Dreamwaking: Chimera - Sacrifice.

[channe]

She looks tempted, for a moment; there's been this strange light in her eyes since the deaths started happening, and it's not very good. And the slight thing is trembling, she's got red-rimmed eyes, she's got the knife in her hand --

"You have Rhaena," she says, quietly. She's slowly twirling the handle in her fist. "I have Glenn." A pause. "No matters if we're actually in this shithole or not, Ariane. Tebrin. Cinnabar. That stupid elf. Aeryn. They all played the game. They all played the game. And you're playing the fucking game. You think I'd come take your sword when you've got Rhaena? You think I'd come take your sword after the shitty thing I did to you last time? Well. I'm not playing the game. It's like being a whore. I'd rather drag my intestines out and hang them from the spires of St. Iona's."

And with that, she breaks off from the quartet, walks back a little bit to where the bodies are -- picks up her knife, and hurls it as far as it can go. And then, calmly, she walks back to the four.

"I'll do whatever y'all say about this brain shit," says Agnieszka to Glenn, to her best friend, to Ariane, nodding. "You jus' tell me what to do. C'mon, Rhaena, let's kill him."

[Carnath-Emory]

You have Rhaena.


It's an interesting perspective on the situation. It does interesting things to the swordswoman's features, as well: lends a slate chill to the grey of her eyes; lends some fine lines to the corners of her mouth which resolve eventually into amusement.

"No. I am not playing. A girl who makes demands of a sword she cannot seize; she is playing. And now that you are done with that game, and now that those two have perished..."

The tilt of her chin clearly marks the place where Malaroth and his angel had fallen. But it is a subtle motion, and perhaps it will go unnoticed, because the subsequent lowering of her sword is not subtle at all.

"There is no more need for this. And no need for your eyes, I think, young sera. Go with my thanks; you have done well."

For Rhaena Olwak, these words, and they are accompanied by some neat sidestep of the swordswoman's body. Easy passage is permitted the trader. Easy access to her, as well, which will surely suit Glenn Burnie's intentions. A word remains for those, however...

"I'll advise against that. Being not much fond of fighting an enemy I do not understand, nor upon territory that is his. Mm -- no. I prefer Agnieszka's plan, I think. We are done here, and it is time we four wake.

What think you?"

And with no ceremony at all, she is tucking one bare, filthy foot slightly behind the other, the better to sink down to sit cross-legged upon the vile and yielding ground. The sword is given a resting place balanced flat across her lap, glistening viciously still with her own dark blood.

[Glenn]

There. They had Rhaena back. And Malaroth or Jirai or whoever else wasn't a threat now. It was just the four of them, as best they knew and Agnie wasn't going to play the game, no matter what had been said there.

Now they could have a fighting chance. Now they could get back at he who did this to them, who did this to those they cared about. Yes, they were at a disadvantage, but at least they would go down fighting, not as toy soldiers set against one another for the sake of amusement, but against this twisted fate itself. It was his decision six months ago, thanks to Agnieszka. It was what he lived for now, those he cared about and this.

And then Ariane just sat down. There was potentially only a matter of seconds before she and Rhaena blew up, before they could even TRY to fight to fight him.

"You're just giving up, Ariane?" If it was Agnie, he would bark an order to rise, to allow this to at least be tried. It was Ariane though, and a look of utter hopelessness, of confusion and desperation and so much more came over his face. With Agnie, with anyone else, he would have taken his sword and forced her up.

It was Ariane, and the fight left him all at once. That last bit of fire in him was crushed. He looked at her with increasingly empty eyes. "How can you just roll over and die?"

[Jirai]

Ariane has no more need of her eyes - this brings a strong relief, that there is no more need of them, but that she yet has them. In this place, she would not have been surprise if the ending of their use caused Ariane to simply... poke them out or something. But the sword is lowered, her way to the mapmaker clear. It is to him she darts of course, reaching out to seize a hand, an arm, anything, really.

