them with but a blow of his breath upon the metal though left them hot enough to scorch a bit longer, another reminder of his captive?s precarious position. Shackles were bound around Sera?s wrists and ankles, the chains holding enough slack to let her move around, sit or stand, but little else.

?Enjoy your stay, dear Sera, I?ll see you with the next turning of the sun,? he said in that once again, honey sweet voice, as he walked out of the chamber, closing the thick metal door behind him with an audible bang, followed by the sound of the lock sliding into place, leaving her in the pitch black darkness of captivity.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-13 20:26 EST

Awash in nightly terrors and misguided dreams, the frail woman twisted and twitched in the fitful throes of the sleep she'd fallen into after Raithmoore's abrupt departure. Her breath came labored past slightly parted lips. The dark, fine line of her brows drew knots and wavering arches of a piteous pleader. Eyelids crinkled, lashes tweaking with each wilt and wither through her sleep. It was a fine, unconscious dance of a tormented soul; captured by evil and thrust into the confusion and lingering guileless nature of her gentle mind, Sera was more vulnerable here than the inside of the Lich's merciless fist.

"Have you eaten today Sera? And you legs... Have they gotten any better?" Dark, soothing, calming, like moonlit waters that trickled over the dark stones of a river's bed; Vilrath.

"Come to me, let me take away your pain, dear quarry of Evil..." Soft, empowered, unbreakable. Why couldn't she place this voice despite it's warming familiarity?

... She awoke with sharp, breathy shriek.

Her chest heaved, the line of her clavicle a fierce outline against the pounding of her heart and the fine nightmare's sheen that clung to her damp brow. Had she been asleep long? It was still so dark. So dark, were their rain clouds this morning? Maybe if she rolled over and stole away into the cool face of her pillow for a few more squirreled hours.

Then came the clinking slither of heavy irons, the shiver and shudder of metal against linked metal. It echoed forever, a distant chime of some perverse Unseelie's laughter far away into the darkness that engulfed her pale form. The slack was unbearable, too short to get comfortable, yet too slack for the chains to take her support in suspension. Each movement was a chore, for her body sang with the soreness and tension of previous inflictions. Fingers inched, straining, brushing gently against the unsightly swell of her cheek; her nails catching upon dried flakes of blood as her tongue found the sour taste of it lingering inside her cheek.

"Why..." Sera choked out the obvious question to herself quietly, flinching inwardly as she noticed the hoarseness of her voice against the dark silence that enveloped everything around her. Had she cried out in her sleep? What hurt the delicate maiden the most was that despite the grit that clung to her shattered voice, it was still mellifluous, haunting, curling like the nodes of a mourning dove struck down by a hellish fire.

'Why me?'. Unable to stand the sound of her own lonely sound, the small woman thought inwardly to herself, fingers curling and uncurling methodically. That stopped quickly though, for there was tender flesh straining against the metal cuffs that haloed her wrists. The flinch caused her toes to curl, and the dual sensation of both sets of appendages singing of burnt pain.. She felt completely trapped.

Fingers reached again despite the pain, fingering at one of the last two feathers that stuck out from the frumpy fray of her ebon tresses. The gesture brought a listless curl to the thin line of those petal lips she bore. Images came, calming memories, friendly faces, soft scents of dark flesh or frumpy black hair; the warmth of a body radiating beneath the heather imbued surface of her bed sheets. For all but a moment her pain and chaos melted away, her soul taking flight in the shelter of her mind...

That is until a shiver of delight turned into a sharp, sudden moan of pain and the leadening of her body once more. Sera was curled upon her knees, her arms weighty things as they wilted, hands half open, fingers lifeless as a massive sob shook her through every inch of her body. Even her joys brought pain, and fragmented things as they may be against the dark, snarled backdrop of her past, they were all she cherished.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-13 21:42 EST

The world fell away around Sera, in a sense. That cell had suddenly been replaced by what could only be described as a medieval torture chamber, with devices that had long since been rendered outdated, though still served a purpose in the hands of the evil lich, along with more modern technologies here and there.

Screams echoed down from unseen halls, screams of pain and horror, blood chilling, heart wrenching, terrifying screams that spoke of a torture of the like, that none had endured before.

That was Raithmoore?s specialty, you see. Finding out what it was, that would hurt someone the most, finding out what would be the best, or more appropriately, worst way to torture them, to break them into whatever he wanted, to mould them to his twisted desires. Sera, was just his next experiment, her questions upon waking as to why, were simply answered. She?d simply been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Sera?s chained position to the wall had been swapped for a position between two stone columns, in front of which stood Raithmoore, staring down at his weakened, frightened, and saddened captive with an odd sense of sadistic delight.

?Good morning, sweet Sera,? Raithmoore cooed softly, walking around the girl slowly, inspecting with a scrutinizing gaze. ?How was your first night here? Did you sleep well?? asked the lich, mocking tones being what came from the cruel lich?s dead lips.

He stopped before her, crouching down to be eye level with her slumped form, deceivingly gentle fingers cupping under her chin to angle it up, directing her face toward his so he could look into those haunted depths with his own lifeless ones.

?Tell me, Sera, where do you come from? What are you? And those scars,? he said as Sera would feel something brush against her skin and against one set of scars through the thin, white dress she wore, cold and dark. ?Where did you get those scars, I wonder??

He grinned kindly at her, such a contrast to the cold, though soft touch of his hands, or the evil light that reflected in his viridian gaze, and the overall sense of dread, that permeated his kingdom, his home, and his body.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-13 22:16 EST

Sera felt as if she were shore that the tide had just returned to; a wash of anxiety and confusion the water that lapped at her knees now. Those tormented cries, that ungodly chorus of soul breaking suffering. How could anyone harbor the will to make such evil music?

Yes, as utterly spoiled and peeling as those voices were, the delicate maiden still found a music in them. Though terrible and heart withering, it was music, and she drank it in about as willingly as she did unwillingly. What kind of person was she if se couldn't bare witness to these people's cries? They were suffering, and would no doubt end up the next pile of crumbling bones in the catacombs of this twisted creature's playground.

His touch, it broke her thoughts of honor with the instinctual need to shiver. Such a voice and brush of fingers did not belong to a person capable of such savagery, did it? As the delicate maiden's eyes refocused their faraway haunt, she swallowed thickly, watching Raithmoore's lips move without much attention to what they were actually murmuring. Up her gaze drifted then, until she found the bore of her captor's eyes. Such dark things, so devoid of the warmth she so often saw in the intentful hues of her friends and companions. There was no life here, only the crumple of seamless, unforgiving darkness. It was like the force that once truly inhabited this man had long taken it's flight, leaving a shell of destructive, unharnessed hate behind.

So much malice... Such desire he bore down onto her with, she shrank from that gaze, flinching visibly as though he'd struck her, the little chin moving from his hand as she shook her head in mute disbelief. No one could have eyes like that, viridian could not be so empty, so black.. No color in existence could be so.

Again she flinched, her attention a wide-eyed thing of renewed pain as she caught the tail end of his second query. Her scars?

So much blood..

Weakly, feebly, Sera answered the Lich truthfully. Her gaze was downcast, her melodious voice still hinting to a hoarseness that was unmistakably due crying out in one's sleep. "I do not know." Honesty was no doubt an amusing, if not equally disappointing thing to the Lich, but the tone she catered to. It just couldn't be denied; soft, barely there, the whisper of a child enflamed by their own misguided trust.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-13 22:44 EST

?Oh, but that?s where you?re wrong, dear Sera,? he continued to coo gently, again taking that chin of hers in his grasp, though the second time around, fingers clamped tightly over her jaw, jerking her to face him once more. ?You do, sweet Sera, somewhere in that pretty head of yours, lay the answers, to what you are, where you?re from, and why you?re here.?

