• Closed • [Venora] Perspective (Alistair)

[Plague]

Elle giggled when Alistair greeted Jessica, holding her up high and then bringing her low, almost as though she were flying. “Jessica is very pleased to meet you,” she said, miming the doll through a curtsy almost as sloppy as the one she had given, “She’s never met a Lord before.” Elle considered it, tapping the doll’s tiny mitten hand against her chin, “I haven’t either. Mama says the lords of Ne’haer are greedy men. They don’t care about farmers.” She frowned, blushed, “Just what mama says,” she explained quietly, “I mean no insult, Mr. Lord.”

When Alistair offered her his splendid silk brocade bandage, Elle covered her mouth with one free hand and danced on one foot. “It’s so pretty!” She squealed, then seemed to remember herself and quietly said “It’s so pretty!” Grinning, she let the mage affix it to her leg and tighten it. Gnasher pranced around them, barking loudly and snapping at imaginary opponents. Elle grinned and took a sun-bleached stick from the road and tossed it, prompting the dog to tear after it in a cloud of dust. “Gnasher is my dog.” She said proudly, “Mama doesn’t know. John doesn’t like useless beasts,” here she frowned, repeating words that were cruel on her tongue, “So Gnasher is not allowed a bed in our straw. But it is fair! Gnasher never hurt no one. Not even Jessica!” She held up the doll, brandishing the slightly wet toy, “See? No cuts! No bruises! Gnasher is a good dog.”

Summoned by praise, Gnasher returned and dropped the stick by Elle’s foot, bouncing from paw to paw. She laughed, so bright and vibrant, and hurled it again…away tore the dog. After Alistair had finished speaking, she was quiet and thoughtfully looking down at the dirt. Clearly he had stumbled onto advice she’d heard before. Don’t tarry too far, the open road is dangerous, any number of parental adages could have reminded. Elle bashfully brought Jessica up against her chin and face, a nervous way to bat away his judgement. “Mama…” she trailed off, “Mama is sick. John says anyone up here is only looking for war.” She gazed up at him through the tangle of her own hair, “But not you, Mr. Lord. You saved Jessica. John says only bad men come to fight now, cowardly men who come to steal from the dead.”

Even quieter, “I don’t like John.” And almost as if the words themselves would be heard, she quickly added, “John takes care of Mama cause she cannot do the work. John tries hard with his bad leg. Said a Lothra hurt him, but he hurt it worse.” Gnasher returned with his stick but this time Elle just hugged around his head, prompting the dog to wriggle its rump almost in a seizure. Elle just held him there, best as her tiny body could. “Mr. Lord. John says down the road the way you came is a road inn for soldiers coming North. He says bad men are there. Bad men would hurt me and Mama if we ever chased him away. But you are a nice man, Mr. Lord. Maybe you will be fine?” She smiled earnestly, clearly imagining something entirely different than the truth of the world. Opening her mouth to speak again she paused as a bellowing voice roared out over the field.

“ELLE! GODS DAMN IT GIRL! Delroth take your eyes, YOU COME OUT HERE AT ONCE!” her entire body quivered, rigid. Gnasher stilled, his tail drooping between his legs as he slowly put himself between the girl and the voice. It was only a moment before another shape crashed out of the wheat, only a moment for Alistair to mark the stark, rigid terror that froze the child still.

John was a tall man with shoulders built for labor. He wore a dirty smock and leggings, torn by the earth and decorated with seed. His boots were old and almost patched enough to have none of its original material left. John limped, his left leg stiff and unresponsive. It was almost a drag as he thrust it forward only to have it loll, injured, to the side. The wound likely had been a spear, Alistair realized, pierced and dug out a chunk of muscle high on the thigh. There was no treating it, not that the man seemed to have the money for professional help, he would limp the rest of his days…the no doubt few remaining he had mobile. Dark-skinned arms, thick with muscle and worn calloused by work swung exaggeratedly at his side where a short sword, tied and sheathed in fur, sat proudly on his belt.

At first he didn’t seem to notice Alistair, fixating on the dog between the girl and he. Snarling, he bent and skimmed up a stone, throwing it with surprising accuracy to crack against Gnasher’s ear. The beast yelped and fled into the field, bright spots of blood where the stone made impact. John made as if to grab another, but Gnasher was already gone. “Damn beast,” He muttered, turning his attention back on Elle. “And you there, brat, I told you to finish collecting the eggs. Your mother needs the yolk for her sickness and I find you playing with that useless creature?” Elle shrank under the admonishments, seeming very small indeed. She said nothing, clearly there was nothing she could say…nothing that would settle a fury that was always brewing behind the knotted brow of the former soldier.

Blinking, John seemed to finally see Alistair and stopped, within only a few several feet of the two. Quietly he took in the style of dress, the noble bearing and absently pushed sandy-brown hair from his sweaty face. “Begging your pardon, m’lord,” He said immediately, dropping an agonized bow, “In my anger I did not see you there.” Approaching a bit more slowly, he roughly took Elle’s wrist and dragged her to his side. “I hope she has not delayed your lordship.” Muddy eyes traced the ragged line of his sleeve and dropped to the bandage on Elle’s own leg. A spark of sudden fury and he lifted a broad hand, “You fatherless sow! You tore a lord’s clothes?”

“No! No!” Elle screamed suddenly, recoiling from the hand every bit as large as her face, “I swear it! I swear it by the gods! I swear it! Mr. Lord gave it to me! He did!”

John paused, decorum the only force holding back his wrath. He lowered his hand to his side and turned back to Alistair, “The child has a sharp and lying tongue, My Lord. If she tells falsehood, tell me, by the Judges, and I shall punish her.”

