>>72441466Daydreams
[Shiori, (Light) Abuse, Doomed]
The sound of death rings out as you clash for what you hope is the last time.
Every blow makes your body pulse with fatigue. She is aided by forbidden alchemy and insight, but you are only human. For every blow you strike, you are gouged and severed, but it is only flesh.
Her death approaches.
The Archivist, last of her ilk, wields an innocuous letter opener. Her magic has left her, but the blade drips still with blood that is not your own, letted from victims whom the years will not let you forget.
The last strike sends her reeling. She heaves an involuntary gasp, as if reminded suddenly of her own humanity, here at the edge of the cliff. She toes the edge of an invisible circle, mindful as you are of how the coin can flip.
“Don’t… be so eager, my darling jailer,” she pants.
“This story has gone on long enough,” you preempt.
“I disagree. There’s still so much to learn. So much to see. You understand, don’t you?”
“Better than anyone.”
“Anyone?” she teases weakly, her voice a broken lyre whose tune you had once let demand your heart.
“Imprisonment to The Cell is for eternity unto death – prisoner and jailer alike. No friend, lover, nor family member could be so familiar as the Librarians.”
“Your fellow knights… such a dauntless bunch.” She stokes the red inside you. You don’t dare deny the intent.
“Dauntless and greater to me, every one. Only by survival do I claim to be first. It is for them that you must die.”
Their voices echo these halls calling for the end to this wretched tale.
Shiori… she will never stop. Life and death mean nothing to her. Tools and tales all; a single soul weighed against a scrap of knowledge is no sale, but a cycle. Civilizations would fall to feed her gluttonous soul, if not for you and this moment.
“Yes… this must end. Today, both of us leave The Cell.” Coldness is etched into your breath, seeping bitterly into your voice.
Beneath the madness, her golden eyes soften with weariness. “I suppose this is a wonderful end too, is it not?”
“Come and die, Shiori.”
You summon your fury and spring after her. A slip of mana escapes from the Archivist’s foot as reeds of papyrus erupt forth to block your assault.
Though your momentum is slowed and exhaustion crumples you to the floor, your blades collide once again as she is flung into a spire of tomes. You waste no time, but neither does she, adrenaline compelling you both to stand once more.
The air boils close to eruption; the atmosphere bubbles with delirium. You circle – each trying to take the lead, yearning for the intimacy of the kill – to cut your fangs on the other’s throat.
You melt and suffocate beneath the red fugue, drifting lost where your days were spent whiling the intimate hours away in this very chamber – when you loved the hunt as two. You could glimpse into her passion and nearly get swept within, becoming her companion on the endless journey: her prisoner – her knight.
Yes, jailers and prisoners both are inhabitants of The Cell. From Eternity Unto Death. There was indeed a time when you pictured that eternity with her.
You wonder if she saw the same.
Lost in memory, you have suffered another wound, but what is more blood spilt in your home? You grip Shiori’s pale, delicate wrist with your palm, rejecting her as she struggles to pull the dagger free. With the other, you jam your blade through her torso as her widening eyes send you into vertigo.
What did she expect? This was always going to be the end, from the moment she killed your brothers and flew from this cage. That she returned at all is proof she expected this climax.
You slam your blade into the wood beneath with the last of your strength, spearing her to the foundation. In a swift move, you encircle her sorceress fingers with yours and crush until they snap.
You curse the lonesome part of you reminding you to cover her lips, lest she speak enchantment into the air.
Alas, your blade has driven the air from her lungs. She gasps and silently asks her endless questions to the gods above, but no one answers. No one is there but you.
When Shiori is finally called to account before the heavens, she and those lost will be reunited, but you will remain at an empty home amidst the memories gathering dust on the walls. Perhaps the Library will one day have a new prisoner and new jailers, but you will always be hers, locked away in the warmth of yesterday.
You lock eyes. Is there understanding reflected in the glow, or is it the death spiral of two caged animals? The possibilities left unrealized slip away with the scent of blood on the wind, and the flesh in your maw tastes no sweeter for it.
You allow your hatred its due and watch as she fades away. All that remains of you is you. You hold her close and rest with her for the last time.
The world is saved. There is nothing for you but faded golden daydreams.