"I can't," she says to Agnieszka. Perhaps she's been trying already. "I can't. Not here. This is his place."

But what is this now - Ariane is sitting down, not moving. There is a flash of surprise, followed by fear. The girl begins to back away from both Glenn and Agnieszka.

[Carnath-Emory]

I can't, says the girl, I can't...


"She's made that attempt," confirms the swordswoman, then. "Long ago, and to no result at all. And she has the right of it: this is his place."

Her hands upon that sword, palms rested lightly upon its gore-splattered flat. Even inert fingers have some effect upon that steel, which knows their touch well and cannot help but react to it; a subtle frost spiderwebs thin trails across its quicksilver gleam.

"Do you grasp this?" Her words are for the student now; her words, her eyes. "If he had a blade to her throat, would you fight him still? Mm. No; better to wait, better to slaughter him the moment that threat is gone. Glenn Burnie, this is no different. He has created this place, he has forced us to his rules. We are at his mercy here, and I propose to remove us from that influence. I do not surrender to him. I end his game."

These are difficult words, and they are spoken evenly. Hers is a tone capable of conveying some weight without much raising at all, and at their conclusion her lips have drawn into a quiet smile of some subtle warmth.

"Now -- sit you down. Hold her hand and close your eyes, and dream of waking beside her."

[channe]

"No -- no," she shrieks. "I won't do it, I won't let you -- what if this is it? What if this isn't a dream? You've the choice t' end it fer yerself, but Rhaena -- Rhaena --"

And with a terrified look at her friend, she rushes forward towards Ariane, to -- attempt to haul her up bodily. And if not, to push her down. Or to start a fight that would keep the two of them moving.

She'd seemed all right before.
Slightly reasonable.
But now?

Oh, that was only a veneer.

[Jirai]

There was some sense in Ariane's words. Sense that Rhaena might have listened to, had the result been something less gruesome than her head exploding. And it was indeed gruesome, she had seen enough of it today. That was why she had been backing away from Glenn, from Agnieszka. If Ariane was bound and determined to end this, she would manage it - one way or another. No need for them to see that happen to her.

Agnieska is afraid. Agnieszka is panicked. The girl watches her friend rush the older woman, her scaled face suddenly calm, eyes free of tears.

Abruptly, she returns to Glenn's side, pressing near to the mapmaker. Her hand twists to display his own knife to him, looking up to meet his gaze as though there were no one else around.

"Faster with this, perhaps." She suggests with an eerie calm.

[Glenn]

There had been a brief touch of Rhaena's hand. He had, for a moment, hoped that he might feel the connection that they once shared, that his shield would not be there and that her power would, but either both were gone or his shield remained.

Yes, it was quickly becoming apparent from the girl's words that the one way he could think to fight the dreamwaker had failed. His despair increased. What was the point of turning, of not running from life, when you couldn't even fight it, when you couldn't even touch it. That was why he hated magic. No matter how powerful a governor or king was, if he was only human then there was a way to fight back. He could bleed.

How could they make him bleed here and now?

At his single lowest point, Ariane's words began to flow. They were beautiful. They offered him so much. He could sit there, take the hand of the girl that he loved, and then simply wait. When his eyes opened again, it would be all fine. They would be awake and everyone would be alive again. Life would be just as it was. One could see temptation itself come over his face.

Then Agony was in motion. What if this WAS real? Did he want to live in a world without Cinnabar, Seth and Tebrin, without his friends? If that world still had Ariane and Rhaena, then yes, it was enough, wasn't it?

Ariane's choice would be so easy to rationalize though. They'd still be foiling him. They were refusing to play his game, right? That's almost like winning, like getting revenge.

But what if it was real? Then he should take the sword in his hand and strike it across Ariane's head, drag her forward until they could find a way out, a way to fight.