?Now, it?s about time we get started on digging those answers out, isn?t it, Sera?? he asked while standing, jerking her head to the side as he released her to flick his wrist. The chains that bound her to the floor moved, the rings that held them sliding along, to travel up the two columns that stood on either side of the poor woman. They climbed, so to speak, up the lengths of the columns, to lift the small woman from the ground, and suspend her a few feet above it.

He circled around and around, inspecting her with an intense gaze, testing the bindings by tapping the chains lightly, or jolting them sharply, here and there, before he walked to stand in front of her once more.

?Now then Sera, what is the first thing you can remember, all together, your first memory ever?? he asked as he walked around her, flicking his wrist a second time to have a length of leather slide from somewhere unseen, it?s pronged end left to scrape against the ground as he walked circles around her.

Before the answer could come, the crack of a whip sounded off in the air, which was followed by the pain of a pronged end of leather scraping through the back of her thin dress, and down her spine, before it was painfully yanked away.

Pain, Raithmoore had come to realize, was an amazing way of learning about people. You could learn how brave someone was, how willful, how tolerant, how foolish, how much of a coward they were. But pain could spark memories, pain could create strength, whichever the case, pain was always, his tool of the trade, his preferred method of learning.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-13 23:21 EST

Soft jolts of sound, little things, breathy things made of fright as her body lifted high. She did not struggle so much as tremble, her body pressing in on itself as much as the taut chains would allow. Those dark, soulful eyes of hers fell down once more, her head following suit, allowing the curtain of her tangled hair to hide the small oval that was her face.

Then came that crack. So sudden, so fierce, it was a shock first before a true sensation. Her eyes went wide behind the ebon veil of her hair, more disbelieving than pained...

At first.

It was all within that breadth's of a second after the initial strike, but it felt like eons to the delicate creature. The pain felt slow and creeping, when in reality it was a split second's awareness. Pain was a swift creature, and it rode on razor sharp wings down the length of her spine. It was a reaction, like flicking a switch to the light of a room; her body bowed against the chains as her mouth tore open, her head arching back as she shrieked her newest acquaintance; agony.

It was the tear of her gown that brought her senses back from the initial jolt of pain, her jaw snapping closed with the jarring click of teeth against teeth. Just as quickly as her eyes flashed open, they squinted shut, her body alive with everything unpleasant as gooseflesh broke across the pale ruin of her skin.

Already a gruesome bruise from the Lich's thrust of power to her stomach was a hand span's yellow and purpling flower across the porcelain expanse of her belly. That one cheek that'd received double the mistreatment was swollen and scabbed, her wrists and ankles vehement in their physiological rage against the bands of metal that scorched and bound them the prior even.

So delicate, so easily rended and bruised; even with these things against the strung maid, Raithmoore would not receive an answer. He'd temporarily stung her tongue. Whether it was out of complete fear or some unexpected defiance, Sera could only shake her head, her breath fast. "Please... It hurts!" She whimpered then, her body cringing as it readied itself for another assault.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-13 23:51 EST

?Does it now?? he asked in that same kindly tone, tilting his head as he walked toward her, dark fingers dipping into the line of crimson that already trickled down her spine. The tattered gown was taken in a handful, and then yanked, the sound of ripping fabric a loud noise to pierce the air. It was tossed aside, falling almost silently to the dirty stone floor, left to rest in dried up blood and entrails.

?Then I must not be doing it right,? he said with a wicked grin as he circled around her, looking up at those dark eyes once more, while unseen waves of darkness brushed against, then past her like a lovers caress. ?I?m sure I?ll have everything down after a few tries though.?

He displaced himself, disappearing for an instant, to appear behind her once more, with another crack of the whip sounding off. This time though, the pronged end flew right past Sera?s cheek, visible in her peripherals, just before it snapped back, never once touching her.

?Now, Sera, I?ll ask again,? he started as he lifted the whip, preparing for another strike. ?What is the first thing you remember? The first memory you can recall?? he asked while another crack of the whip heralded the approach of that pronged tip as it struck flesh, aimed for the highest set of scars, slashing down from her left shoulder blade, to cross her spine.

?Speak up now, the less I hear, the more you hurt,? he informed her as the whip was rolled up in hand, and gripped loosely, prepared for another strike already. This method would continue for hours, questions and strikes, over and over, until she?d tell him everything.

He asked about her memories, her life since arriving to Rhy?Din, those she held dear, everyone and everything was looked into, asked, studied, and so on, all throughout the long, painful day, a day that was nowhere near finished.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-14 16:53 EST

Sera lost count of the strokes, and she'd lost count of how many times she'd cried out. It was only when the lashes kept falling and she couldn't muster the strength to scream anymore that she realized just how truly battered she was...

Every inch of her felt alive with pain, burning, stinging, and ruined. Long, split gashes had wept endless rivlets of crimson tears during Raithmoore's interrogation, their trails forming paths and roads cross the lily white expanse of her skin. Slender arms had gone numb from the suspension as the frail beauty sang beneath the taloned edge of the Lich's whip. How many hours had it taken until the small one had come to realize the truth in her captor's words? Countless strokes, each seemingly worst than the last, coming again and again to add another fine, vibrant line of ruin to her flesh.

Tears were helpless against such an ungodly length of questioning at the ends of that whip, and they joined their red brother's trail in a painters unforgiving dance. Every muscle burned and twisted, her body knotted from the stress of constant bucking and bowing; her face a breathless scene of beauty despite the anguish that painted her porcelain features.

The words that spilt from her lips came out between sobs of agony and sharp, sonorous screams of pain. Those piteous voices from before, did they hear her lament now?

Sera had told him of the pain, of the blood and feathers. The sensation of falling far and crumpling hard. Names were tougher things to glean from the delicate maiden, for her heart was far too protective, fearful that somehow the very murmur of her loved ones would render them unprotected against the mad man. But hard as she tried, her cries echoed of her friend's names and how deeply she felt for them.

Aja, Alec, Sivanna, Vilrath, Desaid, Throx, Lani, Thaelic... Had their names ever been held in such a tone of complete and utter pain? Her voice alone was a hoarse incantation, an otherworldly plea as she screamed each name as though it was her last breath, her last hope. Perhaps they could even hear her through the dark shell of time and space that Raithmoore held her? Either way, shame and defeat came to know her turmoil as lovers, and Sera... Drained and somehow numb to her captor's relentless torment, fell limp, barely a whimper trembling from the thin delicacy of her throat.

There were no words now, only breath and reopened scars.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-14 17:34 EST

As the words fell from her trembling lips, his own ebon ones twisted into a wickedly satisfied smirk. Slowly, the lashed came to a halt, and the chains lowered, dropping the beaten woman to the cold stone floor that had been caked with her blood.

?Good Sera, now was that so hard?? he asked in that same, honey sweet tone, walking around to stand before the slumped woman. He dropped to one knee, and took up her chin in his cold, yet soft fingers, to force her to look up at him.

?Now, you said feathers, and blood,? he looked around at the blood that caked her, the ground, and so on. ?Feathers, like these??

He reached around, taking one of those feathers that she cherished so, and plucking it away, to move it in front of her face once more.

