Existentially Bound: Part 13
Paradise (or Hell)
Note: This story may contain sexual situations, strong language, images, etc...
Intended for mature audiences only. Reader discretion is advised.
Paige closed her eyes to avoid the nausea from the weightlessness, wishing for nothing more than the sickening feeling to stop. Then, as quickly as it came, the unsettling space formed a ground which the woman's boots settled upon. Before her, the colors grew brighter, swirling around to form a vast landscape reaching out far beyond the tunnel of rushing water in which she now stood.
Elated to have something tangible, Paige took a step forward, analyzing the landscape. The buildings below were in shambles, water from the nearby lake mucky and slime filled. The very land was brown with rot and dead limbs and barren dead grass.
"What is this place?" She whispered.
"...this place," came the echo of her voice. It trailed off, repeating the same words until turning into a distant sorrowful moan.
The woman shivered. "Well, that's disturbing, but at least it's something."
Paige took a step closer to the edge, carefully holding on to the mouth of the tunnel. She peered down to see the water cascading down a long steep rocky edge, undoubtedly slick with algae and molds, making descent impossible.
She took a step back from the edge still looking down, bringing her outfit differed from the clothing she had been wearing. "So... there's magic here clearly."
"Magic..." came a very delayed echo.
Paige let out a quick sigh. "Oh I can tell this is going to be fun," she said sarcastically, almost expecting to hear the echo again. When nothing came she shook her head and shrugged. "Well, I won't discover anything by just standing here. I suppose I should explore. I just wish everything wasn't so... dead."
"Deeeeeaaaaadddd..." moaned the echo on her neck, brushing her hair with its breath.
Paige yelped, nearly fell from the tunnel at the start. She spun around to find nothing behind her, instinctively reaching for her weapons, only to discover a scepter at her hip, with no torch. "My torch!" She cried, before realizing the irony. "Wait... no; I'm inside it."
"Dddddeeeeeeeaaaaaddddd!" The voice angerly repeated a loud raspy moan directly in front of Paige. It slammed into her person, sent the woman plummeting backward, to the barren land of death below.
And then it did.
Ember opened her eyes to see the pale colors which made up the vivid whiteness coalesce into a landscape before her. Red wisps of smoke danced around, then smashed into one another. Where they met sparks arose, sprouting Embers which fell to the ground and blossomed into flames, engulfing all it touched with gigantic fire. The world before her burned.
Ember found herself surprisingly fearful of the flames, more from their symbolism than of the actual heat. For a moment the woman considered casting a freezing rain to extinguish them.Yet in that moment, the flames suddenly froze, instantly encased in the solid thickness of ice; a desolation of frozen fire.
Ember rubbed her eyes at the spectacle and took a step forward to look up at the ice sculpture of stalagmites. "More to your liking, yeah?" Ember teased her other half.
There was no response.
Ember blinked back the uncontrollable dread she suddenly felt. "V-Valandra?"
The wind seemed to whisper the name back to her in a distant whisper.
Ember cleared her throat. "Um... Now isn't the time to give me the cold shoulder, love."
When there was yet again no response, Ember suddenly felt a wave of panic. She instinctively reached for her flame sword, only to discover missing, which incited more worry, until she remembered her situation. The lessons of calming herself Valandra had begun to instill came to mind and Ember took in a deep breath to quell her anxiety.
"Ddddddddeeeeeeeaaaaaaddddd," came the raspy voice ahead.
Paige quickly regained her footing, pulling the scepter, which morphed into a large great sword. She glanced in bewilderment, but fought the urge of the puzzle to deal with the threat ahead. A person in the distance began to walk toward her from the direction the voice had come, and thus far, Paige had seen nothing from this land to assume his intentions were not malicious.
She took a step forward, hands still grasping the great sword with caution. "Hello?" She hesitantly asked.
At the sound of her voice, the stammering figure stopped, then rushed her. Its jaw was barely hanging on, its skin melted and malformed. Paige hesitated with a step back when a corpse-like hand grabbed her ankles. She kicked and screamed pulling herself from the shackles, slashing her sword at the melted piles of human flesh. "Away!" she yelled.