His already unhinged mind threatened to snap even further in the face of such a choice. There was, however, one thing that mattered most of all. His eyes turned to Rhaena. If she wished to fight on, then he would never give up, even if they walked for a thousand years, but he wouldn't force her through this hell, not if both she and Ariane both wished for it all to end. He couldn't do that, couldn't be against both of them.

... but if she showed him just a hint of strength right now, then he would walk forever.

And then she did move closer to him. Her eyes were strong. They were focused. Maybe they would find a way. Maybe her strength would allow her power to reawaken and...

... and then she spoke.

Oh. So that was how it was. That was how it was, then.

Glenn's eyes were focused as well. Alright, fine. "Give it here." It was a murmer before he grabbed the dagger as she all but presented it to him. The sword fell to the ground now. It had not spilled any blood since it took off Karolinger's hand. Glenn was glad for that.

Time seemed to have stopped for him as well. Still, his movements were hurried. There wasn't much time. "This first." He grabbed at her hand, taking the dagger and slicing down her palm. He would repeat the motion with his own. Once both of them were bleeding, he pressed their palms together joining their blood. "I love you, Rhaena. We'll do this quickly. I'll do you first. Then myself." That was how it would be done. The knife would plunge in and out of her heart quickly and then straight into his own before he could even see her fall. "Alright. On our terms."

There was a slight bit of hesitation, just enough for him to feel the jewel at his collarbone glowing warm again. "No," his voice was soft. "On our terms, not yours. And then we come after you, fucker. I won't do this to her so long as your unholy piece of shit is in my body. I won't give you that satisfaction." It was simple then. First, before stabbing her, he would use the dagger to cut it out of him. There was no doubt that he would be able to hold it together long enough afterwards to end Rhaena and himself both. He would steel his will, was as sure of his resolve here as anything ever.

He would just get the damned jewel out of his collarbone first. "Shut your eyes, Rhaena. It'll be over soon. This then you then me. And then we'll wake up."

The knife dug into Glenn's own flesh, dug under bone. The pain was intense but nothing would stop him now. He could feel the edge getting under it, digging the gem down and out and...

A moment later, Glenn Burnie's body was on the ground. His chest was a crater and his head barely attached to the rest of him. Attached it was, though, and the look that was locked upon his his dead face was one of grim determination, matched by his cold, still open eyes.

[Carnath-Emory]

There's some sense in her words, and there's some panic in Agnieszka's, and she sees this coming long before the girl's hands touch to her shoulders. Rhaena Olwak is the quieter of the pair, the more passive in moments of immediate confrontation, but Agnieszka...

Agnieszka isn't capable of that at all.
Agnieszka isn't capable of seeing this as anything but immediate threat.

So that she'd expected outrage from Glenn Burnie, but realises her mistake almost immediately, and there's a hand caught in her shirt and a hand hauling at her arm, and she moves with these things because she must. It is very quickly a real tangle of limbs, for her own hand's grasping for the girl's collar, and a bare heel bracing herself as the other arm loops for around her shoulders, the better to hold her near, near. The better to still her utterly.

"Agnieszka," she murmurs here, close by her once-student's head. "Agnieszka: the knives, the words, the whole of this, you know what it means. You have always known. Agnie, Ksyushen'ka -- " and she is very quiet now, she is firm and gentle hands upon the girl, and over there Glenn is doing ... something, Glenn is very busy at something she can't quite make out.

"Agnie," she is breathing here, quiet and low, "no, ne pizdi, ne pizdi, ti zhe znaesh, tak i dolzhno bit'."

You know that it must be like this.

"Quiet now, come now," and these are gentle hands, warm and insistent; they echo her voice with their touch. "We do but go home again."

[Jirai]

There was pain from her hand, but that was nothing. It would be gone, soon. It would all be over. The girl smiled up at him, closed her eyes trustingly. "I love you, too, Gl--" She was cut off by an abrupt splatter of warmth - of blood, of viscera across her face and her open mouth and her closed eyes.

She opened her eyes.

