Let death take you⦠Experience it when possible, and perhaps be born anew. Lest we fall into shameful degradation of skill and instinct⦠Take the opportunity to die, seriously, for what it is⦠A chance to be caught in the moment, free of the burden to think⦠Let death take you, when and where you canâ¦
They had fought, that night in the rain. He had summoned her to him, so that he could test his hand at doing her a favor⦠And slaying her flesh. They had seemed to be rather well matched at the time, and for a fleeting moment (in the grand scheme of things) there had been nothing else but the two of them. And then, it had grown into something less than what it had at first been. Something⦠Boring. And they had gone their separate ways, no winner. No lust given into. No blood spilled by either. But perhaps⦠Just perhaps⦠They had both been only going through the motions?
Perhaps he had not truly wanted to kill her as much as he had tried to make it seem, oozing with malevolent and tangible murderous intent as he had been. But he was eager to die as well, if such were his blessing and curse. Was there not a point in trying? He thought there was.
Cyan sighed, walking alone, kept introspective and bound within his thoughts by the events he replayed in his mind, not long ago of that night. He knew he could provoke her. A priestess. How they always tend to be sacred in their purity. He could do so again. But why? Why summon her, if they were not going to kill each other? âAtraâLamia⦠AtraâLamiaâ¦â he said rather absent mindedly and to himself.
Walking amongst the woods, one of his favorite ways to think, atleast outside of the plane of Darkness Incarnate which he called home⦠Which he called himself, just as much. No, sometimes it was better to think, when walking without care or awareness of the passing things around one. Sometimes, meditation in the void that spawned him as his dimension of darkness had was more burdensome and difficult to achieve.
What was there left? No turmoil in the world. No bloodletting. No war. All he had now was to wander alone, perhaps⦠âAtraâLamiaâ¦â he mumbled again. Would it be worth the efforts to try again? Would she even respond? Perhaps, if nothing else, she might bring with her someone else for him to play and enjoy himself with? To share in a mutual spilling of blood? To engage one as elusive as she, he would pay any fee. Even die himself. The only way to grow, was to continually be reborn. Even if only metaphorically. But when possible, literal rebirth was a rare thing to achieve and reach. And thus it should be pursued doggedly.
It was what he sought. To grow again. Stagnation and emptiness of stimulus were not good for any entity. Certainly not something the likes of which Cyan Nightbane was. To be able to grow⦠he had to be challenged. There was nothing else to it.
His foot splashed water and he suddenly pulled his attentions from inward, and noticed he had stepped into a stream. He had not even noticed, as he had moved from the edge of the woods, into a brief opening where the stream ran through. The leafless trees of a desolate wintery wasteland of grays and browns surrounded him on all sides. He would issue a challenge. This was as good a place as any. âAtraâLamia⦠If thou hearest, then let thee answer. And come to my call again. Your hidden mind and quintessence are often so hard to find⦠And I am bored of looking. I have a proposition for you.â He would say to the aethers riding the winds.
He drew the sword from its scabbard, and gripping the blade at its base with his left hand, then slid his hand along the length of the blade while squeezing tight. The fang he carried cut deep into his flesh, and blood whetted his blade, as it ran from the wound. This was blood to use as a weapon, more then something that could be collected and learned from by any alchemist. His true vitae was kept elsewhere.
Dozens of drops had fallen from his hand to land by his left foot and begin to make a small puddle. He began sweeping the area around and in front of him with droplets of blood as he swung his arm to and fro, casting crimson luminance about as each drop shone and sparkled in the partially overcast winter sky.
He started thinking, as he stood there waiting for a psionic response, or an actual appearance, of the events in Tia. They had all been on the same side. They had all been in the midst of politics of a world beneath them. Of entityâs beneath them.
Though, while certainly entertaining in ways that were different⦠All that had occurred upon that world had seemed to be nothing more than pissing contests.
The inhabitants and beings of power from that world had indulged Cyan, Atra, and Malice and company with statements of superiority and displays of power they thought may be impressive, but none had engaged them. If memory served, Malice had summoned Cyan to fight alongside him, as Malice foughtâ¦someone insignificant, albeit presumably of might as measured by that worldâs standardsâ¦And Cyan had not been engaged. Malice had been the only one, truly lucky that day. To fight. And even then, it had ended in nothing worth the time or effort.
Another sigh escaped him, and he continued to wait. Hopefully this day would turn out better than that entire journey had beenâ¦
**************
He had waited longer than usual, and still there had been no response, nor even a sign that one might be forthcoming. He knew she must be busy then. If not altogether bored of their encounters. He could not disagree. They had become all but monotonous.