Suddenly the rushing corpse slammed into her, knocked her down and disarming her. The corpse was on top of her, pinning the woman down. Paige kicked and screamed and fought the assault, but additional hands came from the ground, holding her wrists, her ankles and pulling her hair to force her head to stare into the face of the undead assailant.
"Unhand me! Get off me!" screamed Paige.
A mangled hand came to the corpse's own hanging jaw, pushing it back into place when suddenly and fearfully, Paige recognized the man through the burnt putridness and death. It was Sebastian, Paige's deceased personal aide.
Suddenly the hustle and ambiance of a city street filled her ears. She glanced around to find the business of people walking around, continuing with their commerce, oblivious to the snow covered frozen landscape.
The woman glanced around in confusion. "This... isn't right," she concluded, then paused almost expecting Valandra to whisper something about the obviousness of the statement. "Right," she sighed when the expected voice was silent. "Well maybe they have some answers."
Decidedly, she took a step toward the crowd, waved her hands to garner attention as she approached. "Hello? Can someone help me please?"
Closest to her, a small child and mother suddenly stopped at Ember's beckon, then rushed back into the mass of the crowds, fearfully.
Ember laughed at the reaction. "Come on; I'm not a monster," she said instinctively and inadvertently glancing at her hands then back to the crowd.
A whisper could be heard from over the bustle of the crowd, as though it were said directly in front of her: an echo of her own words in her own voice... "Monster."
The woman cringed, tried to shake off the distastefulness of the word. "Okay... so... im definitely going to avoid saying that again! Can anyone tell me where we are?"
"Avoid..." came a distant voice from the crowd, followed be another in the opposite direction. "Monster..."
A deeply troubled scowl came to the woman's face. "Stop it!" she barked, directionless.
The voice grew louder, came directly behind her. "Avoid... monster!"
Ember whirled around to find only emptiness. "Stop it!" she yelled. A brush from an unseen force through her hair made the woman shiver uncontrollably. "I'm not a monster!" Ember screamed into the crowd.
The crowd stopped, turned their heads in unison to eerily star at Ember. "Avoid... the... monster!" They all spoke together.
Ember tried her best not to panic. If Valandra were with her, she would have almost certainly told her to be calm, but the woman was tired of the games and scared of the uneasiness of her situation. She decidedly rushed down the slope hoping to get more answers. Each step, however, unexpectedly set off a shockwave of ice, flowing down the hill, instantly freezing everything it touched. Ember faltered, shocked at the event, slipped upon the ice and landed onto her bottom, staring up at the horrific scene of every living person, now frozen.
One of the frozen beings took a step toward the woman, screaming, "Monster!" Its skin was a pale frostbitten light blue and encased in ice as it stared at the woman with a painfully frozen expression of fear and anguish.
Another few shuffled steps closer made Ember react defensively. She clasped her hands together calling forth lightning from within to manifest a large hammer of electricity. "S-Stay back! I don't want to...""Hurt you!" The creature hissed, launching itself to Ember. An ice spike formed from its arm, found its way to Ember's gut, impaling the woman.
Ember screamed louder than she had when the Forged stabbed her so many years ago. She was lifted into the air by the ice monstrosity, who stared up an her with its frozen face of death. She gripped the hammer's handle tightly and instinctively swung it at her foe to break free, letting out a final reluctant exasperated scream. The hammer slammed into the ice creature, shattering it into thousands of shards.
Ember landed with a thud, as did the core of the ice creature that promptly melted. In its place was the figure of a young woman with brownish red hair. She sat on her knees with a shocked dumbfounded look on her face, looking down at the ice spike which was sticking out of her gut. A sorrow in her eyes conveyed her sadness to Ember as she toppled over.
Ember pulled herself up, a look of horror on her face as she instantly recognized the woman. It was her recently deceased cousin, Arya.
"Because of you," hissed the corpse of Sebastian, pinning her as bile seeping between his teeth. Paige struggled under the corpse's weight, terrified at the site and disgusted as the black liquid dripped on her face. A gnarled hand reached up, grabbing onto the woman's puffy cheeks, squeezed them and forced her head to turn in the direction of a building close by. Within her view was the Dejarin estate mansion, intact and looking as it did before Lennk's interference.