Had there been anything left in her stomach, it would have been swiftly emptied. As it was, she made a fine attempt at it. The taste of bile would be far, far preferable. She stared in uncomprehending horror. This was not how it was supposed to happen.

"...Glenn? GLENN!" It was something between a sob and a shriek. The girl fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably, blindly searching for the knife the mapmaker had been holding.

[channe]

Somewhere behind her, Glenn pries the jewel from his throat while Rhaena watches, silent and shocked; but here are Agnieszka's hands, in a moment gone from an attacker's to a postulant's. Here is her body calming, except for where she gulps for air in quick, hyperventilating gasps, tears on Ariane's sleeve, and Ariane is calling her such things, such things that make her catch her breath quickly, and look up at her former mentor.

"I know," she says, reaching up, with her hands grabbing at Ariane's upper arms. "But you know how I am 'bout giving up --"

There is the sound of the ruby exploding, and then the ka-thunk of Glenn's body on the ground, and Agnieszka takes a ragged breath, looks back up at Ariane, and it comes out in a flash, forcing it out before the end -- "Make it easy for her, please, please, --" and then she closes her eyes, allows her head to roll back, and --

-- it happens.

[Carnath-Emory]

It didn't have to be this way.
It was never supposed to go this way.
It can't be any other way at all.

Because there is a girl who's fallen against her with clinging hands and tears that burn hot even through her shirt's thin sleeves. And that alone is almost too much to bear, but Glenn Burnie is doing something, Glenn Burnie is meddling, and very quickly Glenn Burnie --

isn't.

Agnieszka's pleas are barely audible over the lurch of her own heart. Were it not for the wild clutch of the girl's hands, she might not have stood at all; were it not for Agnie and Rhaena both, of course, she would not have to. But so she does, and this is a hand for Agnieszka's shoulder, warm and tight, and her head turned sharply away in the very last moments of it, when something strikes her cheek very hard and the rest leaves her blooded from scalp to hip. It staggers her slightly. Like a flinch from the force of the explosion. Like a flinch from the very fact of it.

Dead is dead, dead is meat, and still she lowers Agnieszka's corpse very gently to the ground.


It was with some confidence that she'd anticipated this ending, this part of it: that at the dreamscape's conclusion, it would be she and Rhaena and no-one else at all. She'd promised to defend the girl, after all. There was very little she wouldn't have done to accomplish that. And then it would have been the two of them, quite alone, and they'd have spoken for a time of ... such things. Such terrible things.

Those intentions had died long ago.

Now there is just a girl who sobs her lover's name, and a swordswoman who's sunken to knees beside her. Now there are arms that wind tight, tight around her shoulders and her back, struggles or no, and there is gentleness there; by her ear, she murmurs: "You will see him almost immediately."

A shift of the arm; no more than that.

She won't feel a thing.

[Jirai]

There are arms wrapping about her, arms that would find no struggle at all from the sobbing Trader.

There are words, quiet words, barely heard.

And then there is nothing.

[Carnath-Emory]

The girl's body is small and still in her arms, and light in her hands when she lays it down beside the rest. They are all four of them alike in their crimson and viscera, and there is no better resting-place for her, no better death for her to have died. Agnieszka's pleading had been unnecessary, in the end: she had intended this from the moment that Glenn Burnie fell.

She would not wrest his beloved's urn from the Ashfiend's side. Neither would she leave Rhaena to die alone in this place.
There are cruelties to which she will not stoop.

Little time is left to her, then. Time enough to sit once more, barefoot and cross-legged upon the fleshy ground. Time enough to close her eyes, to permit other senses to take the place of eyes which will not see, to give her mind to other things and other places, in the moments before everything ends.

It is a good death.
It is a departure with which she can find some measure of peace.
It is a small, quiet smile which lingers at the corners of her mouth, and at the edges of her closed eyelids, aching things glisten.


There is no winter bird-song.

I cannot hear the stir of things which love the sun...

It is not morning yet,

Not morning ye --