moonshadows

The motions are instinctual; effortless despite the sheer weight of the weapons. Years, centuries of repeating them as a physical distraction have led to them becoming a channel through which he can direct some of his internal conflict, leaving his mind free to gnaw on other things.

He ponders Joshua’s words. Tessa doesn’t deserve that.

Insolent human, how dare he? If he only knew the sacrifices…the centuries of torment…but Joshua’s right. Tessa doesn’t deserve that. The routine ends and he starts it anew, disregarding the little voice that’s calculating how long it will take his brash servant to bring her here.

Tessa. She doesn’t deserve that, but what-

His blades slice the air as though dismembering the conflicting impulses struggling for dominance in his mind. He wants to lavish gifts upon her, to see her smile at him the way no one has done in thousands of years – if then. He wants to lock her away, to keep that smile all to himself, keep her from forsaking him.

Has he been unfair to her? Treating her wrong? The rare moment of admitting fault is rewarded with a resurgence of memories he’d kept locked away, each bringing with it a fragment of the torment he’d endured for thousands of years. His movements speed up as he tries to slay each one, toss the corpses back behind the walls he’d built to keep what passed for his sanity intact. Only when the last one has been wrestled away, leaving his mind somewhat clear, does he notice the figure awkwardly mimicking his motions.

“Tessa.”

When she turns to look at him, he realizes he’s said it out loud, an involuntary exhalation of surprise. She brings her blades to a stop, beaming at him with wordless elation, her posture half pride and half uncertainty. The shirt he’d commanded she finish is now complete, the colors of the thread giving the illusion that the runes are shining through the cloth from her skin itself. She has exceeded his expectation, however, and embroidered the same pattern on a pair of white pants that cling to her legs before flaring out just above her hooves.

Why couldn’t any of his other students have been this devoted?

“Well done, my Champion.” Words are the only way he can reward such dedication, and his voice wraps itself warmly around the praise in a way that would surely have left his forces wondering who had killed the Lord of Outland and taken his form.

Oh yes, that’s the smile. The one that makes him forget, just for an instant, that he is a horrible monster who Fate has struck down again and again for doing what he thought was right in spite of everyone who said it was wrong. The one that makes him want to keep her locked away forever, as he had been, to ensure that she never gives that smile to anyone else. The one that makes him want to terrify her, chase her away before she can turn on him as everyone else has, before the devotion turns to disgust and leaves him with yet another face, another voice to barricade away before the pain drowns him and leaves him a prisoner of despair more surely than he had ever been imprisoned beneath the earth.

Those barricades tremble now, the dead memories clamoring for blood in the form of his pain. He opens his mouth to spear her with anger at himself, to send her away so that he can deal with this internal rebellion, but she sets her warglaives on the floor and deliberately steps closer to him. Foolish girl! Doesn’t she know that she’ll only get hurt, the way everyone else has? He won’t mean to, but something will go wrong and everything he’s tried to do here will fall apart, and the one to suffer for it will be her rather than the one who deserves it – him.

Apparently she doesn’t know, because she lays her hands on his chest, then presses her body against his, head turned to the side so that she can rest her cheek against the fel scars burned into his flesh. The barricades hold; the restless memories quiet. Somehow, nothing matters but the moment – and in this moment, his besieged mind is at peace. The blades that bear the name of the one he slew for them are dismissed and he holds tight to the girl who almost died to them, as though by keeping her within his arms, he could keep this moment of peace from ending.