"No!" she said struggling to look away. Suddenly it exploded with a deafening boom, only allowing the anguished moans and sorrowful wails of the staff and occupants within to be heard as they burned. Paige gasped, tears immediately in her eyes. "No! It… wasn't my…"
"You killed usssssssss," hissed Sebastian.
"I didn't! It wasn't me… it was Lennk! I…"
"Left usssssss defenssssssseless! Left ussssss to diiiiiie!" spat Sebastian with an otherworldly rage.
Paige looked away from the horror of the mansion as burning corpses of men, women and children pulled themselves from the fires. "I did not! I didn't leave you! I tried to help; I even brought piece to your spirits. I…" The woman sobbed. "I'm so… Gods I'm so utterly sorry; I… I regret everything!"
"Thatssss why we remainnnn!" growled the corpse.
"What… What do you mean?" Paige cried.
Sebastian brought his gnarled hands from the woman's face to her midsection, then dove them into her, penetrating her skin, violating her body. With a devilish smirk from his mangled face, Sebastian pulled hard, breaking apart the woman's chest plate and rib cage.
Paige saw red, screaming from the most gruesome, excruciatingly painful experience of her life. She arched her back, contorting from the immeasurable agonizing torment. The hand which held her head, however, lifted it to force the woman's view. She peered down with blurry vision as the corpse of Sebastian crawled into the cavity it had made, entering into her with a garbled bubbling laugh. Blackness surrounded her vision, until there was nothing but darkness as Paige passed out.
Arya coughed up blood, stared up at Ember with a hauntingly troubled expression. "Your father… He… destroyed me. Any… you weren't there!"
Ember pulled her kin close, holding and sobbing. "You didn't come get me! You… You were always supposed to come get me!"
The woman shivered, continued coughing blood, gargling. "You always hurt us, don't you?"
Ember pulled back, flinching at the cruel spiteful words that cut deep. "I… I do…" she said begrudgingly.
"And maybe we should do the same to you!" came a wicked voice behind her as it slammed into her, throwing her some distance away.
Ember flew through the air, like a rag-doll as the world around her changed, finally slamming into the now cobblestone road of Garenhoff. She was quick to rouse herself from the blow, eyes darting for her assailant when she realized her location. "Oh no… No, no, no, no, no!"
A charred and bloody foot slapped down on the stone next to her face. Ember looked up to see a bloody, burned body towering over her. Various slices on the walking corpse seemed to be the from an unimaginable torture, heinously resulting in burns to more than half of their body. The sight was shocking and eerie to anyone that would see; yet, it was also haunting to Ember: she was the one who had tortured this person long ago during her dark days in Garenhoff. It was the living embodiment of the nightmare she kept buried.
"Monster!" it horrendously screamed.
Ember sat up, futilely crawling backward. "No! I… Not me! That… That wasn't me! I had something wrong… inside… I didn't mean to!"The corpse advanced quickly, leaped atop her, pinning the woman down. It's skin suddenly lit aflame, a molten flowing plasma immolating and burning through the reconstituted woman's skin. A plague of tar-like blackness cover the woman's head, legs and hands, which became claws as spikes formed on her back. "Oh? It wasn't you? I am you! I was inside you; me! Your dark half! And you tried to expel me; bury the remnants deep; but now you'll take me. All of me. We're going to be whole again! Whether you like it or not!" It shrieked digging its nails into Ember's chest, piercing her body with its claws, then spread her apart.
Ember howled at the unfathomable pain and anguish. "No! I got… rid of you! I… was free of… you!" she cried.
Dark Ember grinned an otherworldly, nasty smile as it stared at the woman's exposed organs. "To be whole," it said forcing itself, headfirst, inside Ember's unwilling body.
The woman gasped, tried to catch her breath, tried to fight the violation, tried to stay in control, tried not to fight the darkness back… before she lost the battle and passed out.
A voice came beside Paige as a four-fingered hand stroked the woman's shoulder. "Shhhh it's okay, Paige," whispered an unmistakably asuran voice.
Paige looked up to see her friend, her protector, her first love, Nalla. The short asura stood over her, brilliant white skin speckled with asymmetrical dots and patterns, long ears flapping in the wind as they hung on either side of her round face. The woman's azure eyes were sparkling in the dawn-like ambience. She was a ray of good in the misery Paige found herself in, and she instinctively launched herself at her, wrapped her arms around her and continued crying.