“I have a father,” She hiccupped, fresh tears collecting in her eyes, “My father is a hero.”

“Your father is a deserter and a corpse.” John said automatically, as if this was a practiced response, “He is dead in a ditch with a Lotharro axe in his skull. He is dead and I am glad of it. I saw it with my own eyes, girl, how many times must I remind you? A Deserter and a coward, eaten by the buzzards.”

“No…” she was sobbing now, her tiny shoulders bobbing harshly. “My papa’s coming home to me. He said so. He promised.”

“Apologies, My Lord,” John muttered roughly, “I served with the Ne’haer Steel guard, fourth regiment. West of Hiladrith, in the Blackwoods, we were ambushed by Lotharro savages. Most of my regiment was demolished. I was injured, made my way through the trees by Karem, I did. Found my way to Westfort encampment. They sent me home, my Lord, on account of my leg. I cannot fight as I am and this child’s mother took pity on me. I am her lawful husband now and this child’s guardian. I apologize for her impetuousness, my Lord, I work hard to curb her from it.” He drew back another hand and her sobs were choked into silence, staring wide-eyed.

“You should not be so far North, my Lord, little lies beyond but ransacked homesteads and the dead.” He pointed back behind Alistair, down the long road, “Fifteen miles back there’s a roadside inn, built it for soldiers sometime in 513. They will shelter you, my Lord, and help you get where you’re going.” John smiled at him, as earnest as the angry man could. In him Alistair could see the hard life, the long hours, the suffering he’d endured on his screaming leg. There was deceit in him, bitterness, rage, perhaps a whiff of the drink, but he almost surely did not make enough to partake often.

Elle would no longer look at him, staring down at the dirt road, pale and ashamed.

“I would take you myself, Lord, but we have no horse and wagon. I cannot travel so far upon my leg and my wife needs tending.” He hung his head, also ashamed, “I apologize. We have little to offer one so illustrious as yourself. We are simple folk.”

[Alistair]

He wasn't insulted. The Lords of Ne'haer -- she must've meant Lysoria -- were greedy men. The Lords of Rynmere were, too. That was why, desperately, he tried to be different... walk a different path from all of them, learning and growing from the example of his predecessors, whether their great errs or triumphs. Alistair wanted to change this perception the common folk had around the aristocracy, but until that time came, he wouldn't begrudge them for holding that viewpoint. It was too fair an assessment to logically criticize.

All of those thoughts were quieted by delight as Elle reacted to the "bandage", soon to cover her knee. She squealed about how pretty it was -- the mage tried to rip it to be more even and well-shaped, but still it looked so torn from where he was looking. In his upbringing, a sleeve like that would've been burnt, whereas to Elle it was enchantingly beautiful. She'd probably never seen clothes so extravagant before - probably not even attending a wedding, or even being visited by those detestable taxmen she referred to.

He needed, and Alistair knew this, to mingle more with people like this. To really understand what life was like out there, for those on the bottom. Was this what that man meant to show him? He spoke an awful lot about being a Lord - maybe he wanted the mage to learn humility. There was still yet a lot of pride to quell, and a lot of truths veiled by his seat of exceptional privilege. He was the heir to one of the wealthiest families in Idalos, and this Elle was but a farm girl. She desperately wanted her father back, and he could see it, whilst Alistair had dreamt for all his life for his own to be killed or sent away.

Gnasher's my dog, she said, breaking the short silence, spent in thought. Her mother didn't know -- this, John, didn't like him. Alistair valued their connection, though he made sure to warn the girl of the dangers of keeping it.

"Elle," he started, "Gnasher has an infection among his fur. It's called scabies," the doctor stated, nodding slowly to her. "I need you to be cautious not to touch that area of his skin, and if you see any bug jump to you from him, smash them. Otherwise, you could get painful and itchy rashes all over, and -- it just won't be good," the Venora stated, not wholly articulately. Somehow, he'd found himself feeling a great deal of empathy for the girl. She was so innocent, and good - and bright, even. Elle would've made as great of a noble Lady as she would have made a farm girl, but a flip of Chrien's coin landed her here.

The dog went off again, enticed by the instinctual need to retrieve that stick, playing games of agility with the little girl he'd taken to. Alistair smiled faintly as it passed, though his attention remained on her. Elle spoke a great deal after that point - she told him of this man named John, who he imagined was something of an interim father, taking the spoils of a forlorn wife who imagined herself to be a widow, an ill one at that. John warned her of plunderers, looters - it was wise and sound advice.

Even in Rynmere, the civil war had led to a great deal of atrocities done to those left vulnerable in the aftermath. Whatever war ravaged these lands, it would be followed by hunger, and madness. Elle was in danger. Even Alistair speaking to her put her in danger -- perhaps she'd trust the next man to come upon these fields. Perhaps that would be the last time she trusted anyone.

Down the road, she told him of an inn. He registered that in his mind, for later. Though, somehow, Alistair had found himself compelled to stay. He wanted... to help her, to mend her mother's illness or try to, and perhaps even to offer them his nels so they could move on from here. Move south, where things were better. He was not an altruist by default, but all of this meant something. He was here for a reason, the mage was beginning to understand that. There was something he was supposed to know.

John came, with a yell. He howled her name, demanding that she return to him. The girl immediately began to quiver with fear, and to Alistair, the signs were obvious. He was abusive. How did he know that? Because so had his father been - though it was not a sick mother that enabled his reign of terror, but a weak one. One that hid her head in the sand, unwilling to see the world around her for what it was.

