No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Julianna | Belial
[spoiler]
It was the rain that Julianna noticed first. Stinging, and ice cold where it dropped onto the exposed skin of her limbs and her face. She didn't know where she was, didn't bother finding out. She was cold, and steadily becoming cognizant to the fact that she ached all over. She rolled onto her side, and curled into a ball, pulled her knees against her chest, and pressed her face into wet grass that was mostly mud. Her tail curled around her body in vain attempts to keep her warm, and when she moved to circle her arms around her legs was when she noticed near insufferable pain surging through her left arm.
Julianna opened her eyes for the first time. It was dark, but her eyes caught traces of moonlight that flooded through what she assumed were trees. Looking down at her arm she saw that it was a mess. Hardly recognizable as a limb, the forearm all torn muscles and ligaments, bone that was clearly broken visible through missing flesh. The true gore of it was obscured the grayscale of her darkvision, and was probably the only thing that kept her mind from being thrown into a panic.
There was no thunder, no lightning, just rain. So when a door opened Julianna was able to hear it. Ears twitched against the unexpected sound, and she twisted her body to find the source. It was a house. Had it been there the whole time? A two-story federal looking thing. All beige bricks and black shutters. Her senses were out of alignment, obscured by the pain her body was trying to shut out, but she could see a figure standing in the open door. A silhouette in a wash of yellow light. Julianna uncurled her figure, tried in vain to push herself up on her good elbow. She blinked through her bangs and the rain to get a better look.
It was a child. A boy who had stepped out on to his porch to scowl at the rain. He had light hair, and could only have been eight or maybe nine. Determining the ages of others got harder as she got older. She called out to him for help, but it was not words that escaped. The sound more akin to the yowls of an injured feline. Not that the comparison was entirely inaccurate. The boy startled, scanning the darkness for the sound. When he finally spotted her surprise covered his face, and he shut the door again.
Julianna sank back into the mud, clutching her injured arm closer to her chest. Bit and pieces of the night came back in staccato flashbacks. Another bar, another argument, another altercation. But it wasn't her. Belial had been the one to saunter into the tavern like it owned the place, Belial had been the one to cheat at pool. Only to hurt her, never to kill her.
Like always.
She wasn't aware of how much time had passed when the door opened again. She didn't look to see if it was the boy. She drifted in and out of consciousness, until warm hands on her broken arm brought her to alertness. Julianna jerked away, snarled on impulse, hiding the sounds of pain with a threat.
"Come now, dear," a woman said softly. Her voice was gentle, melodic. "Come inside and let me look at your arm."
There was no fight left in her, so she complied as the healer helped her stand. Slowly, they made their way back into the house; two children scattered as they came through the door.
The woman called herself Ishara, and she was healer. The true kind that was a dying breed. Talents steeped in shamanism and druidism, in spirits and magic. She helped Julianna bathe, found her dry clothes that would keep away the chill. She had fed her and done the best she could to heal the ugly remnants of her arm.
When she was patched and bandaged, Ishara left the room to tend to another patient. It wasn't long after that the children from before came back into the room, seating themselves with Julianna on the floor in front of the fireplace. It was the same boy, now accompanied by a girl, still a child but older than he. The girl looked like the healer, auburn hair and green eyes, so Julianna was left to assume she was their mother. The boy wasn't making eye contact with her. Julianna couldn't tell if he was shy, or just pouting.
She wondered who the boy, pale and blue-eyed like an icy Nordic prince, resembled.
The girl was more than willing to do enough talking for the both of them. "Are you okay?" she asked, crossing her legs and looking up at Julianna in what could have been wonder. "What happened?"
Julianna's ears pinned back. "I don't know," she explained, a half-truth. "I think I was attacked in the woods."
"Oh. Well, you really shouldn't have gone out there after dark," she said, very matter of fact. "Anyway, my name's Victoria, and this is Owen," she continued, jerking a thumb in the boy's direction.
"My name is Rylan," she lied, ears pushing forward as she cocked her head at the children. "How old are you?"
