-Demon Princess of God Damned Innocence
BOOK FIVE
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F R A G M E N T S
Reinforced boots and the mithril fullplate made it impossible for one's movement to remain inaudible but save for the muffled clanking of the armor and the scraping sound of her right index digit against the wall; the Keep was quiet. Her steps were anything but hurried as she climbed up the stairs, there was a steady purpose in them instead. Speckles of dust and sand danced in her wake, ruffled by the crimson rim of her cowled cloak. Long shadow kept flickering in and out of existence on the wall to her left, its long tendril reaching for her and coming short every time. When she reached the end of the staircase, she forced the hatch open and the Selune's cold light chased the shadow away. Within seconds, El stood atop of the crenelated Tower looking at the settlement below. This place was a little more than a cesspool; an ash heap of villainous history where the bad, the misguided and the plethora of monsters tended to end up because they had nowhere to go. Not a single appealing landmark or an ally in sight and yet — she felt right at home. Where others saw a hive of the possible worst world had to offer, she saw something entirely different. With that sentiment still lingering in her mind, the woman reached to the satchel at her side and soon writing implements were laid out on top of the Tower's merlon while the notebook was rested on the crenel. El leaned down, fetched a familiar blade and watched it spin between her fingers; its sharp edge reflected both the torch and the moonlight revealing that a retrospective expression took hold of the woman's features. She set the blade aside and picked up the quill instead.
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R E C O R D S
PART THREE
-THE TYRANT-
PART THREE
-THE TYRANT-
19th Eleint 1353, Soubar, The Tower
Marshall left the Coast before the moon moved from Eleasis into Eleint, and Althea was the one who delivered the news. Having had my trust and friendship taken for granted by the Paladin yet again embittered me, it fueled the rage and propelled me forward to some degree. I knew what I had to do, I just could not bring myself to do it in person in fear he would not let me say my peace, so I was forced to find an alternative solution. It felt like rolling thunder — thirteen consecutive sendings. Finally, all that I needed to say was laid bare. I hoped that it would at least give him a hell of a headache. A modest price and a lousy consolation prize, but it would have to do. Thick, greenish mist spilled out if the Forest of Wyrms and coated the Northern Tradeway. It rolled over the empty plane devouring everything in its path. It mirrored the state of affairs in my head. I did not expect him to answer, so the sending startled me, and as I agreed to meet him atop the Tower, I was overcome with a feeling of Deja Vu; we have been here before. Unfathomable — even to me — were my own reasons for deciding this was a bright idea.
I found him outside the keep waiting, and we climbed the Tower's spiral staircase in familiar silence. Somewhere between the layers of dissonance and disquietude was a part of me sought after justification for inexplicable and dichotomous yearnings. The golden hue in the finish of his armor plates suited him. It brought forth what I had known was always there, and it tempered his brash arrogance. The raw, unrestrained energy he used to radiate so effortlessly — and which sudden absence I had been unable to comprehend before my departure — appeared to have been regained. There was something unfamiliar in the way he carried himself. Something exposed, recently unearthed and cautious lurked in his movements and words. I have prided myself on knowing him better than the others. Foolish girl. Little did I know that he was about to undo months of thinking and years of lies. My words in the sendings were anchored in the past, whereas his were rooted in the present.
This talent to eviscerate me to the core was what he had always been capable of. It had been a blessing and a curse, what I had loved and hated in equal proportions. The things he was saying began ripping apart the resignation and acceptance I felt toward my own feelings. Irony tasted like blood, anger, relief, longing, and terror. He was pulling me back. Everything changed — and nothing changed at all. Fascinated and horrified, I watched as he started undoing the stitches that run across my mind; the months of coming to terms with my feelings and accepting the fact that they had been erroneously allocated were about to be tossed off the Tower.
You told me you loved me and then you left without a word.
Marshall told me he cared and was grateful for the lengths to which I had gone for him, and then he left without the word.
And now it was his turn to say it.
How was I supposed to believe the Tyrant in front of me?
How could I believe that he was capable of something that stood in contradiction to all that he was?
No longer could I tell when had that line been drawn there? When did it all begin and what prompted it? Perhaps it was not one, unique point in the past caused by a single action, but a series of events spread across a much longer period of time. After all, it was not until I left that I was able to admit to myself what I had known, on some level, for a very long time. I walked the line between love and hate for so long; I could not tell them apart. One could not exist without the other. I could never balance them. Did I hate him because I loved him? Did I love hating him? Were love and hate equally impetuous? Where one began why did the other refuse to end?
For months, the ever-present anguish had seemed like a compound fracture in my soul that had never been decompressed, and as such, it had blocked the flow of blood to some parts of me. Eventually, necrosis had set in, and I had watched these parts die. Without access to the sides of myself that once had mattered, I had been unable to see a way out. Convinced that these those parts had been lost forever was what I had resigned myself to willingly. Blind, petulant, ambivalent and saturated with shame and rage, I had kept oscillating between the extremes — one of which was him. It had been safe to blame the Tyrant. He had invited it with every act committed against me, and it had given me what I had needed to justify paying him back in kind. Loving and hating him had nearly destroyed me.
How could we move past all that we had done to each other?
Was this just one of his many attempts to stop me from leaving?
Has it always been his way of telling me that he needs me?
Could I let myself love him again?
Two weeks have passed since that evening, and I have been returning to the same question until I found the only answer I ever needed.
How could I trust the word of the Tyrant?
Because he never left.
Because he never left.
Loving the Tyrant is to love regardless and despite on a level that may not have much in common with reason.
Loving the Tyrant is to love in the absence of warmth and affection.
Loving the Tyrant is to be at war with each other.
Loving the Tyrant means keeping him in the constant state between satiation and vexation; ever hungry for total capitulation; always ready to strike, and always craving power in the never-ending strife for ultimate control.
Loving the Tyrant means standing beside him in the conquest for order served with the authority gained through violence.
For the ruthless battle with resistance to subjugation elevates the Tyrant and does not allow weakness that dwells in complacency born from peace.
Loving the Tyrant is to make sure he never settles.
Loving the Tyrant it to be
The subject
The mistress
The enemy
The lover
The challenger
The subjugated
The advisor
The betrayer
The collaborator
All at once.
Loving the Tyrant is my penance. And my prize.
Suspended in dissonance
I dwell
in the in-between
and in the shades of gray across the spectrum
of good and evil
law and chaos
love and hate.
In hatred, there is love.
In subjugation, there is freedom.
In fear, there is trust.
In servitude, there is power.
In strife, there is peace.
There is pleasure in enduring the Tyrant.
And I chose mine.
For now
The subject
The mistress
The enemy
The lover
The challenger
The subjugated
The advisor
The betrayer
The collaborator
All at once.
Loving the Tyrant is my penance. And my prize.
Suspended in dissonance
I dwell
in the in-between
and in the shades of gray across the spectrum
of good and evil
law and chaos
love and hate.
In hatred, there is love.
In subjugation, there is freedom.
In fear, there is trust.
In servitude, there is power.
In strife, there is peace.
There is pleasure in enduring the Tyrant.
And I chose mine.
For now
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(((OOC Credits:
Soundtrack: Nothing More - Ripping Me Apart, Darra's Rites of Tyrrany, single passage.
Revision & Proofreading: eS