His thoughts, again, were interrupted by a noise. The man's body crashed through wheat, revealing a tall man with a strong body if not for his limp. His clothes were ragged and poor, patched up garments with poor stitching, suited for a farmer. The man looked hardened, jaded -- he'd seen a great deal of this world, and he was sick of it all. That was what it read like, to him.

The fury was not new. For all of Alistair's life, he struggled with the notion that he was hollow. Now, with Syroa's influence came a new flurry of compelling emotions, one of them being anger. He could almost see the rage within John - it surrounded him like an aura, or perhaps like a scent. He felt it, and he had to admit, the deviousness within him gifted by that wretched mark almost compelled him to enrage him further. To call him what he was, to demolish his feeling of authority. He wanted to, so strongly, but he wouldn't. What would that do to Elle? What would he do to Elle, when inevitably he lashed out to project his rage?

He calmed himself, ignoring the vast majority of the man's banter. M'lord, m'lord, m'lord. The Lords of the West were so far from here, the words meant nothing to him. Alistair was no Lord now, just a man among foreign fields, far from home. And this man, he was cruel. Telling her of the death of her father, of his deserting and dishonor. Deserting, across all cultures, was a sin from which none could repent. To bring such shame upon his grave, to mark his daughter with so grievous an impression of him -- it was beginning to send Alistair into anger.

"I did give her my sleeve," the mage spoke, quelling his emotions. Trying, at least. "She was injured, fell on her knee. That dog has scabies, an infestation of pests within his hide. And these fields, are ripe to be plundered by insects and rodents. That simple a fall could lead to death, in a place like this, and so far away from civilization," Alistair explained, hollowly, his eyes narrow. John could likely already imagine exactly what was going through the Lord's head - he was judging him, intensely, for demonstrating such foul behavior against a child. For doing so before a guest, a stranger. If this was how he acted in the open before a Lord, he could only be fouler in private.

The rest, he listened to, but only because of the confusion and perplexity of it all. Ne'haer Steel Guard? He didn't know what that was. They even had contact with Hiladrith, let alone a sort of patrol guard along their western flank? And Ne'haer was battling Lotharen "savages"? Elle wasn't lying, then, and she wasn't mistaken. That Lothra she spoke of was a man of Gauthrel, though this began to confuse him. The Horde had not been active for a hundred and thirty arcs. They fractured, and were now divided into several competing clans, struggling against beasts for their right to exist.

While there was news from the West of the Horde's reunification, that was not yet the case. For now, they were even still trading openly with Ne'haer, with no conflict to be found. They didn't send men out to the East, they didn't bother. None of this worked out in his head - it defied reality. The only explanation was that there was some conspiracy to withhold all of this information from the public, but that made no sense. It wasn't possible.

And then, the man mentioned an inn, and the date it was built. Arc 513. His eyes widened immediately - all of his anger diminished, replaced instead by a total numbness within his thoughts. She was referring to the Lords of Ne'haer, when she spoke, because back then Ne'haer had Lords. She was referring to a war between the free people and the Horde - nothing she'd said had been a lie. They weren't in the present. This had to be an illusion, had to. How could... how could one traverse time? He'd heard of the magic of Mirage -- could it create an illusion so convincing? There was no way. No mage could be capable of this, not any mage he'd ever known.

Elle, he whispered in his head. Elle. Raven hair, violet eyes. Raised in the West, above Lysoria. The mage looked to her, and then to John. He felt... paranoid. There was a crushing weight upon him, an apprehensiveness. It was illogical to think like this, but from what he knew of magic, of this world - it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility.

The man decided to ask, his eyes pointed toward the floor.

"Is your name Ellasin?" he asked the girl, looking down at her, fists clenched together. The time period fit, and he knew enough about her, and her history to put it together. How had he not seen it earlier? Elle. Violet eyes. Eyes like hers were not natural, only among Naerikk. An Elle named Naerikk, raised... here.

"Ellasin Amaranthine?" the mage asked further, offering her full birth name, the one from before she'd gotten married as a brief attempt to try and regain her humanity. The humanity that she had before, that he never thought about. The humanity he was seeing... right now.

[Plague]

Elle shrank away from him, swallowing her sobs for fear of John and now a new dubious fear of 'Mr. Lord'. "Y...yes?" She said quietly, "Mama says I shouldn't use it, though. People do not like little shadow girls." She reached up to her face and rubbed. What Alistair had taken as pale skin before was no more than a cunning cosmetic, virtually undetectable that hid the true color of her skin and the whirling designs beneath. She looked embaressed, mortified even. John reared away from Alistair, hand tight on her wrist and dragging her with him.

"You WITCH!" He hissed at her, "You were told NEVER to reveal that! Do you care NOTHING for your mother?" He struck her then, suddenly and swiftly, faster than the unarmed Alistair could react. It was a heavy blow, laying Ellasin flat on the dusty road. Her tattered dress fluttered in the wind and her head struck the ground with such force that she bounced up, briefly, before coming to rest. A tooth, bright and perfect, a shattered piece of her smile sailed into the wheat and was lost and her hair fell around her face like shadows.

For a sickening moment Alistair felt both joy and dread in equal measure. She could be dead. The blow itself was enough that a child's neck might snap under the strain. It was...at once abhorrent and elating, a feeling so disjointed that it turned his stomach. Here was the ire of his life, the devil of all Idalos. Here was the closest personification to evil Alistair had ever seen...and yet here was a child, no older than five Arcs, beaten down with such force that Alistair's entire body shook with sympathy.

He had caused it. If he had said nothing, perhaps John would have as well.