Victoria beamed. "I'm eleven and Owen's only nine. How old are you?"
"Two hundred and fifty six."
Victoria's face was clouded in disbelief. Julianna cleared her throat, tail curling against the line of her spine as she tried again. "Uhm. Twenty," she ventured, sounding unsure.
"Where are you from? Not from around here if you're going into the forest after dark." This from the boy, sounding suspicious and vaguely accusatory. Emerald hues cast down to look at him. How practical.
"Eryra," she replied, finding no reason to lie this time.
Owen frowned at her. "Where's that?"
"The Veridian Isles. In the Kartik Sea."
The boy pushed himself from the floor, seemingly without provocation, and all but stormed out of the room. The remaining two watched him go, and Julianna turned her attention back to the girl, ears falling lopsided as she cocked a brow.
"Don't worry about him," Victoria reassured. "He's probably going to try and find it on his maps. He's really into maps." She sounded bored by the prospect just explaining it.
Julianna shook her head. "He probably won't find it. Most modern maps only go as far as the Abian Sea." Looking around, she found a shadow cast from the fireplace that was close enough for her to reach into. Victoria gasped as her hand disappeared into the darkness. From the shadow she pulled a weathered piece of rolled up parchment and handed it to Victoria. "Give him this. He might enjoy it."
The girl eyed the parchment warily, as she obviously wanted to ask a million new questions. Deciding she would save them for later, she snatched the offering and ran off to join her brother.
"That woman gave me a map."
Ishara smiled as she sat on the edge of Owen's bed. "Did you thank her?" she asked, as she tucked the blankets around him. She brushed strands of blonde hair out of his eyes.
Owen shook his head. "It was of islands. They're not on any of my other maps. And it was in a weird language."
"Veridian," Ishara offered, but Owen only looked at her with confusion. "It is the language they speak were she comes from," she said, before leaning to press a kiss to his forehead. His lips parted to ask more questions, but she shushed him, and he closed it again. "Goodnight," she said, as she stood, turning off the light and closing the door as she left
It was the nausea that woke Julianna. The turning of her stomach and the taste of bile on the back of her tongue. She sat up in the bed that Ishara had offered her as a kindness, and her head swam. This was not an unfamiliar feeling, different from a common sickness. Julianna tried to fight it. Tried to fight the demon that was attempting to force control over her body. No, no, no, she chanted in her thoughts, trying to push the demon back down into the dark part of her mind that it usually enjoyed. Not this time. It wanted out, and there was nothing to be done about it.
It was like flipping a switch. Green eyes turned blood red, as her ears and tail stopped twitching. Belial lifted its arms above its head, stretching its presence through Rylan's body and testing its control, before pushing up from the bed and out of the room. Belial didn't waste any time, it had a goal, and it sought out the healer.
"I knew I sensed you, monster," Ishara said darkly, turning from her work to face Belial as it sauntered into the room. Belial only smirked in response. "You've come to kill me then." The words were not a question, and she pulled a dagger from some hidden place in the robes she wore. "Your host is kind. She will not forgive you."
Belial's smirk faded, expression twisting, nose wrinkling in disgust. "I do not care about her feelings," the demon's tone implied that it should have been obvious. "She is a tool, a pawn. Temporary."
It was Belial who attacked first, all teeth and claws as she tried to maul the healer. The woman was skilled, dodging and blocking Belial's assault with more prowess than she expected from an aged shaman. It mattered little, in the end, Belial would always be faster, stronger. More ruthless, because despite fighting for her life, Ishara still wasn't fighting to kill.
Belial did not play by the same rules.
Pinning the woman against a wall, with a hand around her neck Belial's smirk had reappeared. It was a very sore winner; needed to gloat. To revel. "Thank you for fixing my arm," it said, holding the appendage at eye level. "It will come in handy when I kill you."
Ishara sneered, struggled against the demon's hold. Belial's grip tightened, choking, immobilizing until the woman stopped fighting. "Do you know who I am?" the demon asked. Ishara shook her head the best she could, mouth opening in silent protest. "Do you know who Rylan is?" Ishara nodded this time, and Belial's smirk fell into a frown.