"Nalla? Is this real? Are you… You?" Paige whimpered.
The asura grunted as the mocha woman squeezed. "Yeah, it's me. Well… kinda."
After a moment, Paige pulled back, still sniffling and fighting the urge to break down again. "What do you mean, 'kinda'?" she regarded the small asura, then suddenly realized a notable difference. "Nalla! You're… Your ear! It's… back!"
Nalla reached up and tugged both intact ears, something she once did long before an attack had removed one. She giggled. "Where else would they be?"
Paige's brow furrowed at the thought and her voice cracked momentarily. "So, you're not really here, are you?"
"Get going? Where are we going?"
Nalla tilted her head comically to one side, one ear hanging limply while the other covered the middle of her face. "Well, to find him, of course! He ran off that way, I think (the little scamp!)." The asura spun around, ran to the other side of the rubble calling out as she went, "Come on! We gotta find him!"
Paige stumbled as she tried to stand and chase after the asura. In an instant, Nalla was no longer visible. "Wait! Nalla! Come back! I… don't understand!" The woman ran after, coming to stand where Nalla was last seen; the asura however, was gone. The debris changed, morphing into winding corridors in the barren landscape: a maze where once was the debris of the Dejarin Estate. Ahead, right before the first turn, sat the round, endearingly plump shape of a small amphibian creature: a little Quaggan.
"Are… you alright?" Paige asked as softly as she could, given her emotional state.
The little one looked up with the eyes of a begging feline. "I'm a little lost. I was just a curious little Quaggan and got lost when I was following them."
Paige raised an eyebrow glancing around. "I don't see anyone else here. Who are you talking about? Nalla? She's a small… well, a bit bigger than you asura. Is that who you mean?" She knelt, placed her hand on the Quaggan's slick whale-like hide.
The Quaggan sniffled. "No, it was a tall man. He looked like you. I think I saw him go that way, but there's bad guys there. I can't follow them."
"Wait… he looked like me? Was it my father? Tall? Bald? Strong?"
"Yes. He was big, and older than the other one," came the meek voice of the small creature.
The Quaggan paused a minute, as if it were doing a complex math problem, only to resume with an, "I dunno! Didn't recognize her, but wowie they were fast! I lost them… I'm so lost. I'm a little lost Quaggan."
The words sent chills through Paige. "The Lost Adventures of the Curious Captain Quaggan! I… I recognize that: it's a book I read as a girl. I still read it sometimes! I…" Paige paused, shook her head from the nostalgic recognition to focus on the puzzle at hand. She needed answers; needed to understand her situation in this volatile place, and Sebastian and the nightmarish lands she found herself in gave little room for explanation.
"If you listen, you can hear them! Can you hear them?" the Quaggan held a flipper to the side of his head.
Paige was perplexed, but tried to do so. "What is it I should be listening for, Captain Quaggan?"
"Them!" The Quaggan yelled its impish voice, pointing the flipper behind Paige.
"Wait… Them? Who else is-" As she spoke, Captain Quaggan, and the world disappeared.
In the distance, two distinct voices could be heard: her father's… and someone else's.
"Stop it! Get… hell out of me!" Ember demanded, fighting her with every fiber of her being.
"Shhhhhh," came the response in her head as the entity slid around inside. "I'm back inside you. We are once again… whole."
"N-No! Not anymore! I… am… whole with… Valandra!"
Dark Ember forced her host's head to look around. "And just where is this Valandra? Hmm? I don't see her anywhere. She abandoned you. They all abandoned you. They fear you and the monster you are."
Ember struggled to move, shrieked in frustration when her body was resisted her own commands. Dark Ember felt the struggle, was delighted to experience it, then commanded the body to turn around. Steps from her, a couple stood conversing, overlooking the docks. It was an older bald black man and a young girl.
"No, don't… Don't do this," Ember gasped.
"Do what? Become the monster we both know you are? Again!"
