TBTT 29. Dancing in the dark

[moonshadows]

Why can't they just obey me?

He slices the air, imagining State's smug grin, Health's condescending sneer. He wants so very much to be able to kill them for their insolence, but experience has taught him that he can either have obedient ministers, or he can have competent ones. Waiting for his government to calm back down after he slaughters his cabinet is far more irritating than dealing with his current cabinet once a month, so he endures...

...but oh, he wants to kill them so very badly. 

The blades whistle as he slays imaginary ministers, the only non-destructive expression of his rage. He knows that while he is in this state, it is not safe for anyone to try to calm him down. The rage must be channeled, expressed, spent - and until then, all he wants to do is destroy anyone who crosses his path and does not immediately leap to obey his unspoken desires.

Rage blinds him; too many years of being pushed past the limit of his self-control turn him into an animal, lashing out with any weapon available. Even the amount of control required to see the physical world is beyond him. His sight dissolves into swirls of muted color, hazy blobs of blood-red standing in for people against the smoky-dark background of stone walls and floors. He can see someone approach his guards, and the animal rage wants to be interrupted, wants to rend and kill...but his guards know their orders. The incident is dismissed, and once again he loses himself in bloody fantasy.

The tide has just begun to ebb when he detects someone in the room with him. Whoever it is, whatever it is, has just become a target for his frustrated anger. He strikes; the figure blocks. He attacks again, and again the figure blocks. A part of him curses the lack of control he has over his vision right now; all he can see of this intruder is a dark shell that masks any identifying energy and blends maddeningly into the smoky-dark background. The rest of him doesn't care, and happily launches attack after attack. All are blocked. Not easily; that would enrage him further. No, the intruder is sloppy, and the strikes are blocked barely, awkwardly, at the last second, or by dodging out of the way. He keeps the dark figure so busy with defending against his attacks that there can be no retaliation, and amuses himself by slowly chasing it around the room.

This is exactly what he needed, he realizes as the anger is sated by proving his superiority again and again against this mysterious opponent. He's not sure how long it's been, but he feels - not calmer, but he's wresting enough scraps of control back from the mindless rage that he can enjoy this one-sided battle. It's almost a pity he's going to have to destroy his opponent to protect his secret. It won't be much longer - he can see that dark shell cracking and knows that the intruder's energy is flagging. The speed of his attacks increases, delicious anticipation of the moment when this lovely little duel ends. The shell encasing his opponent cracks more, bits fading back into deep purple that expands and diffuses into a lighter shade that reminds him of the dreadlords that served him when he was master of the Black Temple. He snarls. How dare one of them invade his world? The demon will pay for this clumsy assassination attempt-

Fear floods him as he realizes that the demon never actually attacked him. The last remnants of mindless anger are shoved ruthlessly aside, and he forces his mind to see more than just magic. The world snaps back into focus, and the dark shell of his demonic opponent overlays the white-clad body of his Champion. When he fails to maintain the pattern of attacks, she tilts her head at him in unspoken inquiry.

"I thought I told you to tell me when you needed a break," he snarls, fear igniting into anger at himself. He stalks back across the room, limbs trembling with reaction, and snatches up the stripped copper wire that he hasn't gotten around to replacing with anything more elegant.

He turns to beckon her over, but she's already following him, looking properly chastised. She juggles both blades for a moment, then sets them on the floor and takes the wire without needing to be told. The tired way her wings droop makes him feel slightly less guilty about misdirecting his anger onto her. When she shyly hands the wire back, he is still seething too badly to not snap at her. He takes a long drink of stale-lemon electricity to give himself more time to wrestle his temper back under control.  

"Why are you here?" Immediately he regrets the words; too harsh, too angry. Too much like he's trying to chase her off.

"Uncle Josh brought me." She's calm, unruffled by his anger, as always. He doesn't know whether she understands his intentions or just forgives his outbursts, but either one is better than he deserves. 

"Why."

She bites her lip, momentarily looking younger, more vulnerable. He wants to steal her away, keep her all to himself, protect her from every potential threat in the world - but he's already stolen her away, is keeping her mostly to himself, and in this world, he is the biggest threat. 

"He didn't say, but he knew you were very angry, and he was scared."

A glance at the door shows five hazy red blobs on the other side. Joshua had to have lied to Tessa's guards to get her out, and successfully lied to his guards to get them to let her in. Very well, he will corroborate the lie that he gave orders to have his demon brought to him. Perhaps if he'd been thinking clearly, he would have actually thought to give such an order. Certainly, he will arrange for Tessa to be brought to him after the cabinet meeting descends into disaster next month. Just thinking about that eventuality makes his blood boil again, but a hand on his wrist distracts him. He glances at her, but her head is bent over his hand, drinking from the wire he's clutching as though he could squeeze the life out of his ministers by proxy.

"Joshua was right," he says shortly, trying not to sound as angry as he is.

She looks up from her drink, hand still on his wrist. "Did I do okay this time? I know I couldn’t block them all…"

His mind shudders away from things he didn't do.

"Kal'shan? What's wrong?" 

"You should not have come." He knows he's lashing out unfairly, but the flood of self-loathing can only be resisted so much. "I could have killed you." 

He expects her to - well, okay, he doesn't actually expect her to recoil in horror. Anyone else, yes, but not her. He expects her to throw herself at him with concerned devotion he doesn't deserve. What he does not expect is for her to tilt her head to one side and ask, as though mildly curious, why he was in the Twisting Nether after the Black Temple got assaulted by his enemies.

The memories should hurt, considering he'd buried them so deeply that he'd forgotten them entirely. They should rip through him like the blades did, leave pain bleeding in their wake. That they do not means that she is doing...something. He should be enraged that she is...he doesn't know what. He should be paranoid about this power she has over him, suspicious of her motives. Somehow, none of that is as important as the fact that the memories don't hurt. 

"I was killed," he says slowly, as though the words were being uttered by someone else. He should be devastated by this fact; should need to slay imaginary foes until he can force this emotional blow back behind the walls that hold back madness. Impressive, his little tiger-by-the-tail. It seems that she has velvet paws to match her sharp claws.

"You're half-Nathrezim," she says gently. "Like me. If our bodies are killed, they return to the seeds from which they grew.”

“That would certainly explain how I found myself there.” Because he is focusing on the newly-unearthed memories, he can almost see the details of the actual battle fall off and sink back into obscurity, leaving only the knowledge that not even death could defeat him.

Carefully, carefully she takes the fear of accidentally killing her and ties it to the knowledge of his self-resurrection, watches as it is neatly dismembered and devoured.

“Kal’shan?”

He starts slightly, attention returning from where it had been lost in memory. “Hn?”

“Why were you so angry?”

The broken machinery of his mind jerks into motion beneath the veils and numbing foam she has spread liberally around to calm him down from his killing rage. A broad and predatory smile is all the answer she gets.