suffused the entirety of Zarik. From the dense physical body that encased his airy spirit to the plummeting depths of his tsunamic emotions, which warred against the constant eternal flame of who he was. What Alistair said… every answer, every synchronistic dance with Zarik’s words, bolstered the inherent faith he felt toward the mage. His trust proved separate from common logic or conventional society. The bizarre, impulsive, naive biqaj had thrown himself into the abyss within Alistair’s eyes - a forward dive of which he would never reemerge.
One: two as one. The truth resounded inside of Zarik, undeniable. Such was the understanding that had evaded his comprehension before, but no longer. His journey, everything he’d lived in his simple and short life, led him to Alistair - to this moment - to the perfection that they were, together. Regret became pointless within an instant, all burdensome traumas scorched to ash and blown away by Alistair’s soothing voice echoing what they both understood. They were everything to one another because they were each other, encased by different bodies, tinted with variations of mind, sculpted by incomparable mortal lives, but they were one.
Whether fated or a rebellious encounter not designed by the Gods, Immortal or not, any potential source of their mutual epiphany paled under the light of the shared radiance Zarik reflected from Alistair. Even waking reality seemed to tremble under the intent of each man’s will for the other, as if imitating the way Zarik had trembled in the arms of the strong mage during their intimate connections. The concept of love seemed so minor compared to what they saw in each other, to what Alistair observed and Zarik professed.
Transcendence did not present itself as epiphany had, rather the newlywed couple crafted it as a gift to each other. Together, with verbal language and communication between their harmonized bodies, their voices used the tools of words to bring forth a promise unlike any other made so far. The blue flame on Alistair’s palm grew brighter. Zarik felt compelled to the radiant glow: to feel the ether, to experience power sourced from the master of his heart and soul. Zarik caressed the mage’s arm, but he lingered his hand on Alistair’s wrist. His long fingers twitched; the pads of his fingertips tapped the aura of warmth that exuded from the flame.
Alistair warned him. He promised manifestation of their mystic understanding, to bring it forth into shared reality and force logic to bend to their combined will, but he warned of pain. Again, blissful fulfilment coyly hid behind the rigors of agony. Zarik did not flinch, but his heart pulsed faster.
For he had felt pain already with Alistair, in more than one way, spikes of hurt lining the euphoria that the nobleman had given him. So Alistair’s warning of pain worse than he thought imaginable… to say such a thing to him, a young man who’d bonded with the mage through torturing a Changeling to death. Zarik did not have to imagine vivid pain, he grew up witnessing it. The village attack had only been next in a long line, adding to a chorus of misery and torment burrowed in latent anamnesis.
Zarik dismissed the fear of death. There remained only one thing that contended with his swift attraction to Alistair and that was his lust for life. He had no compulsion to entertain death, nor to squirm at the thought. He’d faced the potential of his own death in rare conflicts, all of which stemmed from his own mistakes. Suicide: a concept he’d learned about, as a tender adolescent, from a victim who'd denied his father by stealing the kill from the sadist. Zarik had traversed the darkness of such a concept on his own, without his attachment to the powerful mage who stood before him, he had chosen to rise above such desertion of his mortal coil.
Calm in the face of the warning, Zarik’s ambition stabilized him. Pride and desire kept him quiet, listening closely to Alistair with rapt attention. His internal body, nearly immaculate and clean of food, focused him. His external body, purified by the salt water of the sea and restored by the poultice, strengthened him. He felt, in all accounts, ready - though he knew not what was to happen beyond monumental pain and possible death.
Alistair concluded the ominous arcane instruction. Zarik ran his hand along the man’s arm, his palm traveling over the form of the mage’s broad chest. He lowered his hands to Alistair’s firm hips, then gently guided him forward in a silent admission to do whatever was required to conjoin.
The biqaj eyes, still the color of ivory cream, watched as the mage brought the flame between them. Zarik stepped backward, to give space for the blue fire. The wait, however, did not require patience. Alistair’s arm lifted and then outstretched.
Still in only shorts and the bandages on his legs, Zarik's bare chest met the flame. He nearly fell back, but resisted the gentle impact with a backward tilt of his body. It filled him with warmth, like leaning over a fireplace in Cylus. The blue light flared, then disappeared beneath his fair skin as if his body eagerly swallowed it.
Zarik stared at the spot in the center of his chest where the flame had been placed. Amber flecks scattered in the whites of his eyes. He touched the spot, gingerly with his fingertips. He took a step back, away from Alistair, and then another step.
On his third step backward, his foot slid. His balance gave out.
Zarik fell to his knees, barely able to catch himself with his hands. The slick wooden floor, wet from the earlier playful splashing, did not provide necessary friction. His left palm slipped. He landed harshly on his elbow instead. Zarik’s body trembled. His lungs compressed. What had been alluring warmth in his chest spread through in a sensation that denied explanation at first… and then it became obvious to analysis: pain.
He attempted to breathe. His nerves did not allow for it. The pain suffocated his primordial ability to intake air, leaving him to silently whimper. His eyes remained open, in shock of how swift and overwhelming it felt. They’d changed color, however, in physiological response. The irises blazed with vibrant crimson pigmentation. His pupils constricted into small pinpricks of black. With his right hand, he frantically scratched at the floor in desperation for any sensation but the pain.