Unexpectedly, the couple heard the woman's wails and turned to ascertain the meaning. Ember's heart stopped at the sight of their unexpected identities: her surrogate father, Harid, and her friend Six. She screamed a loud warning, told them to move, but her voice was quelled by a wild laughter within. Her hand sparked to life, and in slow motion, fires engulfed them both. They screamed, flailed around in anguish, before stopping to stare at Ember with forlorn, broken-hearted melting faces. "You did this to us, monster," they both said before collapsing in a smoldering pile of human remains on the cobblestone road.
An elation and joy came from within her, sickened Ember to her core. She fell to her knees, then suddenly vomited a blackness of putridness and bile. Her mouth opened to a human impossibility spewing forth all that made up the darkness within. In the midst, Dark Ember held onto the woman's head, its legs still in Ember's mouth and down her throat.
"You can't do this! You don't have the strength! We are one, you and I… I am you; we are whole! And, you are a monst-"
Ember suddenly bit down, severing the entity's connection to her, spitting out her legs in reluctant protest. "I am no the monster! You are! I am whole with Valandra, not with you!"
"You will never be whole without accepting me! You will never acknowledge what you are; what you've done! And, until then, I will always live inside you! You can never destroy the monster you are!"
Ember raised both hands aloft as a cloud overhead formed. "What I acknowledge is that you are the monster from within!" A bolt of lightning flew down from the clouds, directed its energy into Ember's hands. At once, electrical bands formed around her fists, crackling and sizzling with energy, before shaping into a hammer made entirely of lightning. "I reject you. I sever you. I vanquish you! Die!" Ember yelled as she brought the hammer down upon her darkness. The being wretched under the weight of the weapon; moreover, Ember's resolve. It screamed and wiggled and fought the crackling energy weapon, before finally exploding in a massive bomb of plasma, bile, and wretchedness.
Exhausted from the ordeal, Ember fell back on her bottom. She reached up to find her jaw once again the way it should be and sighed of deep relief. "You don't make me whole. And my other half is here somewhere; I know it. Valandra? Where are you?" she called out desperately.
"Valandra…" came a voice behind her, as the world broke apart around her.
Two distinct voices could be heard from the grotto which rippled into existence before her. Paige took a hesitant step forward, cautiously; if this world had shown her anything, it was that nothing was as it appeared… no matter how innocent or terrifying. Yet, remaining stagnant was not an option. She knew deeply that whatever trials she had been but through, the ends would justify the means to get there… no matter how painful.
Six Alpha was her friend; she needed Paige's help, and in many ways she felt the burden of responsibility for allowing Lennk to capture her in the first place. Paige had seen the man blame himself, and while she was reluctant to admit it, she always felt there was more of a connection than either had let on. Regardless, of how her father loved Six, Paige knew, he did in fact care for her deeply. It was a constant struggle to deny these thoughts and the feelings that arose from it, but they were ever-present. Paige had turned them, however, to motivation for finding the young girl.
And, in the same breath, she wondered how much of any of it was believed by Emily. With Valandra's constant presence, it had not only changed Ember's personality, but Paige had to wonder how much of the woman's resolve was still within, and how much Valandra may have changed her perspective. The Ice Queen had, at one point or another, hated Demitra. While she had since seemed to relent on this, Paige simply didn't know how to read the two women's combined personalities and desires.
It was in these desperate and uncertain moments, Paige's mind raced, and she had to purposefully and resolutely stop her mind from continuing to wander.
Ahead of her, as if her own thoughts had increased their volume, within the cavernous walls, Harid's deep voice echoed, followed by one of an unknown female. Paige stepped into the grotto, slid down to find herself wading in a crystal azure pool. Within her view, a waterfall, cascading down the rocks of the cave, falling to meet the pool below. Behind it, the silhouetted figures of a man and a young girl.
"F-Father?" Paige called out hesitantly.
A soft moan came as an answer.
Her face suddenly flushed with embarrassed shame. "O-Oh no. What are you…? Father… Why? Why now?"
Paige wanted to shut her eyes; wanted to look away, but forced herself to press forward. She slapped the water in which she floated. "Father! Stop it! I need help!"
Promptly, the waterfall cleared bringing forth a clear view of her father, Harid, with her friend, Six. The young girl leaned back, moaning loudly as the man went about his work, ignoring his own daughter's cries.