Sobs. Broken, tiny sobs. Her frail, narrow shoulders rose and fell and she cried into the dirt. It was, strangely, relief, that flooded the mage and not dissappointment. He couldn't after all. He could not see this child as the same cunning spider that had brought him into her web. There was nothing of this little girl that he had seen in the old Lich, so far beyond her humanity. No. Elle and Ellasin were different people, separated by centuries and untold tragedies.

Alistair could remember his own life, the beatings he sustained, the abuse he endured. How far was he from someone like her? How distant from the thorn-choked path that led to such palpable menace? They were siblings, bound in common backstory, separated by time, and reunited by an impossible moment.

She was Elle, a child who laughed for him. Who loved her father.

Shock stood Alistair stock still, enough that John had carried the limp girl back with him toward the grain, his narrowed eyes on Alistair. Curiously, the older man held the girl with surprising care, as his strength could easily snap the girl in two.

"Miles down, My lord," He said coldly, "Nothing out here but the dead and the dying. Naught for your scepters and gold to do. Go back to your high castles. Leave us common folk be."

It wasn't shock. Alistair was frozen by some other power. No...not frozen. He moved so slowly he might have been standing still. Although his body cried out for him to leap forward, save the girl, wrest her from the hands of this abusive creature he could no more than watch helplessly as both figures departed back into the wheat, leaving Jessica behind on the road.

There she lay, yarn hair twitching in the breeze.

Till the Stranger picked her up, having stepped seamlessly from the other side of the road, another field of gold. It was impossible, of course, with his height Alistair would have seen him coming. The Stranger looked down at the doll, his face a mask of somber regret before tucking it into his coat.

Alistair could move now, his body's function returned.

"You forget, in time, that you were all innocent once," He said sadly, looking over his shoulder toward the direction the two had departed, "So few are born monsters. Man is quite adept at creating them over time." He shrugged his shoulders, almost apologetically. "I had to intervene, I'm sorry. You spied it out too quick and I couldn't risk an upset." He truly did seem sorry, looking toward the ground and wringing his hands. "Perhaps I should explain. You never asked my name, Lord Alistair, but I will give it to you freely now." Clearing his throat into a fist he straightened and regarded the shorter man, "I am Ralaith. Father of Time. The Bitter God. And the Bear." Here he affected the smallest bow and let out a deep breath. "I do apologize for deceiving you, but I think you need to see things...important things, like this..." he waved a hand to the unsettled dirt. "For perspective. Yes. One day this child will become the Lich, Ellasin. In two arcs she will kill John while he sleeps and smother her mother. Labrae will welcome her into Sintra's embrace and the child Esmera Amaranthine fought so hard to hide from her culture, fought so hard to give a normal life, will become the specter that haunts the world of Idalos."

He paused, weighing something, debating before finally saying, "Like you could be, not too long from now."

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[Alistair]

She was alive. That much he knew, which was enough to chill his swelling anger, ready to devour this man and all the fields around them. He almost, for a moment, considered taking her far away from her and bringing her to someone, something. Would the Immortals be able to save this child before she became a monster? If he had slain John, and cured her mother, would she--

He was frozen. Something, this Thing, did not want him to act. It wanted him to watch, to observe. Perhaps it enjoyed his confusion, seeing the mighty Alistair unable to defend a small child from an unspectacular farmer. He could have struck a hundred men like him to the dirt, if he wasn't... frozen. No... not frozen -- just so, slow. Everything around him became so incredibly slow, the fleeting wails of Ellasin became that of an eternity to him. He came to know her childish face so well in that time -- the way it looked as it yearned for a different life, a better one. He knew that pain.

The Stranger came. He could barely focus enough to see him, Alistair's eyes had been drenched in the coming of tears. Tears, so bitter. He had scarcely felt this sadness in so long - so real, so genuine. On the surface, he did not even know why he had begun to cry, but really he knew. It was because he hated her so much, but so strongly felt her pain. Because they had endured the same thing. He likened Gnasher to that small, vibrant Pekingese, before his father had ground it to specs of bone. He likened her doll to that little harp of his, and her hope for her father to return to his dream of becoming a great Duke and ruling a land where the rapist, Kaleb, would have no control.

So few are born monsters, he said. Yes. Alistair wasn't born one, either. It was pain that made him a Necromancer, that made him... like this. For the longest time, he felt nothing. He could kill a man and feel utterly nothing - how had he ever gotten that far? And when would he realize that he was still like that, now? He would've killed that Knight, in Etzos, just for interfering. He would've thrown Vuda's skull onto a pike. While he loved his people, he couldn't bring himself to feel a shred of goodness towards others.

Did he love his subjects, then, because they were good, or because they obeyed his hereditary will?

Spied on it too quick, I--

An upset? He didn't understand. What was this world, this twisted thing he'd been brought to? Why had he been cast... so far adrift?

The man said he would give him his name. A name, after all that. He coughed bitterly, staring at the man with narrowed eyes. Ralaith.

. . .

"You--" he started to speak, though he felt his voice held back. "Ralaith, I... I used to worship you," Alistair whispered, a tear coming from his eyes. "Back when I was different. Before I scorned everything, and started pretending that the Immortals didn't deserve me. I called Ashan my life guide, but now I've said that I hate him most of all, that I'd kill him, for... saying that mages can't be free." Another tear. "I know why you're showing me this, Ralaith," he whimpered. It was time to accept everything - all of it. The things he knew, but never wanted to speak. The vileness he still held in his heart.