?Feathers, you seem to have an infatuation with them, I wonder why?,? he flicked his wrist, sending the white feather into the air, before it fell back down toward her head. But it wasn?t the only one, more feathers came, countless fell from the air above her. Landing on her blood caked back, falling to rest on her skin, shoulders, everywhere. Even places that she hadn?t been wounded, suddenly found themselves moist with the crimson warmth of blood.

?I wonder why?? he mused quietly, before standing and turning away. ?But that is a study for another day, goodnight Sera, it?s been enlightening,? he waved his arm dismissively, which again, resulted in a sense of the world falling away from the small woman until she found herself chained, once again in her cell, feathers still slowly drifting from the ceiling for a few more moments.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-14 18:49 EST

'He-here.. Here Sera. It took me a while, and. And there was this big bird, but. But here. I..' A lad not much taller than the delicate maiden stepped forward, his steps more of a stumble than a purposeful advance. His hands were thin, cradling things as they stretched outwards. In them lay a feather of the most striking black with a variable starburst of pristine white from the quill upwards, flecking little stars of brightness into the otherwise ebony perfection of the plume. '...I have a gift for you.'

Dark eyes blinked owlishly, curiously, the small Sera reached out to pluck up the offering; her face melting softly, absorbing her gift. Lissome digits traced the complimenting contrast of light and dark.

Such a gentle young man, his eyes wary and hopeful all at once. Those soft green eyes were almost enough to distract from the fair pink flush that'd taken his nervous expression.

'Desaid.. It's lovely! Thank you so much!' Joy was a lovely landscape that spread it's dawn across her neat features as those careful hands made a loving cage about the feather. 'Thank you...'

Sera awoke with tears streaming unrestrained down the curves of her cheeks, her body jolting awake with a small clink and shift of chains.

Chains...

"No.. Please." She sobbed dryly to herself as her fingers and toes curled tightly, because while sleep took away the torment of such gentle memories, consciousness brought a more physical pain. Aches and stings, the crusting of new wounds and the visceral ache of old ones shed open and bare. It was those deep, deep scars that hurt the most, for they too had suffered the lashings. And those feathers. Oh those soft, familiar things. They brought a fresh wave of emotion, beautiful and unbearable all at the same time. There was a solace to be found in that sweet agony, a newfound treasure in the things she dreamt of, the faces that haunted her, and the gentle voices of those that glowed within the ever welcoming encompass of her heart.

As today's tears wetted new life to the cake of yesterday's wounds, Sera could not form the questions a more precise and time tested mind would contemplate. What was the Lich after? Why the deep questioning? What was the macabre interest in her suffering for the truth? Why the interest in the scars? Her origins?

"Someone. Anyone..." Her voice was a poignant thing, like the wrench of a heart in the throes of doubt and dawning listlessness. Even there upon the floor, amidst the distant keen of others in their torture, be it waking or dreaming, Sera had never felt more alone in her anguish. What was only her third day in the clutches of the Necropolis' man ruler had felt like the leaden of three lifetimes.

And she'd lost another feather.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-14 19:06 EST

Again the world fell away for the poor, beaten Sera, to have her lay out on a table, her face down, with a small hole to let her breath, and see the blood stained stone beneath her. Shackles held her here as well, while a cold, smooth hand, Raithmoore?s hand, traveled up the length of her spine, counting the scars, cuts, the ridges, along the way.

?I believe I?ve figured out what you are, Sera, and where it is you hail from,? he informed the woman while his hand ran back down her spine, this time leaving a trail of clean, though scarred skin in it?s wake. There was no point in letting her get too infected and dirty, she might die sooner than he?d like.

?And after today, I think you?ll understand as well,? Raithmoore said as Sera would feel the sharp pain of what might have been a blade cutting into her back, a needle, to be exact. Something was injected into her, sending a cold wave through her bones.

?Can you guess, Sera, what these six scars represent?? he asked while the needle was drawn away and set aside. He grabbed the edge of the table that she was shackled to, and lifted it, which, due to its design, had it lift up and put her in a position as if she were standing, so she could see Raithmoore when he walked in front of her.

He was holding a book, that unholy lich, a thick tome, the pages yellowed with time, fragile like dead leaves. ?And tell me, Sera, what do you know of angels? Of Seraphim?? that grin was a wide and wicked thing at best; she was like the Holy Grail for his studies, something of such a pure, celestial origin, so free of taint.

Save for the taint of the mortal realm, of pain and sorrow, and of a love that he?d yet to deduce. There the essence still lingered, the touch of a being darker than her, darker than those she traveled with, something of an unholy origin.

?Why, dear Sera, have you fallen?? the question was whispered under his breath, far too quiet to be made coherent by her ears, one of pure, though sick curiosity.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-14 19:34 EST

Frightened animals couldn't boast such a fine, body-rending tremble as the one that stole through Sera's fragile frame. That cold, unfeeling touch, false in it's intentional leniency, it forced an unwilling, half choked sound from the delicate maiden's throat. It was a sound quickly bitten back though, somehow she knew it would only make that fiendish smile of his flourish.

This talk of her scars, the ancient bit of book in his dark hands, and Sera.. Phim? Half her name, yet a word she'd never quite heard before. That lingering chill that slithered through her body from the sharp bite that bore into her back, it resonated now, making her brow wilt and contort with uncertainty as thoughts came back to haunt her.

Aja often called her 'little angel'. Even a stranger... His skin was blue, his eyes like rye pitches of the deepest blackness. The jagged eruptions, half halted and misshapen in their shorn growth; he spoke to a woman with the finest, curliest hair and the eyes just after a massive tempest's sway. He spoke of Sera, in disbelief as to what she'd done to cause Him anger. Anger who? All these little things, bits and baubles of her time spent in Rhydin, fused in an unholy manner with the Lich's dark, knowing murmurs.

"Seraphim?..." There it was, a little hope; some semblance of Sera's same, sweet self. Her little habit of echoing that which she did not quite understand. Despite the resonance of pain that still haunted her body, the owlish creature found curiosity rearing it's guileless head. How could this drow know anything about her? Vilrath, in the little maid's mind, was an infallible figure. Even now in the face of her captor, her mind still throbbingly rich with the knowledge he enjoyed his 'work', Vilrath had not failed in any way towards her. A child's trust was such a fragile thing, and now.. Well, it was just a thread-no, a feather away.

Pain was a cruel lesson that she wasn't to forget too soon, though, and Sera shook her head, minute a movement as it might have been in the face of her current position. Though silent, she answered her task master, her fear of the whip already a deep-seeded thing.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-14 20:03 EST

?Tell me, little Seraphim, why have you fallen?? he asked as he tapped the table above her head, sending it down once more to lay her horizontally before him. He walked around; slamming the tome shut, and dropped it on a table as he picked up a piece parchment with flowing script and odd drawings scratched onto its surface.

?Sera, Seraphim, oddly convenient, it helps to piece the puzzle together,? he held the parchment in view for her, holding it under that hole in the table for her face. A seraph, the six winged angel holding the holy symbol of God in one hand, and a sword in the other.

?You don?t recognize this? Do you Sera?? he asked as he walked away, letting go of the parchment, with remained suspended in the air before the woman for her to view a while longer. ?No matter,? he stated as a hand came down to run a circle around the largest set of scars, leaving a cooling sensation in its wake. ?We?ll make you recognize it, we?ll make you remember.?

He repeated the process of running circles around each of the scars, sending a cooling wave out and around them, healing them over once more as he stepped back, and brought his hands together in a sign of concentrated thought.

?Let?s see if this wakes you up, Sera?? hands fell to his sides, then lifted while his cold lips moved to form silent words, calling in energies that he hadn?t touched in centuries. The light of such magic, would have at one point, pained the dark lich, but now that blanket that covered him, that shroud of malice and evil, did plenty to protect him.