The mocha woman's heart was suddenly in her throat. She shut her eyes at the disgusting, ill-inducing site of her father with the girl he practically raised. "Oh… father… why is your lust so uncontrollable? You always were about her… You just couldn't help yourself, could you? I wonder who else-"
Suddenly, the moans from the woman changed, replaced by a different voice, slightly deeper in pitch. The man's groans became rhythmic grunts as he continued to ravish what now appeared to be a smaller thin women, whose hair was a brilliant white.
At the change in tone, Paige inadvertantly looked to see her father now with Ember. "Emily? What… No! Get off her, father!"
Ember glanced at Paige with a slight grin on her face as she moaned and squirmed beneath the man's hold, raising her moans louder at the pleasure.
Paige flinched, grew sick at the sight. "I… I can't watch this. I want nothing to do with this. I…" She turned, tried to wade away from the waterfall. In front of her, however, now much closer was the despicable scene, forcing her to witness. She covered her ears and shut her eyes, but found she could still see and hear.
And what she saw broke her heart… There with her father, now, was her friend, her passion, her lover, Demitra.
The woman's eyes glistened with the tears that filled them. Her brow furrowed, the water around her glowing with a soft green energy as she grew unfathomably angry, fueled with jealousy, hatred and malcontent. She launched herself from the water, throwing herself at her father to pull him off of Demitra, screaming as a fury she'd never known wrenched at her stomach: the painful hurt of a scorned lover, a betrayed daughter, and a woman forced to endure the most horrible nightmare she could fathom. "She is mine! Father! Get your damn hands off her! Demi is mine!" Her arms wrapped around his person, as she tried with all her might to disrupt and annihilate the disturbing event.
Without warning, Paige's perspective was suddenly different, now as if looking through the eyes of her father, but moreover, replacing him. The sensation of the salaciousness happening as she continued making love to Demitra was overwhelming and she moaned as the pleasure built within. Glancing down, her hips moved on their own accord and Paige was both disturbed and blissful indifferent to the appendage attached to her which caused such unfathomable pleasure. But… it wasn't her. It felt wrong.
Paige stopped her movements, tried to pull away from Demitra as the exotic woman's tattooed legs wrapped around the woman's waist, refusing to let her go. She pulled her in tightly, building to a fever-pitch of release and moaned wildly above the rush and thunderous roar of the waterfall.
"D-Demi… I… I'm sorry. This… isn't me. This is wrong."
Demitra stared at Paige, her thick lips pouting. "You do not like this? You do not want this?" She said with glossy emerald eyes that sparkled as they reflected the fractured light through the waterfall.
"Demitra, I love you. But this? This isn't me. I don't have… I shouldn't have this," the woman said gesturing down. "I mean, is any of this real? Are… you even real?"
Demitra squeezed her legs, bared down on the woman's lower half with her own. "If you do not like this… wish it away."
"Wish it…?"
Demitra slowly broke apart, dissipated like sand in unfelt winds, as did Paige's alteration. "Wisssssssh," came the woman's disembodied whisper.
Paige dropped down to her knees, exhausted, confused, scared and sobbing. "I… I don't understand any of this! Wish? Wish for what? That I could be with you? I do! I wish… I wish… for you… for the real you!"
A flipper came to the woman's puffy hair, patted it soothingly. "Do you remember? You used to snuggle with me. You would wake from the nightmares and snuggle with me. And then you'd wish those bad dreams away."
"You can make those here. You can have the bliss you seek here; simple and pure. Happy and joyous for all times… Or you can relive those nightmares. The choice is entirely yours in this place. What do you wish for, more than anything?" The Quaggan spoke prophetically in Paige's own voice.
Paige hugged the Quaggan tightly. "I want Demitra. I came here because I need Demitra. What I want… What I wish for more than anything is the truth. I can't hide behind lies and illusion. I just want… the truth."
Whirls of sand suddenly whisked away the land, much as it had done with Demitra, leaving a myriad landscape of colors too vivid to ascertain. The Quaggan giggled slightly as it disappeared, revealing to Paige a large archway, containing a small unassuming and ordinary door within. Paige stood, came before it and, as was her nature, inspected it. Upon the handle was an intricately engraving.