"You know, I - I thought about it for a long time," he said. "Becoming the King of Rynmere. Taking over the Coven's stronghold, Murdoch an Keene... turning it into a bastion of mages to take control of the land and subject the aristocracy to my will. I would've terrorized my enemies, taken their territories as my own, demolished them for their objections. I would have used her, Syroa, as much as I loathe her. I would have used Ellasin, though she probably already knows of my inner rebellion." He took a breath. This made him wonder -- did Ellasin, in the future, remember Alistair? Remember that man who appeared to her, a Lord of the North? Was that why... she took him on as her own, showered him with so much attention?

He couldn't even think of that, now. That was... unfathomable. "I would have done anything for that throne, you know, because I thought - I deserved it. I'm already like her, Ralaith. Quieter, less cruel, but... I knew in my heart that when I overtook her, when I finally killed her and didn't have her always holding my leash, that my time in the sun would have come."

Alistair... had known this for some time. But there were demons that prowled among his bones, living inside of his veins. There was wisdom, but always quelled by vainglory. Ellasin was only a different sort of evil - an anarchist that believed power would rule men, and that hierarchies built on decadence should be destroyed. All societies would collapse, all men would bow to ability.

And him? The opposite - ruling with an iron fist, seeking the whole world beneath his thumb. A hierarchy that ran cords through this world and even beyond. Was the only difference between Ellasin and him, really ideology?

. . .

Yes. It was.

[Plague]

Ralaith was quiet. Cold wind blew from the north across the fields, rippling them like waves. Beyond them, a little girl was slowly being torn apart. Bit by bit she was losing her innocence and patching it with hatred, with malice, but most of all...with fear.

"I know," Ralaith said solemnly, his hands clasping and unclasping, "I've seen that future too. One day they'll whisper your name with the same fear they whisper hers. One day, you will crush her Phylactory and take her place. One day you will destroy the land you now hope to save." Only the tears, only the silence. "It is but one possibility of endless, but I have seen many futures where your name is cursed, Alistair of Venora, many more than most men. You stand on the volatile cliff between a tyrant and a savior." He stepped toward Alistair, carefully, respectfully, and put a hand on his shoulder. A peace settled in the mage's chest, but only a small one, "You were born to achieve great things, Alistair of Venora, and you have been watched much longer than you know."

His hand tightened on the noble's shoulder, almost vice-like and the world spun around Alistair. Once more the Spark within him clawed at the sense of unwelcome transportation but it was not nearly as bad as the last. Ralaith held Alistair's shoulder firmly and that kept the worst of the vertigo at bay. Still, Alistair was left with the sickening feeling that he had traversed more than distance.

It took him only a few moment to recognize where they stood. The famous tapestry of a Venora lord proudly holding his sword aloft to a sky split open with the Rynmere paragons had become as rote to the mage in the time he had lived here. Most of his childhood was set beneath this aging art, as he had to pass by it on the way to his room every eve, and pass by it again in the morn. A beautiful end table flush against the wall held a single silver candelabra, the candles newly replaced and flickering in the shadow. It was late, much too late for young Alistair to be awake. When was this? When had they traveled to? Memories crowded and collected at the back of the mage's mind. He could remember who he was back then, the person that was spawned. With cruel indifference he watched death and destruction ease by him. Without care or worry he spied on the machinations his father visited on his sister. The things he had done here, the lives he had taken.

Young Alistair would be at odds with his older counterpart. In contrast to the cruel and malignant boy he used to be, Alistair was full of doubt and indecision. He felt the brand of responsibility burning in his heart in a way his younger self never had. Emotions, awoken by Fridgar, had set the young noble so far off the path he was walking that there was virtually no resemblance between the necromancer who gladly joined the Coven, and the fear-sick, tear-stricken man who now stood in the halls of his memory.

Ralaith released his shoulder and looked down at the candelabra. With an apologetic shrug, he seemed to ask with the twitching of his head whether he had permission to take up the light for their journey. Alistair might have been able to walk this hall blind-folded but here was a god, asking him for permission. With Alistair's own affirmative nod, the Bitter God lifted the guttering light high and started down the corridor.

Voices came to them from the door ahead, Alistairs, ajar enough to show the shadows of shapes beyond. Tiny shoots of grass, moss, and small white flowers wormed through the cracks of stone at their feet and above Alistair's door. It was curious enough to draw his attention as such hints of time or collapse were always meticulously handled by the Venora servants...lest they were flogged. The Venora house guard assigned to his room lay outside, quietly breathing in slumber. His sword was half-drawn, but loose in his slack hand. Carefully, Ralaith stepped over him and paused outside. A gentle palm on his chest and Alistair could hear them too, discussing beyond.

"I do pity these cells the humans build for themselves," came one unfamiliar voice, lilting and song-like but strong, "Souls grow weak in such captivity, but they glorify these mausoleums."

"Man has curious customs," it was Ralaith's voice now, though the god at Alistair's side said nothing, "We have always known this. Stumbling, grasping, they will find their way to enlightenment eventually. Give them time."

"Daia had more patience than I," came the short reply, and then a pause and the voice that followed was apologetic, "I am sorry, brother."

"No, please," Came Ralaith's voice from beyond, quiet and choked with emotion, "Say it. Only when we turn away from loss, only when we seal her away is she truly lost to us."

"Are you ever tempted? You have the power to change things."

"And the wisdom not to," came the curt reply, "Let's not speak of that. We are here at our cousin's request."

"Ah, Ziell," it was a fond sigh, "His prophecies, his warnings." a pause. "This is the mortal then? This is the one Ziell described?"

"Yes," came Ralaith's answer. "There are many futures at war in him, some bright for mankind and some...so desolate, so dark."