Light, was a thing he?d never truly grow used to, once a drow, always a drow, and even in his undead state, the bright light that shone next, the flash of gold, was enough to pain his eyes, having them close for a split second, only to open in order to witness the gruesome scene of blood and feathers.

No doubt, it was a painful thing, that sudden growth of wings that had been torn from her delicate form. Six feathered appendages ripped through the sealed flesh, sending crimson stained fleck of white flying about sporadically, blood like red shrapnel splattered onto the walls as bones painfully grew into place where they had once ceased to exist.

The Seraphim would have her six back, those wings were quick to come, growing instantly in a sharp, sudden, and horrendous burst of white hot pain, enough to make even the hardiest of men dizzy and disoriented.

But the fact that they had grown, proved Raithmoore?s assumption correct. For if he?d been wrong, poor Sera simply would have died, and been used to feed the dark hounds that surrounded his tower, but here she was, feeling unimaginable pain no doubt, looking the part of a Seraphim once again, though perhaps a bit darker.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-14 22:26 EST

"No... I don't want." Her voice was a trembling whisper, the plea of a terrified innocent; half broken and unsure. Raithmoore's words were sounds not to be denied, whether by some dark, drow magic or by the weakened state he'd broken Sera down to thus far, his voice haunted her with each slithering word.

Those gentle caresses... That pulse, that warmth, that flooding, blinding-gold light. That reverberation, it sang so sweetly through her body, and for the briefest of moments the delicate one felt the barest taste of a home she'd long forgotten. Delicate echoes, steady rhythms of tenderness that were so abominably out of place coming from the Lich's wicked touch.

"No.. n-no." Her skin quivered, and as that gentle murmur of power began to grow insistent, so grew her voice. Something tugged then, something white-hot and bright, heavy, pulling and pushing all at the same time. Something stirred deep beneath her skin, writhing, growing, stretching.

And then it erupted.

"NO!" The fallen one's scream was incomparable, a drowning thing bombastic proportions. Fingers bit mercilessly into her palms, blood flowing freely there as it did her renewed birth of appendages. Through the inexplicable pain she was thrust into, something far deeper flew apart, invisible, but just as horrifyingly painful as the bloody fragments that pasted every inch they could reach. Her mind had been a fragile thing, a snarl of black, foreboding things that always seemed an impass for the knowledge of her life before Rhydin.

Golden splendor, gates of the most ethereal glory. Forms cast in years upon years of worship and master artisans. Countless cathedrals could not equal the splendor behind her dark eyes; sights unfit, too grandiose, too brilliant to beholden to mortal man. Her power was of song, or ardor and invisible flame that enraptured even the most vile of hearts. Her body quailed with these visions, these memories she'd always known to be her own. Everything in the zero of the moment, aligned...

All it took was the pain. The pain equal to that of The Fall, The Tumble from Faultlessness into the lands of man. Tears were a fierce thing, hotter than the spray of blood that slathered the Lich's chambers.

As her feathers rose, they formed a mighty stretch, like the legs of a newborn foal that just needed the dust shaken off. Majestic, awe inspiring, a sight truly enough to bring even the blind to their knees. Through her cast of pain and marred skin, the bloody, sticking stretch of tissue torn asunder, Sera glowed a creature of grace all her own. Though impressive, she was still captive, and as the Drow noticed, darkened just ever so slightly. Some lingering presence had emerged from deep within her freshly opened mind, something sweet and beguiling, a call straight down to the very core of her immortal soul. An all too familiar human emotion tainted her angelic stature, a cliche in the truest and most beautiful of forms.

The Seraphim had fallen in love.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-14 22:52 EST

That awe inspiring sight did no more than to draw a smirk on Raithmoore?s part, a callous and cold thing of triumphant and sadistic glee. Viridian hues alight with the contradiction of darkness watched the splendor of the seraphim unfold.

?Beautiful,? even the darkness that was Raithmoore could appreciate beauty. ?Shame, that it?ll die in a few days time,? he said quietly, stepped around the seraphim with that wide, wicked smirk ever present.

?Perhaps?? he paused, shaking his head. Cloning the seraphim would be a fruitless endeavor, and the idea was tossed aside almost before it could even be considered as the world fell away for Sera once more, trapping her in that feather strewn cell that had been her home for the last two nights, and would be so this second night.

Bindings of an inky blackness shot from the walls, wrapping around the magnificent wings that had been reformed by Raithmoore?s hand, and forced them to fold, binding them securely into place as chains realigned on the walls, holding her in place once again.

Raithmoore appeared before her then, crouched down with a look of utter triumph on his cold, lifeless face.

?We made quite a bit of progress today, didn?t we, dear Sera?? he asked with a faint tilt of his head. ?Tomorrow, we?ll make even more progress. I?m sure you?ve much more to tell me now, than you did last night, I?m looking forward to it,? a hand lifted, brushing in an oh-so gentle caress against her cheek, before he stood and turned for the metal door.

?Goodnight, Sera, rest well, we?ve got ourselves a busy day tomorrow,? and with that, Raithmoore stepped out, closing the door with that same resounding thud as before, and slid the bar into place as he retreated to his own quarters.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-15 00:02 EST

Sleep would not come to the delicate maiden all night long. No manner of length she closed her eyes for would allow her body to tip into unconsciousness. Ebon depths, now bright with a rekindled glow, resonated with the memories she'd been denied since her trauma of the fall from her position in the clouds.

"No mistake shall be made, Dark King, you will not keep me caged..." Her murmuring was a sudden thing, bold and striking against the dark silence the Lich's absence engulfed her in. Wings shifted despite the restraints, testing them, aching for a stretch after what seemed like an eternity of loss. The endorphins were wearing off though, and the bright kindle of spirit that prompted those quick rebuke of words died just as quickly as it came.

Though very much the same little woman, Sera seemed to hold a new twinge of confidence that didn't much demean from her gentleness. The situation had just changed a bit, but the fallen maid was no less frail, her state of capture and aching no less severe. Wrists flexed, testing, testing. This newfound strength was a wearisome thing though, for every inch she tried seemed to scream at her to be still, to rest, to sleep...

But slumber was an elusive creature, and all through the night she knelt there, her mind an unraveled mess that needed to be woven back together. So many things, so many thoughts, so many memories. For so long she'd been eager to unwind them, and now it was all her last vestiges of strength to collect them back up once more. Even now her greatest folly tormented her from the inside out, that growing need of a heart's first tear aching like an wound unable to be sewn shut. Somewhere out there her soul's mate was alive and aching just as she.

It was a agony she could not bare in silence, and the jeremiad that curled from her parted lips was a thing of broken beauty. Her voice was hoarse, her lungs weary, each limb a brick of lead she struggled to keep from sagging to the floor completely as she sang her sorrows.

Could he hear her? Could anyone feel that quake within their chest? What call of forlorn echoes that resonated deep and strong? Regardless of the consequences and in spite of her captor's impending rage, Sera sang, giving into the thrall that once held her stock and helpless...

She now controlled it.

'Please don't forget me...'

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-15 00:15 EST

And like all the mornings that passed, Sera?s world fell away to find herself back in the chamber where she first new the wrath of the lich king?s whip. Chained, shackled, and bound, she wasn?t going anywhere soon.

But the binds that held her wings fell away, allowing the freedom of movement for only a few short moments, before words uttered in a mysterious tongue had them stretched wide and straight for the cruel Raithmoore.