Anything but the pain. Gods, why would such pain exist? Why was he capable of feeling it so? Zarik couldn’t understand. He started to cough, his lungs becoming aggressive for oxygen. In a strangled voice, he wordlessly shouted to finally break through and collect a gasp of air. He shouted again, and again. His pupils dilated in a burst and consumed his irises leaving only a thin sliver of red around the black discs.
He drew his lean body together. His elbows rested between his knees, curling into a ball. The top of his forehead slammed into the floor as he purposefully hit it in an attempt to distract himself from the absolute pain. He clutched at the back of his head. His fingers dug into his blond hair. The shouts became a blatant animalistic scream as his muscles tensed to resist the onslaught of physical agony.
Zarik cried. Sobbing, he tried his best to remember what the violent pressure, that came from all direction, was for. On his curled back, his welt scars opened to the fresh air. Silver droplets beaded across the overlaid scar tissue. The biqaj blood trickled over the sides of his narrow waist in rivulets. And he hadn’t noticed yet…
He writhed, moving out of the curled posture due to sheer pain in his back. Zarik slammed his palm on the floor, at the feet of the cause of his pain - Alistair. He winced, squinting at the recollection, and then looked up with tears streaming down his flushed, increasingly translucent face.
Only when he reached out for the magister, for comfort, for possible rescue from the pain - did he see his hand or more aptly, he saw right through the appendage. It distracted him for a trill. He closed his hand into a fist and then opened it again in front of his dark eyes. Breath erratic, quiet again, his shoulders jerked from bursts of silent anguish.
Zarik faded.
He heard the call of Emea. In so many perceivable ways, he received the invitation to enter the dreamscape. Whether his body continued to feel pain, he did not know… for his sight had become confused, no longer could he see Alistair.
Instead, he saw things that couldn’t exist. He heard noises that weren’t possible. His soul resounded, not with fear, but with bewilderment. For reality flashed around him as his physical form fought against deconstruction and he saw other realities, other places, other hims.
The visions of beyond enticed him.
He discovered himself on the perch of a mountain’s peak. The air felt cold, soothing the pain that smoldered in his physical body. Wind-torn banners fluttered at the jagged ledge, colors of gold and red. He looked out at a vast land filled with different biomes and magnificent structures of castles, fortresses, and more. Zarik took a deep breath. He felt better here. He felt like he belonged. All his chains released, all his concerns forgotten, all the work ahead of him discarded to fly away in the wind. Standing above everything else in the entire world around him… Here, he could simply be. He didn’t have to strive. He didn’t have to fight. He wouldn’t ever fall or fail. Peace, harmony, solace...
As he would, in all incarnations and in all visions, Zarik turned his gaze to the sky. He looked at - not a sun, nor a moon - but a midnight blue blanket filled with an infinite number of stars. Zarik held out a hand as if to caress the sky, and the stars glimmered. They shifted from his touch, moving by reaction. The specks of iridescent light writhed in shapes of fauna and flora, creating imagery that soothed and stimulated Zarik’s curiosity.
Below, he heard a bestial roar. Zarik paused from his admiration of the celestial sphere. He lowered his hand. The roar sounded again. He looked down the tall mountain at the verdant canopy of a thick boreal forest.
The mountain shook as another roar turned into an earth-quaking growl. Zarik winced, holding onto his head. He dropped to his knee. Zarik whimpered. He didn’t want to. He couldn’t. The stars fell from the sky like rain. Streaks of brilliant light bombarded the world around him in blazing white flashes as stars collided with earth, creating a latticed web of light around him.
Zarik felt a faint impulse to look up again, despite a foreboding sense as he did so. The light faded and the world grew dark. Above, in pitch blackness, he saw… his own eye? Zarik couldn’t be sure, his impressions conflicted and muddled. A black sun, only observable by a halo of vibrant light along the perfect circular edge, burned into view above him. He smiled at the sight. He remembered, and then he accepted… The black sphere consumed the light, it became crimson, then amber, and then nothing remained.
What seemed like eons, had only lasted a few bits on Idalos.
Alistair’s spark merged into Zarik's soul with complete acceptance. Zarik felt himself return, and though he felt the pain still as it wracked his body, he experienced it with a different perspective. He observed it, instead. What had been immeasurable agony before, now became something to conquer.
Though it did not last long. The pain started to fade, starting in the tips of his fingers and the ends of his toes. As relief flooded through him, his body followed along in a return to solid matter. Zarik found himself in a different position than he recalled from before he lost himself to visions.
Instead of on the floor next to the washroom tub, he had somehow managed his way to the adjacent common room, though only by a few feet in. He laid on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. Had he crawled? Or…He sat up, watching as he returned to life and form. He touched his waist, then his bandaged legs, then his chest and then ran his palms over his arms. Certain that he was all there, whole again, and the pain had effectively vanished… Zarik laughed.
He laughed and laughed. Zarik searched for himself - for Alistair - though he did not need to do so for long. He felt as if he’d already known where the man was and been and where he would go next. Zarik scrambled onto his feet, invigorated. He felt an incredible sense of pride swell in of his chest. Eyes bright, his pupils receded and made way for a bright daffodil yellow color.
Zarik’s bursts of laughter faded to a giggle. The youthful mage ran toward his mentor, leapt up onto him, wrapped his legs around Alistair’s waist and his arms around the human’s neck. Zarik passionately kissed Alistair.