"Many mortals of import these days," came the response, it was not bitter but it was irked, "I am beginning to hate this century."

"Time changes all things, Ashan, we should know that by now. He is fragile now, the men and women he is surrounded with are sick with ambition and cruelty. They will infect him if he is left to them...but we cannot remove him."

"Cannot, or will not?" came Ashan's quick reply, "I won't abandon any child to abuse or imprisonment. I can barely stand it in this room."

"No." the reply from the god of Time was firm, "He must grow up a noble. He must discover Magic. He must do these things if there is any hope of a positive impact."

"Magic," There was a hiss and Alistair could feel the hatred in it, "I would not with that poison on any. How can we allow this innocent to entangle in such darkness?"

"It is necessary," Ralaith said, "Still your anger and your instincts, brother. I chose to invite you because you alone can do what I will need, what this boy will need to survive. Time is a delicate painting exposed to the elements. Should we change anything too drastically, we risk much more than this mortal's life...we risk the lives of them all."

"Always with your dramatics," the Shaman God replied with a chuckle, "Remember, my hermit brother, if I intervene with this mortal, you will owe me a favor down the line. If this one becomes a danger to myself or those I care about, I will not hesitate to handle his destiny in MY way."

"I understand. But take a moment, brother, consider him."

There was a silence. In that silence, Ralaith edged closer to the door, allowing Alistair a sliver of a view. A man hung over Alistair's bed, his naked chest glistening in the candle-light of the room. The gentle smell of lilacs, roses, daffodils, the bouquet of Spring came to him. Something within him lightened, despite the gravity of the situation. Ashan smelled of freedom and clean earth, the thick aroma of soil and all that grew within it. He was renewal and all life delighted in his approach.

"He is..." Ashan straightened, long black hair falling across his narrow face, "He has a fragile spirit. No...not fragile. It is delicate, but like the wings of a moth, lace and intricate. Vhalar would like him, I think. He has the heart of an artist."

"Yes." Ralaith agreed, "And in some futures he is just that. I've seen the statue Humility they erected in Andaris square. Of all the futures, it is my favorite work of his...although perhaps his portrait of Venora at Dusk comes close. You would enjoy his vision in that one, I think, Ashan. He captures the spirits of the bay beautifully."

"Perhaps one day I'll see it," The other god said, almost wistfully, "So what would you have me do?"

"Weave a shield over his mind and emotions, one that will keep him free from the cruel place he will grow up in, one that will save him from the hunger of the Spark."

"Nothing lasts against the Spark," Ashan cautioned gravely, "Not for long. And if I were to do as you say, and weave him this protection...it would stunt him, shut away his beauty. The evil would not touch him because it would not need to hurt him, he would gladly embrace it." Somewhere in the sentence, Ashan's tone was colder, bitter. The small plants reaching through the wall curled and sprouted thorns, darkened. Alistair could feel the fury, sudden and unexpected, a storm in his room while his younger self lay sleeping, oblivious. "I will not do this to a child. You cannot force me, Ralaith. Let me take him instead. Away from this prison of stone and decadence I will raise him myself. Evil will never know him till he is ready to fight it."

"That is not how it happens," Ralaith answered sadly, standing resolute against the fury of the Spring god. "You will do this and he will think himself as dark and cruel as the world around him. His true soul, his mind will remain untouched and someday, some time from now, he will decide his fate. You do not save him now, Ashan. And in asking you to do this, you will not speak to me for many Cycles, save to ask for our favor. You will not forgive me."

The Ralaith beside Alistair turned his face away from the bedroom, tears in a sheen across his brown eyes. There was such pain there, such agony. Alistair couldn't imagine it, to be bound by rules even your siblings could not know. To have the power to change any event but be bound to watch them only, to see ones mistakes play out endlessly. Ralaith swallowed a sob as Ashan glowered.

"You are a prisoner too, brother," He said at last, "Time is your jailer and you dishonor Daia by depriving this child the chance to blossom. How can you ask this of me and hold our cousin in your heart? How can you ask me to cripple this boy, so?"

"DO NOT DARE TO PRESUME MY PAIN!" A roiling pulse of power shook the room, as Alistair first heard the rare rage of the Time god. Of course...he was a God of Bears as well. The Ralaith beside Alistair put a hand on his shoulder as the power stormed past them. The stones crumbled and rebuilt around them, time shook in wild flux. But the Ralaith beside Alistair protected him from it all. "You who abandoned your family to wander the world! You who turn your back on the work that Daia began! How DARE you lecture me about honoring her. How DARE you presume to know the work I have been tasked with? You would collapse beneath the weight of my responsibilities, Brother, and Father knew that best which is why I am forced to be as I am. The power to change any event. The responsibility to refrain. You could never understand."

In small degrees the power abated, Ralaith's voice falling to a choked whisper after. Ashan stood, unmoved, his face a rigid mask of sympathy and fury. In time, which felt to Alistair like an eternity, both immortals put aside their fangs and let the discourse end between them. Ashan finally nodded, brushing his long hair from his eyes and looking down at the sleeping Alistair.

"It will be as you say, Ralaith," Ashan said at last, "But you will never ask a favor such as this from me again."

"Of course," Ralaith said, his voice thick with sorrow, "Be sure he will be shielded from the Spark. It must not have all of him, not before he makes his choice."

Ashan said nothing, leaning over the sleeping child and holding his right hand, palm up, over his face. Light coursed along his pale skin and shivered up his arm, slipping up across his neck to collect on his lips. Quietly he bent down to brush the light against Alistair's pale forehead. Ralaith appeared at the door, filling the vision of the room beyond as light swelled behind him. He and the Ralaith beside Alistair shared a long, somber look before the Ralaith who came with Ashan closed the door.