Hands ran along the length of one feathered appendage, gently testing the softness beneath their fingertips as he stared in a simple form of curiosity. It was short lived, for those same fingers slipped down to the lowest set of wings, settling gently atop them, but nothing more.

?Sera, tell me, what do you remember of the fall? Of the reason? And of yourself?? he asked aloud, fingers tightening their slight hold upon her magnificent wings, gripping almost painfully as he waited for an answer.

?What is this taint,? he asked in a whisper of breath that drifted and splayed against her ear. ?What taint did I sense, that lingering bit of dark that has brought you to this world?? that tone of voice had become a low, malicious thing, alluring with his mysterious smoothness, yet bone chilling with the sheer coldness that it conveyed, like a precursor to the icy breath that met her skin.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-15 00:57 EST

For a moment the fallen maiden couldn't muster the gut to outright answer the Lich, she felt an all too familiar sensation of humanity beginning to creep over her mortal body; it was squashed quickly. Such emotions in the face of such a horrid creature could only end in more unnecessary pain. Sera struggled, testing with the barest flicker of muscle, the hold upon her wings... Oh how they ached with their newness.

Deciding it was best really to just go along with fairly harmless questioning, the small woman conceded, her voice low and smooth despite the harsh pitch's it had been forced to in the past few days. Music was a thing of her very tone, underlying and lovely despite her pain.

"I took on a very human emotion most unbefitting an Angel of my status.." She paused, her voice thick as a defeated smile took hold of her thin, petal lips. "...of any angel, really."

He would wan elaboration, that much Sera had come to know, and she resisted the urge to shiver as his death dealing fingers tender stroke turned harsh, experimental lines across the silken-soft plumage of her wings.

"This taint, as you call it. This darkness, it is the weight of mortality resting upon my soul." Her voice was an insubstantial thing, small and listlessly fragile.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-15 01:04 EST

"The weight of mortality upon your soul," he mimicked quietly, his head canting in the most curious of manners as he mulled the thoughts over, before a smile broke across his features. What an interesting thing that smile was, or any smile on Raithmoore's face, for that matter. It spoke of the worlds of pain that she was due for in his captivity, of the plans of sick pleasure he had conjured up.

"Tell me, Sera, of this mortality that rests upon your soul, tell me of the taint that has banished you to the realm of mortals," he demanded in that same quiet whisper as before.

However, unlike the last question, this one was accompanied by a driving force, something to spur on an answer, after all, if he went too soft on her, she might become more brave.

Those clenching hands shoved down, and the gut wrenching sound of snapping bone came as a harsh crunch to pierce and echo through the air of the cavernous chamber. That sound of pain brought a sadistic smile of pleasure, a twist of dead lips in some sick form of delight.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-15 01:28 EST

No...

That snap, that sickening, searing pain that sent a wave of nausea and insurmountable agony through the scabbed expanse of her chained body. Lips were wide, her teeth small, white things bare to the air as the most subdued creak of pain. Such a thing, it hurt too much to even submit to the voluminous throes of her ragged voice.

Not my wings, God please, not my wings again..

It was all the little angel could do to not let her body succumb to another sky shattering wail, and it showed across the tight strain that that contorted and twisted her waiffish frame. Though only a handful of days had passed, Sera was already very slight, and no water or food was already taking it's noticeable toll upon her frail stature. Flesh was not wasting, but soft angles were sharper things, and the line of her clavicle was fairly fierce

She writhed beneath his unwarranted punishment, her breath ragged and strained as she mustered the strength to speak; her chapped lips a fine, fine tremble as she attempted to speak. Her progress was slow, and the fight to not scream or sob in her gruesome situation was a unfathomably difficult one.

"L-love... Love. It was love! The call that over sang His glory and could not be denied!" She relented, sobbing out her answer despite the best efforts she struck forward to keep quiet. The feathery appendage was now twitching beneath his wicked fingers, withering on it's own accord, it's struggle a futile thing as it twisted and struggled against the pain of it's severance.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-15 01:44 EST

?Love,? he echoed with an even wider grin, how curious that one such as she could succumb to such a mortal feeling. He basked in that pain, in that terror, the fear of losing her wings a second time, enough to spur on further acts of cruelty.

?And tell me, Sera,? he started as he leaned back, the sound of metal sliding against the stone soon becoming an audible thing for the broken Seraphim?s ears. ?Tell me, of this love, what do you know of it? Who is this one that reigns so important, that even He, comes second to him??

And again, like the last question, this one was met with the feeling of intense pain. A sharp spear of it, would no doubt find itself traveling through her as the left wing of the lowest set was taken painfully in a clenching grasp, and met with the cold touch of steel that sliced through, and gouged it out and away.

The appendage was torn away, then tossed around her to land in view, in a heap of blood and feathers, while that cold steel met the right one of the set, and soon sliced, gouged, and tore it free as well, to be tossed in the same place as the first, blood and feathers splattering the ground in a grotesque painting in its wake.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-15 02:05 EST

It was too much, far too much. New levels of torment were a hideous scar upon her psyche, and her voice rang in raw chorus as her body bowed, twitching, unable to even muster a struggle against that sharp blade that tore her wings apart.

Too much, too soon; it rendered the small woman unconscious and paler than pale. Her skin had deadened so fine that it was near translucent, her veins a vivid map across the crumpled contort of her bloodied body. Every bit of her seemed a abstract painter's display of angst, from the spatters of dried, caked pain to the fresh, unstemmed flow of new wounds twice inflicted.

Her mind was a arabesque helix of blackness and unease, the lift of her body inconceivably light as she floated, suspended, freed from her chains and the pain of the Lich's merciless ways. Where was she? Perhaps in the either of her pain, somewhere far, far away from the stricken state of her leaking shell of a body. Would Raithmoore notice his prisoner's spiritual flight? The limp heft of her weight? The parted lips and slumped head?

'Sera... What happened? Who did this?' A velvet whisper, smooth with a faint lilt of threat, of the desire to harm in manners much more agonizing than what the dark eyed maiden had.

'Vilrath.'

It was the only name her voice could echo, her inner self crying with all the miserable, bell-like lament of a lost child clamoring for it's father.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-15 02:15 EST

He took perverse delight in that pain, that torment that haunted her so. The Seraphim's cries had become such a thing to him, such music that he considered prolonging her life, her punishment, for as long as possible.

"You've fallen, dear Sera, but were never properly punished," he teased morbidly. "But I'm here, to make up for that mistake on His part, I'll see to it, that your true punishment is dealt out in kind."

And then he sensed it, and his face fell. Such a look of disappointment had not been seen on Raithmoore's face in quite some time. But there it was, or rather, there she was, slumped before him, lost in that spiritual leave of her pain.

Tsking softly, Raithmoore banished the unresponsive woman to her cell once more, wings bound again, with the two bloody heaps of her forcibly removed ones sent over to keep her company in the hours during which she'd wake.

"We'll continue another time, dear Sera," he mused as he retreated to his dark quarters, to take notes, to reflect, to laugh, and to plan for the next 'bout of pain that was sure to come for the poor Seraphim woman.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-20 00:53 EST

Cold...

Such cold. Pain was only a catalyst to the chill that crept bone-deep in her worn body. Dark circles, they regained a strength beneath the thick, frail flutter of her lashes. Rem sleep, the healing cycle, it always teased just out of the angel's reach. There were too many things that wove through her mind, too many bouts of torment and physical pains. Even the fondest of thoughts, sweet voices she'd come to know and covet as her dearest treasures, they only magnified her current state of aggrieved listlessness. Her thoughts were fragmented things, pleas through the ether of minds across time and space.