Oh well., he thought, as he squeezed his left fist closed very tightly, and then relaxed it and opened it, spreading the cut wide as he did.
All of the blood he had sprinkled about and cast all around him, began to move, and slither back to him, meeting, over the course of a few minutes, at the puddle that had formed near his left foot. When every drop had returned, and joined with their crimson kin, the puddle at his feet began to reach upward as it extended itself, rather snakelike, or perhaps more tentacalian, as it continued to rise nearer to the gaping source from whence it had all sprang. Then, after a few moments of reaching, the slightest of contact between spilled quintessence carrying his intent and the wound in his palm, the rest of the blood all but shot upward in a nigh blink of an eye, and once every drop was returned to within, the wound closed itself with deliberate precision.
"Atra'Lamia..." he whispered to the winds, a smile now on his face for the first time this day. Clearly, if she were not dead, and if she were not in torpor... then surely, he reasoned, she was in the middle of something more 'fun' than this. And anyways, this stage was not a worthy one for their meeting, he realized a little late just then. "Then I shall come and find you, as I must..." he added, whispering unto the winds still. At the end of this last statement, he was pushed about lightly, as the wind took up a fervor filled and forceful presence, before blowing on it's path unto her ears and mind, wherever she might be.
He closed him mind from thinking, and eyes from seeing, as he thought of her, and visualized her before him. Not long after creating an almost tangible image of her within his minds eye, he faded from where he stood, carried onward toward his desire, as it waited to be fulfilled. He would find her. He would perhaps even face her. If not join her. Who could say. The potential paths to walk, in their number, were always endless, when one at least wished for them to be so, while maintaining a mindset that was meant to promote the generation of infinite possibility.
He was moving through the realm he called his home, the realm he called himself... on his way to her. He would arrive near to her, because he desired to do so.
â⦠you dare! Oâ great King!â her words rippled around him, and through him, as Cyan traveled. His consciousness had already arrived, at least partially, near her, but still he was transferring his physical incarnation through the fabrics of dimensions and tangible space. However, there seemed to be something disrupting his transference of his total quintessence. Something being formed by someone strong willed and powerful enough...
Cyan began to focus his mind, his resolve, and his vision of AtraâLamia. He was also forced into acquainting himself with the metaphysical makeup of the barrier as well as its source, Whatever was preventing him from manifesting, he would overcome, especially since it seemed to be an incomplete barrier as yet forming in his way. But who was its sourceâ¦? He wonderedâ¦
â¦
â¦.
⦠He did not know who it wasâ¦
But he thought he felt a familiar presence... in... Malice...? How peculiar. Something big was seemingly afoot, Cyan reckoned then, if even he had taken efforts to be present.
Nearly finished with his manifestation, Cyan now recognized then that his inter- and multi-planar travel and movements would from this moment be hindered impossible, as he had become aware of the growing depth of the barrierâs intricacy as well as its power. As if perhaps it would very soon not need whoever had formed it to consciously maintain it, if it even did at allâ¦
Cyan at last began to take shape, after he had finally become aware of all these things. He was not far from Atra at all, in fact⦠certainly within her striking range, and standing off to her right, and behind⦠sword already drawn, having never been sheathed since the gray winter wasteland where heâd just come from. Rather bold his arrival as always, he could not contain a tone of annoyance, or perhaps anger, that he had not been sent the invitation, and of thus he spoke edgily ââ¦And I received no invitation⦠Yet here I amâ¦â he would state. Making no move to attack her, no any of those around him. As yet, Cyan was still in the process of ascertaining what was going on around him, as he looked around. As yet, even he was unaware of what his part would be to play here, if any. But excitement rose within him. Perhaps he could enjoy himself...And just kill. Atra's men, and her enemies men, and any who came before him, in fact? With no bias or betrayal intended. He was undecided.
He was rather comfortable with surprising her, or at least trying. After all, it was quite a bit more probable that she had been aware of his coming, since he had first began to arrive. That is⦠with Cyan now assuming that she had not invited him for a reason, and thus perhaps had not cared to let his words of summons reach her, either.
Time would tell. Certainly sooner, not laterâ¦
Cyan decides that it is much much more fun in the land of Narnia cleaning fridges and vanishes in a puff of fairy-floss smoke "Clean yo fridges. Peace!!!" echoing as the band plays.....'Never Gonna Give You Up-- Rick Astley'.....
-Cyan has officially "left the building".
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