She stood in her chapel, grinning madly to herself. Around her neck the silvery necklace, the forsaken half mask, lay plastered to her chest, as her hair to her face and neck. She was sweating still, the terror and the heat of the flames fresh in her mind, but the thrill of her emotional victory even greater.
So, the master feared the apprentice?
Had she ever been his apprentice? No, not likely, she had been his competition, the yin to his yang, the water to his oil. They never mixed, yet their cacophonic harmony somehow was the ruling music of both their unlifes, and they both knew it. Funnily enough, as she grew in power, and she had, her regard for the world became less. However, on contrary to him, she withdrew, while he advanced. She became more interested in remaining with herself looking at the world as it slowly turned to visible atoms flurrying in front of her eyes, and manipulating them on the smallest of levels, learning to gently affect the flow and use it to carry her while he forcibly pushed at the building blocks of reality. Force versus gentleness. Steel versus feathers, - but Mona knew that water hollowed stone in the end.
There was a reason he was three times dead and hated and she still helt political credability in circles closed to him. In turn she knew the orcs would never listen to her, due to the fact she was a woman, and lacked his forcefulness of power. However, she also knew he'd never have been able to set in motion a chain of actions that caused the death of three children as revenge for his death.
She worked in the shadows, he in the light, as funny as that sounded.
She bit her lip as she sets to prepairing her small ritual, mixing magic and wordly coconations to her cup, - she had to know more. And now that the link was gone she could pour herself into a state of intense trance, and perhaps even stay there long enough to find the source. She could. Whatever there was coming, it couldn't be more frightenign than the Void. And she wasn't afraid of the Void. She -Was- the Void, she thought, making her frown, knowing that her status, though she had ignored it before was the reason her dreams were impossible.
She would have been lying if she'd not say she'd contemplated arranging her rebirth as a man. However the idea was somewhat disgusting, and her natural intense patience, made even greater by her undeath and her now understanding of immortality of the mind, caused her to just sit back and watch. Why not? After all, she'd be here long after the empire of forsaken would fall, in body or mind, she didn't care. She was powerful! She was not restricted by their filthy social rules!
And if he wanted another person to cover at his side in his divine parentage, a miniature version of himself unable to think an independant thought, another yes-man - he was wrong! She would be a monster child to him, everything she had never been. She had enough of being a loving, unquestioning child to a man that then sold her for political gains, and she'd be damned if she'd play one again.
Aside, Fathius deserved a child that would challenge him. Not a mindless drone.
Mona had long since come in terms with that she was loosing her humanity. She could fake it well enough, and the gentle, understanding Saint was there to cater to the lower classes and protect her people of Silverpine, that still carried the centre of her worship, and she could be the clever trader and the woman of acumen for her queen, - the monster that occationally got out was reserved for two men to see. One out of anger, the other out of sheer lust and thrill of power.
As filthy as it was, there was something absoloutly thrilling about having a man of physical strenght and stubbornness unchallenged at your mercy, knowing you could manipulate and twist him into all you wished. Mona'd never thought she'd come to enjoy powergames like those. But things seemingly change.
Grabbing a knife from the altar she slit her palm and watched the swirling red fall into the cup in front of her, mixing with the black and purple in there before, stirring gently with her finger, as she frowned.
She had lied tonight. She still wanted a child, and she knew fully well Fathius knew she lied. What she had said is 'I am not willing to bow to you for it. I do not want it more then I want my pride'.
But then, was there any pride to be lost between those two? They had seen each other at their weakest moments, they had also driven each other into new heights in power. Still she'd never bend her pride to him, even if he actually spoke the four words she wanted to hear, though she might be more accomodating if he did. She knew he likely never would speak them, anyway, but it was interesting to use it against him, knowing that he knew how to win the war, twisting it so the war was actually only he versus himself instead of her. Fighting each other as beings of power would be useless anyway. It would never come to an end. She knew she had everything he lacked in her arsenal, same as she lacked what he had.
She helt up a cup of gold to the bare wall, the magical, invisible rune embedded into it glowing faintly for a small moment, then downed the blood, feeling the burn in her mouth and throat, and the drumming in her ears increased. Soon none of this would matter, soon they would either have to overcome their diffirences of burn with the rest. Opposites linked to strenght.
Book versus nature talent.
Force versus flowing partnership.
Man versus woman.
Black versus white.
Day and Night.
Existance versus Entropy.
Let it begin...
As she slammed the cup down on the altar, she breathed in a echoing metallic voice :
"Twenty days..."
and crumbled to the floor as the trance overtook her.
((A little drama, I apologize for the whining of it. The name of the story is from the Revelation of John, 15.2.))
awesome work 