'Please.'

Fingers curled and uncurled, weak movements, listless gestures of a creature kept too long in the throes of torture. Sera was already so fragile, just how her body stood the Lich's perverse dementia and undulance of psychotic attentions was a feat unto itself; commendable, admirable. Perhaps some strength was found now in the presence of her higher status the undead King had unlocked? Those wings, such gorgeous creations of feather and bone... Even rendered by blood and the thick, clotted mass of their expulsion, even bound, stunted and subdued from the stretch they so desired to take, those massive bits of plumage were still an impressive sight to behold.

Legs shifted as her body succumb to the weary state of consciousness, her breath coming quick and pained with the sharp intake of a sudden breath. Even waking hurt... Was there no escape from this madman? Whatever spirit had been roused from her awakening, it's footing was short-lived, the despondence that seeped through her was too much.

'Please... someone.'

Sera prayed now, her call a thing that reached farther than the heavenly tenor of her voice ever could, plaintive, helpless, a mental sob of the most heart wrenching pain and longing. But just to whom did she pray now that she'd fallen from Him? He. The one who cradled her essence for the Endless of Times, He whom she traded everything she was... Every ounce, down to the last vestige of her very being.

She gave it up for a chance of love.

Come what may, punishment or death; even though the delicate maiden had not tasted the call of what beckoned her from the Gates above, she would not regret her decision of gravity's flight to the realm of mortality. Even in the face of loosing her wings once more... Faced with the bloodied, deadening stumps as lifeless proof to the promise of more pain. Such a tightly plucked thing, taken straight by the heart strings of her soul, Sera chose to leave the Heavens behind to for the greatest of all man's riches.

"Love..." It was a taste both irrevocably bitter and undyingly sweet. Lips, thin and cracked, upturned slowly as those tightly bound wings found a tremble slip through their muscle. Life lingered in the maiden still. There was hope yet, however ailing a thing it was.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-20 13:25 EST

Cold it might have been in that damp, dark cell of Sera?s, but it was nothing when compared to the icy chill that crept up her spine, when Raithmoore?s fingers pressed gently under her chin. As always, he angled her up to look at him, as he appeared before her, blocking the bloody mass of feathers and broken bones that was her last bit of torture.

?Tell me, fallen Seraphim, about your life, before coming to this miserable plane of existence. Tell me about yourself,? he demanded in that sweetened and hushed tone of voice, one that contrasted with the pain he?d thus far forced her to endure.

?How important were you to Him? Or rather, in general,? he asked as he delicately caressed her fragile cheek, a loving gesture touched with the lingering chill of undeath. ?What is your name, dear Sera? Your true name.?

Even as he spoke chains would rise up, and wrap around the lengths of her second set of wings, constricting around them until the faint sound of cracking bone issued in response. One second passed another fleeting along with it, all while Raithmoore waited with an apparent sense of patience.

Unfortunately, that patience was a fa?ade, rather than wait for her answer, the chains ripped, tugged, and tightened all the more. Blood poured fresh and warm down the naked Seraphim?s back, coating the already dried layer of the red ichors in a moist layer of warmth.

?Answer me, Sera,? Raithmoore demanded softly.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-20 15:02 EST

Creak... The barest of whispers in that chilled, encompassing darkness. The precursory sound of limbs bending towards their breaking point.

The tightening of those chains, the cool, slither of honeyed notes. The gentle tremble of cool, cool fingertips up her already goose pimply spine. Sera could not help but sob aloud, shaking her head. Why? Why did he care to know such things? It was the torment it brought, it had to be... The only thing his barrage of never ending curiosities brought was more pain. Partnered with the reign he held upon her wings, it was unbearable, unfathomable, unimaginable.

Crack... The painful beginnings of severance, the first fibers of bones crying in protest; it wasn't too late to turn back, cruel hands.

Origins came like water from the mouth of a rushing stream, tears flowing with equal freedom as the fragile creature sang her heart's greatest threnody. A songbird indeed, she whimpered of many honors in His name, an angel of the Lord;the Vision of God. Such a vision was she now, naked and broken, bellied out in a spine defying bow of agony, crowned in the lingering vestiges of bloodied feathers and caked residues of her own crimson viscera. And so she screamed, crooning a madwoman's unbridled torrent of torture.

Laoell.

Her true name was Laoell.

She was his vision, his eyes and ears into the heart of man; a channel from the plane of the ethereal into the quavering essence of mortals. Was it any wonder the delicate maiden had fallen into the realm she so often watched in His honor? Laoell had been charged with the knowledge of every creature's soul, a window for His eyes, his omniscience.

Snap... And like before, the fair creature of light and song fell prey to the pain. Her body was just too weak, too strained, too broken; it was too great an effort to retain consciousness.

How long could this go on?...

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-20 21:28 EST

After recording all that had been offered to Raithmoore at the less than gentle prompting of broken wings, the lich abandoned the broken Seraphim to her cell for another fitful evening, while he went to conduct his studies on countless other prisoners caught in his deadly clutches.

The day came and went, some died, some wished they had, and Raithmoore returned to the newly named Laoell's cell once more. His fingers crawled along the thick metal door, their bone like lengths slowly guiding the heavy obstacle aside. He stepped inside with that same look of complete and controlled calm, with the faintest of honey sweet smiles painting his dark features, a weak and false masque to hide the malice that guided his soulless being.

"Laoell," he greeted quietly, his lilting voice a gentle whisper, so soft and alluring, were it not for the broken mass of feathers and bone before the woman, he might have been forgiven. ?Wake up, Laoell, we?ve more ahead of us today,? he promised softly, the faintest hint of his perverse delight creeping into that painted on smile.

The crack of a whip followed the gentle prodding of his voice, loud, sharp, and echoing in the small chamber, further prompting the woman to wake. Warmth would follow soon afterword; the warmth of crimson liquid trickling down her spine as the pronged whip slinked backward, retreating once more into the shadows that so easily assaulted her at the lich king?s command.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-20 22:16 EST

Slow, groggy, weak... The broken creature that was Laoell was slow to stir fully despite the merciless bite of that whip. However disturbing and body rending, it's fall was familiar across her already tired flesh, and her flinch was mild in comparison to the first stroke that'd licked her. Limbs protested, bones beginning to stick at her hips more noticeably. The delicate one, as she'd been so lovingly dubbed by her familiars, did not retain a healthy diet for her size as it was... Such abuse, such mistreatment and sapping of her reserves. Well. It didn't leave much transition time for waste.

It was the sixth morning, though Laoell felt as though she'd been cradled in this madman's fist for a score of eons well beyond eternity. Long gone were the tears that streamed down her face, such fat drops had dried up long ago. The dark eyed dame could only drag her clouded gaze up towards the Lich's crooning command.

"You don't deserve.. You don't." She stammered, slow, lethargic. Thin, dark brows knitted together suddenly, for it seemed her mind had trailed in between the time the small one had formed the thought and her words had begun to spill. She sighed, her breath a rasping thing as she shifted beneath her bounds, eyes wincing as every inch of her body creaked in protest.

".. don't deserve to say a name He chose." Defiant even in her weariest of states. Weary to the point her newly awakened vision was already blurring and swaying. How long.. How long could she stay awake for his torment? Fingers curled, folding into palms already scabbed over from the previous bite of her own nails, forming feeble fists as her eyes managed open once more. They bore into Raithmoore deeply, steadily; a look that any practiced sadist would know quite well.

The angel was loosing her grip, a hair's breadth from a true state of broken. What held that fragile body together? What kept her from crumpling into a pile of ruined flesh?