Light continued to swell, bright and colorless, from beneath the door and out into the hall. Ralaith put a hand on the mage's shoulder.

There was the unsettling sensation of falling.

And they were gone.


***********************************************************************

The hill looked out across a rolling grassland and the distant peaks of pine trees swaying in the wind. Above them, the sky was bright with afternoon and thick clouds morphed and undulated in the heavens. Ralaith released the mage's shoulder and stepped away. He did not turn back to Alistair, only looked out at the homesteads and the pinpricks of color...the farmers in the field. Alistair did not recognize this place, nor knew what time he now dwelt in.

"You've begun to feel again," he said at last, it wasn't an accusation "The man you were only Arcs ago would not recognize the one you are now. Ashan's shield is weakening and by the beginning of Vhalar it will be gone." A tiny man on horseback threaded a careful path along the road between the homesteads, galloping to some distant destination. "Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why you were so different of other Revealed mages?" He did not wait for an answer, did not expect one, "The cruelty of Ellasin, the conniving of her coven, the madness of your lover...did you not consider yourself fortunate to have been spared that?"

It was cold, despite the sun, a temperature that settled on Alistair's bones like rope. "Your mind has been spared the final transformation. You are not completely one with the Spark inside you. Slowly it grows closer to joining, devouring the freedom that Ashan left you. The more it devours, the more you feel, the more you are yourself...but soon nothing will stand between your Spark and your Soul. You will meld and you will be different." He did turn now, a small sad smile across his scruffy face, "You needed to experience everything. All of what you endured, to get to this moment. You had to learn darkness to understand it in yourself, you had to suffer to grow." Ralaith truly seemed apologetic, not even able to meet Alistair's eyes, "You may curse me for that. Sometimes you do. But this was not on a whim, not a fancy," He frowned, "Time is a sea within seas. It is all possibility and none. Till it twists together, the Future does not become the Present or the Past."

The horseman was gone now, a cloud shadowed the sun.

"We all have choices, Alistair, more than we might imagine." He took a seat on the grass, wrapping toned arms around his knees to draw them close and then holding himself up by one thrust out behind him. "Before I tell you where I've taken you, I will answer what questions I can." He did not turn back to the mage, "And then I will show you my last lesson."

[Alistair]

A tyrant and a savior. He had always been torn between those two possibilities -- it began with an unkind fascination with life and death, and followed into the absorption of his mind by the arcane arts. Ralaith was right. He had seen the man that Alistair was now, the man that he was before, and the man that he could be. Time offered someone such clarity. As much as his heart had swelled, waned and throbbed throughout this journey, he'd learned more about himself than in all of his days before. He understood now that he was among the precipice of his life - he could follow the path of unobstructed magic into the darkness, or pursue another path.

But... it wasn't easy to swallow, none of it was. All of these things he heard, everything he saw -- how could it have been the case? In his sleep, Ashan came to him and provided him a shield against the Spark? Ralaith commanded it, watching over him? He was destined for something greater? It was all utterly confusing -- how had the Gods taken such interest in him, when for so long, he loathed them? Did they not have the reflex to defend themselves from their enemies? Alistair would have killed Ashan, at that point in time, if he had the chance. He would've flayed him, sought divinity -- but somehow, the Immortal could look past that. He offered to raise him, to guide him through life. He was... not so nearly terrible as he imagined. He wanted to do what was right, and for Alistair's future, he did.

He... kept him from Revealing. Ellasin had always wondered why Alistair's change had been so subtle -- even Reyard, the pinnacle of their kind, had changed much more. He garnered a fixation on roaming new worlds, to the point of insanity; the mage went out into the skies, according to others, never to be seen again. Yet Alistair remained, functioned as he was. Power did not entirely skew him, it had only given him the means to obtain what he wanted. Freedom, or so he thought. The ability to destroy those who stood in his way.

The mage was going to lose the Freedom he thought he had, and soon. Vhalar - the shield would fall from his mind, and he would meld with the Spark. So many things would change. He would be unrecognizable. His time, as it was, had begun to wear thin. The Alistair of now wasn't going to be here much longer -- this must've been why it was now that Ralaith had decided to come to him. He, the Keeper of Time, had been shepherding him for a long time, carefully, thoughtfully. He allowed him to experience the pain he knew, the betrayal. He allowed him to know real suffering.

And that was fine. Alistair didn't hate him for that, not at all. Bitterness, as it was, had hardened him. Like Ralaith he kept his bitterness, his pain, close to his heart. The pain before reminded him of the dark realities of this life, and that was why he knew - even though he loved magic, loved it for the freedom and the power it brought, he could never allow it to own him. He'd been owned before, been controlled, been blackened. Never again.

All this time, he thought he had mastered his magic greater than any other, taming the spark within him. In truth, it had not fully awoken, and soon he would lose control of this body he had called his own. It was an infection. But then, he knew that from the start. He did it all anyway, callously, vengefully. He continued to pursue the arts, because he wanted what only arcana could give him.

Alistair had been a fool for so long. He marred his body and mind, for so long. He could not live like that any longer.

He wasn't crying, or mewling or sobbing. No, he stood resolute. This moment of his life was more important than crying. He needed to know, he needed to learn, and he needed to make a choice. But first, a question. The knowing, the understanding, that was what he wanted. He could barely articulate as he was now, but there was no need for eloquence. Alistair would just... ask.