"Of course you do. Little spying bride of the Covenant. Just couldn't be bothered to keep to yourself. Just like your husband."
Ishara's eyes widened at the mention of her husband, murdered while on a Covenant mission only a few months back. Questions danced behind those wide peridot orbs, but Belial would not be giving her the satisfaction of asking them.
Belial's free hand pushed into the woman's abdomen as if she were composed of something less than flesh and bone. She probably would have screamed had Belial's grip on her neck not been so silencing. That did not keep her from thrashing, mouth opened wide but no sound came out. Clawed fingers pushed up behind her ribcage, blood staining carefully applied bandages, until they gripped her heart, pumping and fluttering like a frightened bird. "I'll be taking this."
Belial released the woman all at once and her lifeless body slumped to the floor. When Belial's hand was freed from the gore it had created, it still held the healer's heart - no longer beating, no longer struggling. Belial tsked and looked down at itself, frowning at the blood soaking its clothes and skin. It contemplated stripping, until small, prey-like whimpers drew its attention.
Turning at the waist, it found itself locking eyes with the children from before. They cowered against the wall in the hallway, tears streaming down ruddy little faces. Belial took a step towards them, covered in blood and holding their mother's heart like a trophy and they screamed. It moved closer still, the children held each other hiding their faces in any way they could; begging to wake up from this nightmare.
"Do you remember my name?" Belial asked, leaning closer to the children, voice barely above a whisper. Only the boy looked at it, nodding slowly as brows furrowed into his best imitation of a glare. "Good," Belial replied, sounding positively chipper as she reached out to poke him in the nose, smearing blood across ivory skin. "You would do well not to forget it. We will meet again."
Belial straightened, turned its back on the children and left the house in the woods. She left the dead body of the woman who had shown Julianna a kindness, and she left the children orphaned and sobbing on the floor. In any other circumstance it may have burned the whole thing to the ground. But Belial liked leaving a legacy. [/spoiler]
Julianna | Belial
[spoiler]
It was the rain that Julianna noticed first. Stinging, and ice cold where it dropped onto the exposed skin of her limbs and her face. She didn't know where she was, didn't bother finding out. She was cold, and steadily becoming cognizant to the fact that she ached all over. She rolled onto her side, and curled into a ball, pulled her knees against her chest, and pressed her face into wet grass that was mostly mud. Her tail curled around her body in vain attempts to keep her warm, and when she moved to circle her arms around her legs was when she noticed near insufferable pain surging through her left arm.
Julianna opened her eyes for the first time. It was dark, but her eyes caught traces of moonlight that flooded through what she assumed were trees. Looking down at her arm she saw that it was a mess. Hardly recognizable as a limb, the forearm all torn muscles and ligaments, bone that was clearly broken visible through missing flesh. The true gore of it was obscured the grayscale of her darkvision, and was probably the only thing that kept her mind from being thrown into a panic.
There was no thunder, no lightning, just rain. So when a door opened Julianna was able to hear it. Ears twitched against the unexpected sound, and she twisted her body to find the source. It was a house. Had it been there the whole time? A two-story federal looking thing. All beige bricks and black shutters. Her senses were out of alignment, obscured by the pain her body was trying to shut out, but she could see a figure standing in the open door. A silhouette in a wash of yellow light. Julianna uncurled her figure, tried in vain to push herself up on her good elbow. She blinked through her bangs and the rain to get a better look.
It was a child. A boy who had stepped out on to his porch to scowl at the rain. He had light hair, and could only have been eight or maybe nine. Determining the ages of others got harder as she got older. She called out to him for help, but it was not words that escaped. The sound more akin to the yowls of an injured feline. Not that the comparison was entirely inaccurate. The boy startled, scanning the darkness for the sound. When he finally spotted her surprise covered his face, and he shut the door again.