'Ahdashim, the Realm of the Djinn'
With a deep breath, Paige opened the door to reveal a vividly overwhelming brightness. Rather than shielding her eyes from the outpouring, however, Paige stared within. There was something… welcoming… It felt as though it were the warmth of a mother's blanket, wrapping around her, keeping her safe, keeping her calm. It felt like home.
She stepped through the door, ready to be embraced by the overwhelming content it offered; ready to find her lover: Demitra Naja Nyimah.
The door shut behind her, then violently shattered.
Something about the Elonian pulled her in and refused to let Ember's heart go. The darkness within seemed to be quelled by something she'd never experienced: the unconditional love of another, and perhaps, her own love within. It was Demitra who helped Ember within the Djinn vault as well, where the very manifestation of her dark self was exposed and defeated. And, while Ember couldn't deny her love for the woman remained, her heart broke when Demitra was recalled to the Djinn Realm.
Destiny, however, intervened as Ember became entwined (quite literally so) with Valandra. An agent of Palawa Joko, Valandra had an agenda: to harness the powers of Ember. It was revealed only later that the immolation magic was sought to destroy the lich, but in the attempt to garner it, the two swapped powers- and something much more. They swapped a part of their buried dark secrets. This barrier remained, however, even after they merged into one being. Yet, there was something more that replaced it: A deep understanding, trust, and love that could only exist as the result of their hearts becoming one. And, despite her outward struggles, despite her difficulties with the merger, Ember loved Valandra deeply. And, she was almost whole.
In this place, however, without Valandra, the darkness arose and her deepest fears were made manifest: hurting others uncontrollably. The woman had been through hell, quite literally. The fright of reluctantly causing the devastation of her blizzard which froze citizens unscrupulously: men, women, and children snuffed out, turned into ice creatures, forcing her to fight. And her inaction which seemingly lead Arya's untimely death struck deep.
The catalyst came from the people she knew: Six and Harid, melting before her eyes. It gave her the courage to fight, the strength to combat the darkness within, and expel it from her body.
But she was alone again… no longer whole.
"Valandra," the whisper grew louder.
Ember opened her eyes, saw her locale had changed, yet again. Before her was a cottage, its door cracked open. Inside came the whisper again, this time followed by a moan. Ember darted in through the door, expectantly. What she found however, made her heart stop. Upon the bed before her, lay Valandra, naked and in the throes of passion with Embers very own father Ailden.
"V-Val?" Ember squeaked.
The man stopped, looked up with a scowl at his daughter; with him, Valandra turned her head to stare. Both looked as though Ember's very presence was an intrusion and disturbance, not the other way around. Neither said a word, yet the man returned to his previous action, still staring at his daughter.
Ember shivered uncontrollably, on the verge of panic. "Valandra… I… What are you… With… him?!?"
Ember raised her eyebrow. "This… That isn't Paige. And, Valandra wouldn't ever… with my father! This… This isn't real!" she screamed.
Another few appeared with the group, lovers of Ember's past, all contributing to the scene of fornication.
She flinched, anxiety and panic threatened her knees. "This isn't real… None of this is real! It's the damned sword! I didn't know my vessel was hell!" She yelled into her hands, squeezed her eyes shut. "I… I matter. I'm not the intruder here! I… matter, dammit!"
The softest, most melodic voice came from behind Ember's sobbing form. "Excuse me."
Ember picked up her head, spun around to see the nude form of her lover, her partner and wife, Demitra Naja Nyimah. Ember's face was completely shock, no matter the fallacy that was this vision, she couldn't contain the joy within at seeing her. She lundged forward to wrap her arms around her, to hold her, to be embraced by Demitra and have the woman quell her anxiousness and tell her all would be alright.
But she couldn't. Her arms passed through the intangible purple and blue clouds that made up Demitra; Ember fell bodily through to meet the floor. She rolled over with the eyes of a broken-hearted child. Demitra giggled slightly, then sat on the corner of the bed, while all Ember's lovers and her father caressed the Elonian. Her emerald eyes never left Ember's, as she let out a cry of ecstasy at the various lover's touches.
"Wha- No!" Ember cried out. "Get off of her! She's mine! She's my wife! Don't! Please… D-Demi?"
Demitra leaned forward as did the lovers hell-bent on pleasuring her. "You are unwelcomed here. You hurt those you love."