Love, a love she'd never known. The same reason she chose to brave her Lord's wrath and eternal disappointment. Somewhere out there was the answer to her soul's deplore, as were a string of others... Other whom haunted her every thought, friends, gentle faces both lovely and pitted. Dark skin, lily-white flesh, feathers, eyes of every degree and shade.

'Please don't forget me... Please don't be dreams, I need you. All of you.' Jewels glimmered at the corners of her eyes one more time; perhaps she had some left afterall.

Raithmoore · Date: 2009-06-20 22:41 EST

?Nor are you deserving of such a name, but we?ll let it pass for now, sweet Laoell,? he replied with a wicked smirk as he turned for the door once more. ?It?s a shame that I cannot stay and pay you more attention today, dear Seraphim. But rest assured, I?ll still learn a thing or two from you, before the day?s end,? he Raithmoore promised as he left, closing the door with an echoing thud behind him.

Raithmoore had other methods of getting information, had other means of acquiring it that didn?t require his presence. And on such an important day, he couldn?t waste his time questioning the poor, beaten woman. There were more pressing matters at hand.

True to his word, tendrils of the purest form of darkness shot from the corners of the room, their ends driving through flesh to meet and cling to bone, sending pulses of nerve wracking pain throughout her body, while feeding her mind with questions that demanded answers.

It would continue for the day, until Sera would once again lose consciousness under the lich and his devices? cruel attention. And like before, she?d be left to get what little rest she could gleam, from the few hours that would pass into the next day.

Vilrath Arisa · Date: 2009-06-20 23:02 EST

The road from Rhy?Din toward Raithmoore?s unholy citadel, was a long, winding, and treacherous one for the skilled drow. The undead, were worlds more difficult to sneak up on, compared to the living, and how that scourge surrounded the countryside that made up Raithmoore?s territory.

He was, but a fleeting blur of shadows nonetheless. Just because they were more alert and aware, didn?t mean he was at any disadvantage, for Vilrath, was, from birth until death, a drow. Born in the lightless tunnels of the Underdark, surrounded by the most malicious of races, the deadliest of wildlife, the most alert of civilizations; stealth, had been ingrained into his mind, body, and soul, from an early age when he was nothing but a lowly commoner desperately trying to cling to his miserable existence.

So he moved with that stealth that seemed a preternatural thing, ran with that skill that had become as innate as his ability to see in the darkest of darks, and steadily neared his destination; Citadel Raithmoore.

What little guards that were nearby that proved to be any source of trouble or displeasure for the drow, were cleanly dispatched by the cold bite of his blades as they cut and severed flesh and bone as swiftly and smoothly as if it had been cutting through water. There was little sound in the efficient slaying of his enemies, with the only true marker of his passing being the trail of bodies left in his wake.

Inside the drow?s mind flew a whirlwind of furious thoughts and mounting hatred toward the monstrosity that had taken that one bit of light in his life, and stolen it from him. His thoughts, his actions, all angled toward finding Sera, toward freeing her of the prison that she?d been forced into, and toward severing the head of the creature that was to blame for all the trouble, Raithmoore.

The whispers of Lolth had fallen on deaf ears then; no longer could her misguiding suggestions cloud his mind, a mind that was adamant on the quest he?d laid out before him. Sera was to be freed, Raithmoore was to die, and pity to the soul that stood in his way.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-21 17:04 EST

I think it happened at nighttime
A cold rain drizzled down from space
Hiding tears from street light eyes...

Time seemed to slow once more, hours melded into what felt like days, and torture was finally taking it's toll for the final time on the writhing innocent Raithmoore had captured. Ivory skin had been painted an unforgivable crimson, a ruin of marble, as if red veins split the perfect polish across every little seam. Ebony locks were tossled and matte, clinging to a face turned sallow from pain, dark mars bagging beneath pools that still held all the fathomless beauty of a steep wishing well.

I saw the same familiar face
A mixed up girl who's something of
A fairytales romantic dream come true

A body built for flight contorted and jumped, bucking and snapping against the unforgiving, electric touch of the Lich's tainted magic. It filtered deep, invading her freshly awoken mind, ravishing it, relentless in the bidding of their master's thirst for knowledge. Greedy, draining, merciless, Laoell screamed a variable symphony of the most harrowing proportions... The Citadel's walls shook, albeit in vain, the Undead King's compound was no doubt unused to such a heavenly creature's power lashing out in it's agony.

She breaks my heart and blurs my eyes
Her love is never easy
A magic made for tragic minds

But something broke through the body-racking waves of interrogative magics, someone's presence, a dark flicker of flame on the edge of her reawakened consciousness. Laoell's last breath before blackness claimed her was mightily drawn, the slight build of her chest filled to near bursting. And there it came, the last, helpless harold of a Seraphim's furious alarm, wrenching through the very fiber of the unholy stronghold in a way that not even the Lich King Anatar could have perceived possible. As she screamed her blinding light, it's undulance of notes formed the name that'd lingered more than the others. A dark name, a warrior's name, an assasin's name; a drow's name...

"Vilrath Arisa!" A mighty wave, a holy touch; emboldening and blazingly bright. Her voice reached, sinking, seeking, creeping, wrapping around the drow tightly, empowering his fury with an ardor he'd never quite be able to taste again after this impending battle.

Gazing through my window
She glittered like the starlit rain
Whispering tales of broken hearts
We closed our eyes and dreamed away

And then... blackness claimed the delicate one once more.

Vilrath Arisa · Date: 2009-06-21 18:13 EST

Run?the word came into his mind along with a sense of urgency, a newfound bout of fury that spurred the drow onward toward the looming form of Citadel Raithmoore. Stealth, had been thrown to the wind, the thought of slipping by unnoticed was no longer prominent in his rage fueled mind. Vilrath was a hunter, a killer, born and raised to take lives, and it seemed that no matter how far away from his homeland he may go, those uncanny skills of his never faltered.

A host of undead populated the lands around the dark citadel, with more looming inside its obsidian walls. But a wave had been released from somewhere deep within its unholy halls, sending a purifying light throughout the nearby lands, felling the lesser creatures of darkness that would have tried to prevent the drow from reaching his goal. He saw them die, the ghouls, the animated corpses, the brittle skeletons that slowly made their way toward him. He saw the ring of light that shot out and silenced their undead spirits once and for all, and he continued past them without a second thought.

Greater beasts of darkness strived though, and one particular monstrosity, targeted the swiftly moving drow with its unbridled strength and aggression as keenly as Vilrath hunted for Sera. A Nightwalker, a creature from the Plane of Shadows, a huge creature of shadow and hatred loomed out of the drow?s line of sight, its preternatural abilities letting it hide from Vilrath?s keen vision.

Just as the much smaller drow passed the hulking beast, a great and powerful fist flew down in an attempt to crush Vilrath then and there. Luckily, the drow had his own almost supernatural senses, and rolled forward just as the large fist flew down, causing the creature to rip into the ground with its immense strength, and tear up chunks of the earth as it wrenched its hand free.

Whirling around, Vilrath already flew into an assault, with his blades leading him forward, toward the great creature. Another attempt at smashing the small drow was made on the part of the Nightwalker, its arm flying down right beside Vilrath, who in turn hopped up onto its thickly muscled appendage, and ran up the length of it toward its shoulder.

As the Nightwalker wrenched its arm free of the ground, it shook violently, trying to send Vilrath back down to the ground where it could finish its kill, but the skilled drow stabbed downward with one blade, its enchanted edge slicing deeply into the creature?s bicep. There was little sound in protest from the shadowy beast, other than the faint noise of its displeasure as its arm was slowly eaten away by that deadly blade.