Julianna sank back into the mud, clutching her injured arm closer to her chest. Bit and pieces of the night came back in staccato flashbacks. Another bar, another argument, another altercation. But it wasn't her. Belial had been the one to saunter into the tavern like it owned the place, Belial had been the one to cheat at pool. Only to hurt her, never to kill her.
Like always.
She wasn't aware of how much time had passed when the door opened again. She didn't look to see if it was the boy. She drifted in and out of consciousness, until warm hands on her broken arm brought her to alertness. Julianna jerked away, snarled on impulse, hiding the sounds of pain with a threat.
"Come now, dear," a woman said softly. Her voice was gentle, melodic. "Come inside and let me look at your arm."
There was no fight left in her, so she complied as the healer helped her stand. Slowly, they made their way back into the house; two children scattered as they came through the door.
The woman called herself Ishara, and she was healer. The true kind that was a dying breed. Talents steeped in shamanism and druidism, in spirits and magic. She helped Julianna bathe, found her dry clothes that would keep away the chill. She had fed her and done the best she could to heal the ugly remnants of her arm.
When she was patched and bandaged, Ishara left the room to tend to another patient. It wasn't long after that the children from before came back into the room, seating themselves with Julianna on the floor in front of the fireplace. It was the same boy, now accompanied by a girl, still a child but older than he. The girl looked like the healer, auburn hair and green eyes, so Julianna was left to assume she was their mother. The boy wasn't making eye contact with her. Julianna couldn't tell if he was shy, or just pouting.
She wondered who the boy, pale and blue-eyed like an icy Nordic prince, resembled.
The girl was more than willing to do enough talking for the both of them. "Are you okay?" she asked, crossing her legs and looking up at Julianna in what could have been wonder. "What happened?"
Julianna's ears pinned back. "I don't know," she explained, a half-truth. "I think I was attacked in the woods."
"Oh. Well, you really shouldn't have gone out there after dark," she said, very matter of fact. "Anyway, my name's Victoria, and this is Owen," she continued, jerking a thumb in the boy's direction.
"My name is Rylan," she lied, ears pushing forward as she cocked her head at the children. "How old are you?"
Victoria beamed. "I'm eleven and Owen's only nine. How old are you?"
"Two hundred and fifty six."
Victoria's face was clouded in disbelief. Julianna cleared her throat, tail curling against the line of her spine as she tried again. "Uhm. Twenty," she ventured, sounding unsure.
"Where are you from? Not from around here if you're going into the forest after dark." This from the boy, sounding suspicious and vaguely accusatory. Emerald hues cast down to look at him. How practical.
"Eryra," she replied, finding no reason to lie this time.
Owen frowned at her. "Where's that?"
"The Veridian Isles. In the Kartik Sea."
The boy pushed himself from the floor, seemingly without provocation, and all but stormed out of the room. The remaining two watched him go, and Julianna turned her attention back to the girl, ears falling lopsided as she cocked a brow.
"Don't worry about him," Victoria reassured. "He's probably going to try and find it on his maps. He's really into maps." She sounded bored by the prospect just explaining it.
Julianna shook her head. "He probably won't find it. Most modern maps only go as far as the Abian Sea." Looking around, she found a shadow cast from the fireplace that was close enough for her to reach into. Victoria gasped as her hand disappeared into the darkness. From the shadow she pulled a weathered piece of rolled up parchment and handed it to Victoria. "Give him this. He might enjoy it."
The girl eyed the parchment warily, as she obviously wanted to ask a million new questions. Deciding she would save them for later, she snatched the offering and ran off to join her brother.
"That woman gave me a map."
Ishara smiled as she sat on the edge of Owen's bed. "Did you thank her?" she asked, as she tucked the blankets around him. She brushed strands of blonde hair out of his eyes.
Owen shook his head. "It was of islands. They're not on any of my other maps. And it was in a weird language."