Ember's heart shattered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You… You can't say that! I never… I didn't mean to! I… I love you! And, this isn't you!" she sobbed. "I refuse to believe this is you! This is a nightmare, like all the rest. My fears, my insecurities, my… my dark thoughts!"
"Don't like it?" came a deep voice behind her.
Ember spun around to see a large humanoid white-furred bear-like creature, a Koda; one of the very Kodan she had spent time with in her youth. She stared up at the towering creature with glassy eyes. "Of course I don't like it! None of it! I don't like any of this place!"
"Then why'd you make it?" the large polar bear asked matter-of-factly.The woman's brow furrowed. "We all make mistakes. Being forced to relive every horror of my life in not a just punishment!"
"Then stop doing it," the Kodan said, bending down to feed Scarra a piece of fish.
Ember blinked stared at the drake as a gasping breath from her tears returned momentarily, then back to the Kodan, trying to use Valandra's steadiness to calm herself. "Did I… Am I doing this?"
The Kodan shrugged. "Do you wish to do this?"
"Wish? That's not how this works! What I wish… I wish I wasn't in my own personal hell!" The woman's voice reverberated off of a surface that wasn't there, a close wall which fluctuated for a moment, then stood steadfast, allowing only a few strands of color to turn to sand and disappear. Ember's eyes widened at the effect, a sudden flitter of hope, in the otherwise dreariness.
The Kodan looked around a moment, then back down to Ember with a toothy grin. "You sure that's not how this works?" Scarra looked up and gurgled a pleasant sound.
Ember took in a breath. "I'm sure Valandra would know what to- Wait! That's it. I wish Valandra was here!" she said squeezing her eyes shut.
"Ember, you fool," came the ice queen's voice. Ember opened her eyes, then immediately began sobbing, wrapping her arms around the naked woman.
Ember couldn't help but giggle in elation. "Why's everyone always naked?" she said, still holding her love.
"You no doubt wished it so," Valandra said, laughing.
A few minutes of sob-filled snuggles later, Ember pulled back to regard the woman. "Wait… I wished it so? Does that mean… Is this you? Are you back?"
Valandra squeezed the woman again, with a soft exhale of frost. "Aye. I am me… after a fashion."
Ember pulled back again, blinking her already bloodshot puffy eyes. "After a fashion? You mean.. You're not, are you? You're not really Valandra."
"I can be," the woman said. "I am of this place, but I am as much her as you want me to be. But, a part of you right now still knows this is not real. But if you believe… it will be." Valandra kissed Ember's forehead softly. "What is it you wish for? Do you wish to be eternally happy in this place? Face the perils of your past in this place? Face the uncertainty of reality in this place? It can be what you wish and believe it to be. Forever."
For a moment- the longest moment- Ember considered it: to stay in this place and to wish it all into existence, into her perfect paradise. And she almost did. Her fingers traced the woman's shoulder, came to the site of the wound: the one she had been impaled with on an ice spike that Joko used his magic on; the very same place Ember had been forced to stab Valandra years prior. And it wasn't there.
Ember took in a deep breath. "I need the real her. She would tell me what to do. Someday, I'll be able to give myself happiness, like this. Blissful and happy… But, for now… Paige, Demitra… and Valandra," she said staring up at the facsimile, "They all need me."
The false Valandra pulled Ember close, pressed their lips together and gave a deeply passionate kiss as the world around them dissolved like sand upon the wind. Colors began to fade, intermix into the vibrant white that was the void.
"Knowing this, Ember," Valandra said as she, too, began to fade from her grasp, "coming to this decision… You are now… truly… whole…" The winds took hold of the grands of sand which made up the woman, then disappeared into the whiteness.
Ember blinked, dumbfounded by the statement. She wanted to ask more, wanted to understand, but wanted for her wish to be granted more. She wanted to find her other half, Valandra- the real one. She wanted find Paige. And she wanted them to save their lover, and her wife, Demitra. She closed her eyes tightly, wishing with all her willpower.
An unassuming door in a larger archway appeared, upon its handle: Ahdashim, Realm of the Djinn. Ember took in a deeply hopeful breath, opened the door and walked through to the warming embrace that felt like home. Behind her, the door shut slowly, then shattered into a billion pieces.
[To Be Continued...]