He climbed up in that manner, using hi blades as one would use ice picks on a mountain, and slowly reached the shaking Nightwalkers shoulder, and from there, crawled toward its throat. A hand slapped down beside him, a weak attempt at dislodging the drow from his perch. That hand retreated with severed fingers as a keen blade sliced downward, cutting through bone with a sickening crunch while Vilrath simultaneously sliced outward with his second blade, drawing a clean line along the large creature?s throat.

Soon his other blade joined the first at the now stumbling Nightwalkers throat, hacking and slashing away until it was a headless body that Vilrath had perched on, rather than a flailing Nightwalker. It fell swiftly forward, the ground was rushing up toward Vilrath then, and thus he nimbly leapt from his perch, and tucked into a roll as he hit the ground. Rolling out of his landing, Vilrath sprang instantly to his feet and charged toward Citadel Raithmoore?s doors.

He shoved through a small group of reanimated corpses that proved a half hearted barrier between him and the dark staircase that led down into Raithmoore?s catacombs, and soon started down that pitch black stairwell. The endless darkness was like a sunlit day for the drow?s keen eyes, and he had little trouble in swiftly moving down that seemingly endless spiral of stairs.

The only true trouble he had in his descent, came in the form of weak undead creatures that rushed up at him from bellow, but even the considerably large force that had amassed against him proved little more than a minor nuisance as he cut a bloody path through them, littering the ground with dismembered limbs and corpses in his wake.

On and on that path of destruction went, and not a thing seemed able to slow his steady progress. She was close, and Vilrath could feel it, he knew how close he?d come to achieving his goal, and nothing short of Lolth herself would be able to deter him for even a moment, from his current course of action.

Then that dark tower that waited underground, in the vast caverns of the Necropolis loomed before him. And with the tower?s inky walls, came the hellish hounds that served as Raithmoore?s pets, the scaled beasts that had first come to greet Raithmoore and Sera just a week ago.

They ran at him from all sides, lunging, slashing, and biting from all directions at once. It was all Vilrath could do to avoid the no doubt deadly attacks. His blades flashed left and right, in front of and behind him, moving in a constant and fluid motion as he ducked, leapt, rolled, and ran out of the way of the many attacks that came his way.

He had been put purely on the defensive, looking for an opening that never came, desperately fighting to keep up with the hounds? vicious assault. Finally, his opening came in the form of a mindless animated corpse stumbling toward him, tripping up a pair of the hounds long enough for him to leap up, and land to straddle ones back as if it were a beast of burden meant to carry men.

He stabbed down with both blades, slicing through the plate like scales that covered the beast?s body, and cut through bone and muscle to slice into its heart and lung. It slowed beneath him, and fell forward, nearly crushing the drow who managed to leap from its back, and slice in mid air toward another beast?s throat. He felled two of the hounds then and there, and continued in a sprint toward the tower.

Then he met the wall in that dead long run, and to his surprise, ran right through it, and into the dark tower. Pausing for a moment, Vilrath looked this way and that as he found himself in an empty antechamber, then started for the nearest staircase, and ran onward.

Sera was nearby, closer than ever. She was in that tower, several floors up perhaps, but there nonetheless. With that thought in mind, Vilrath urged himself onward at an even greater speed, carving a bloody path through the meager resistance that stood before him, that wave produced by Sera all but cleansing the tower completely.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-22 23:52 EST

It was like watching dawn break the sky; creeping, flooding fingers of light spilling into each iron-black corner of darkness. A gradual fade, a gradient's resonance from abysmal blackness to off-white grays and chalks. It was that Seraphim's cry, that visceral, dry heaving hurl of a shrieking song that shook the imposing Citadel tower to it's very core. How could the Lich prepare for such a creature? With so many countless races and beings, deities and godlings, elementals and mystical essences, where would the ardorous cleansing of a Holy Choir's cry fall into?

Such a sound from such a frail body, so delicate and broken, Laoell hung heavily beneath the blackness that restrained and invaded her, hovering somewhere between the unconsciousness pain brought and the fatigue of a mortal frame tested to it's most dire of limits. One could only hope that as the building creaked and screamed it's dying fury against the fallen one's heavenly lament, the bonds that fisted her would weaken as well.

The maiden had done all she could, brave a soul she catered, and suffered dearly for each meager show of strength in the face of Raithmoore's irrepressible cruelty. She hung a beaten thing, a puppet loose upon her marionette's strings, limbs seeming disjointed or leant out of place. Feathers and old blood, bits of what once were the most glorious of wings, lips parted in the gape of her agony induced slumber; a child's play thing that'd made it through some terrible war.

Would Vilrath even recognize her?...

Vilrath Arisa · Date: 2009-06-23 01:50 EST

The heavy metal doors that barred him from Sera?s cell were sliced cleanly off their hinges by that disintegration blade he wielded so skillfully. The large chunk of metal was shouldered aside by the drow as he ran headlong into the room, uncaring as to what traps might be lurking at the moment.

He saw here there, and felt an overwhelming sense of relief, yet guilt was soon to follow as Vilrath registered Sera?s current state. She looked so different, hollow, broken, hurt, yet?there were wings. How Vilrath would have liked to pause and question the origin of those feathery appendages then and there, but time was against him, Raithmoore could show up at any moment.

Chains, bindings, dark tendrils and frayed ropes were all sliced away in an instant. Sera was nearly free, almost there. All that was left now was to escape. Not bothering to ask if she could walk or not, Vilrath sheathed his blades with a harsh sounding snap as the slid into place in their respective scabbards, and scooped up the blood covered woman, mindful of her recently unbound wings, and ran on.

The doorway was blocked by several lesser undead, animated corpses with little thought other than that of killing their target. Their decaying muscle left little power in their attacks, and Vilrath easily barreled through them, to charge back down the way he came.

Escape; the thought ran on and on in his mind, Raithmoore was no longer a priority. He had Sera, best to get her out while he could.

Raithmoore would have to wait.

ASeraphimFallen · Date: 2009-06-23 02:25 EST

'Lani...'

Floating, jostling, swaying with the rhythm of furious footsteps; the seemingly lifeless angel felt as if she were dreaming the position of some chaotic whirlwind of swift feet and ducking steps. However skilled, however stealthy and slithering, those movements were enough to shift the delicate one's body about like a wayward tissue caught in the wind... If one weren't careful, it'd drift away, swept in a sea of names ringing from the heart.

'...Thaelic.'

Once released, those wings had folded naturally, albeit awkwardly due to their broken state. Where Vilrath's arms didn't cradle and cover, those ruined wings did, sheltering the battered and crimson crusted nakedness. Ebon hair had lost it's luster, lying flat and matte, clinging and damp. Had she ever been so pale? Her skin, always so pale and lily frail, was positively ghostly and wraith-like, vivid with the play of blue veins beneath and yellowed bruising above.

'Throx...'

The little owl would not awaken for as long as left to her unhealthy slumber, limp and insentient as a forgotten plaything. That little neck would allow the loll of her head with handling, arms and legs ever sinking when not suspended, little digits and the thin peal of her lips slack and wilted.

'...Aja.'

Just how long had she been asleep?... Leaden limbs and aching everything's would wonder, a whimper of the utmost wretchedness curling from her as those dark eyes flickered, lashing rising and falling in weary blinks. Something felt different, lighter, gentler.

'Vilrath...'

Topic: The Seven Days of Creation

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