"Veridian," Ishara offered, but Owen only looked at her with confusion. "It is the language they speak were she comes from," she said, before leaning to press a kiss to his forehead. His lips parted to ask more questions, but she shushed him, and he closed it again. "Goodnight," she said, as she stood, turning off the light and closing the door as she left
It was the nausea that woke Julianna. The turning of her stomach and the taste of bile on the back of her tongue. She sat up in the bed that Ishara had offered her as a kindness, and her head swam. This was not an unfamiliar feeling, different from a common sickness. Julianna tried to fight it. Tried to fight the demon that was attempting to force control over her body. No, no, no, she chanted in her thoughts, trying to push the demon back down into the dark part of her mind that it usually enjoyed. Not this time. It wanted out, and there was nothing to be done about it.
It was like flipping a switch. Green eyes turned blood red, as her ears and tail stopped twitching. Belial lifted its arms above its head, stretching its presence through Rylan's body and testing its control, before pushing up from the bed and out of the room. Belial didn't waste any time, it had a goal, and it sought out the healer.
"I knew I sensed you, monster," Ishara said darkly, turning from her work to face Belial as it sauntered into the room. Belial only smirked in response. "You've come to kill me then." The words were not a question, and she pulled a dagger from some hidden place in the robes she wore. "Your host is kind. She will not forgive you."
Belial's smirk faded, expression twisting, nose wrinkling in disgust. "I do not care about her feelings," the demon's tone implied that it should have been obvious. "She is a tool, a pawn. Temporary."
It was Belial who attacked first, all teeth and claws as she tried to maul the healer. The woman was skilled, dodging and blocking Belial's assault with more prowess than she expected from an aged shaman. It mattered little, in the end, Belial would always be faster, stronger. More ruthless, because despite fighting for her life, Ishara still wasn't fighting to kill.
Belial did not play by the same rules.
Pinning the woman against a wall, with a hand around her neck Belial's smirk had reappeared. It was a very sore winner; needed to gloat. To revel. "Thank you for fixing my arm," it said, holding the appendage at eye level. "It will come in handy when I kill you."
Ishara sneered, struggled against the demon's hold. Belial's grip tightened, choking, immobilizing until the woman stopped fighting. "Do you know who I am?" the demon asked. Ishara shook her head the best she could, mouth opening in silent protest. "Do you know who Rylan is?" Ishara nodded this time, and Belial's smirk fell into a frown.
"Of course you do. Little spying bride of the Covenant. Just couldn't be bothered to keep to yourself. Just like your husband."
Ishara's eyes widened at the mention of her husband, murdered while on a Covenant mission only a few months back. Questions danced behind those wide peridot orbs, but Belial would not be giving her the satisfaction of asking them.
Belial's free hand pushed into the woman's abdomen as if she were composed of something less than flesh and bone. She probably would have screamed had Belial's grip on her neck not been so silencing. That did not keep her from thrashing, mouth opened wide but no sound came out. Clawed fingers pushed up behind her ribcage, blood staining carefully applied bandages, until they gripped her heart, pumping and fluttering like a frightened bird. "I'll be taking this."
Belial released the woman all at once and her lifeless body slumped to the floor. When Belial's hand was freed from the gore it had created, it still held the healer's heart - no longer beating, no longer struggling. Belial tsked and looked down at itself, frowning at the blood soaking its clothes and skin. It contemplated stripping, until small, prey-like whimpers drew its attention.
Turning at the waist, it found itself locking eyes with the children from before. They cowered against the wall in the hallway, tears streaming down ruddy little faces. Belial took a step towards them, covered in blood and holding their mother's heart like a trophy and they screamed. It moved closer still, the children held each other hiding their faces in any way they could; begging to wake up from this nightmare.
"Do you remember my name?" Belial asked, leaning closer to the children, voice barely above a whisper. Only the boy looked at it, nodding slowly as brows furrowed into his best imitation of a glare. "Good," Belial replied, sounding positively chipper as she reached out to poke him in the nose, smearing blood across ivory skin. "You would do well not to forget it. We will meet again."
Belial straightened, turned its back on the children and left the house in the woods. She left the dead body of the woman who had shown Julianna a kindness, and she left the children orphaned and sobbing on the floor. In any other circumstance it may have burned the whole thing to the ground. But Belial liked leaving a legacy. [/spoiler]
I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you.