"Why do you care so much, Ralaith?" he asked, eyes narrowed, perplexed. He looked almost overwhelmed. Thoughts had been consuming him, and all these possibilities. To think the world operated like this, behind the scenes - it was madness. "Why am I so special to you? No one protected Ellasin like this. Why me, and not her? What have I done to deserve all of this attention?" he asked, shaking his head.

"I'm a weak man, Ralaith. Weak, and lustful, and undeserving. I've always chosen myself in life. How could I ever be the savior you're promising? Destroyer sounds much more me," the mage stated, callously again. His mind had been from one place to the next, and still, he could not swallow a thing. Magic had poisoned him, or so they all said. Why, how? Why did man even pursue magic? What was magic?

The Gods of Man can only be Gods so long as they are above us. Magic inlays the ability to cast them down, and so they fear it - they control it, restrain it. We cannot let them. Our magic is our freedom, our magic is liberation. Our magic, my apprentices, is all we have to cast down the Gods that would seek to eradicate us among some, and use us among the rest. Resist them. Do not obey, resist.

It had all been a lie. Everything she told him - her farce of being able to resist the Immortals. There was nothing more powerful than this. Ralaith had thrown him around time, around the world, he had shifted the laws of space to suit his interests. Magic was a poison without reckoning - they would never be able to destroy the Immortals, when even one of them was this powerful, and still yet far stronger than he'd even seen.

Why did they all suffer and die for this art? Was it not to liberate mortals but... to simply prey on the ones weaker than them?

"Ralaith," he called his name, once more. "I'm ready to see everything, but first, I have to ask. Must all mages be evil? Can't there be goodness within it? The art... it offers us such greatness. Sail a ship ten thousand miles, losing dozens to starvation and illness, or span it all in a thoughtless instant. Fail, futile, to heal grievous wounds with the only medicine we know now... or save a life in a moment with a Grafter's touch. Is there not greatness in all this - is it not worth keeping, worth exploring? Must everyone fear it?"

Was everyone and their hatred of mages justified? Could this whole class of people, within whom he'd seen such brilliance and goodness, truly be poisoned? Was that the fate of his people?

[Plague]

Cold wind sang through Ralaith's hair and clothes, billowing them. He was a flag, the standard by which time stood still and bowed its head. The Watcher, the Kindly Judge, the Chronologer. He was the keeper of the Clock and each tick across its face was known to him. Ralaith stared out over the hamlet and then up to the clear sky. Clouds approached from behind them, blanketing the sky in a troubled sea of grey and soft mountains. He waited until Alistair had finished and sighed, standing up and walking over to him.

Gently, carefully, the god reached out and placed a firm hand on Alistair's chest. "To explain, you must see...for one cannot expect a blind man to know the face of an enemy by holding their hand." And Ralaith put his hand through Alistair's skin.

There was a certain nauseous vertigo. For a moment, Alistair could only stare, agape, at the gods hand so easily up to its wrist in his chest. His heartbeat thrummed in terrified, bursts and spats, unable to grasp the attack he had never seen coming.

Next came the pain, and its agony was a language of transcendence so pure...there was nothing to Alistair but the notes that his torture played. Everything about him was a single moment of such excruciating sensation that his heart may have stopped in that instant. Everything may have stopped. His entire body and soul refused the invasion so completely that he was outside himself for the small trill it took for Ralaith to yank something out of him. He could feel its absence, a gnawing empty void.

Abrogation was gone.

Gasping, Alistair went to his knees, his body seizing back into reality and suddenly banished of the pain he felt before. The god stood above him, staring at what he had taken from Alistair's chest, the bright 'thing' that lived there.

No larger than an orange, it sat in his palm and trembled desperately. Dozens of arms like forked lighting spread four inches from the core of the orb where they spread out in flickering shields. The Spark trembled in the outside, grasping and defending in an alien environment. "The Spark," Raliath said, cradling the small creature gently, "Is an organism unlike any other." Desperately it tried to leap from his palm, only for the god to close his fingers like bars and trap it therein. It was a pale blue with flecks of purple brilliance lighting madly inside. "Most parasites of Idalos prey upon your body or mind, but this preys upon your soul." He said it sadly, almost apologetically, "It cannot help this existence. Even my sight is not perfect. I cannot find when they were first introduced to mankind but they have followed His footsteps ever since, hand in hand, pushing the flow of history and His ambition ever higher."

In his palm, the Spark had seemed to settle in its terror and maintained its small shield. Although it shook, the creature no longer tried to escape. "It is lost, Alistair, much as you were. All the Spark seeks is to become what it was meant to be. Always it seeks power, always it seeks to defy the laws the gods are tasked with. Once upon a time, it distantly remembers being greater, being mighty, and it will do all it can to be that again." Ralaith reached delicately into a pocket and pulled out a small golden cage, cylindrical with a pointed head, a birds cage. "From our creators, the Spark came. I cannot hate it, Alistair, and neither should you. But its goal is antithetical to mankind. Man seeks to rise above limitations, to become better and it seeks to become a God. Although the two may sound similar, Alistair, do not confuse the tasks. One can live within the world of man and the other can only watch along the outside."

Gently, he rolled the little Spark into the cage, shutting the door. The Spark threw itself against the bars, desperate and unable to escape. "I have witnessed many mages, Alistair. And no, I do not believe mages are inherently evil. My cousin Famula would disagree, but...I sense she knows more than even I about them." He frowned and shook his head, "Great men use unconventional tools to elevate mankind, Alistair, never forget that. But mages so easily become a slave to their own powers, seeking ever more to fill the void the Spark has created. Man was never meant to be a god, Alistair, man was meant to be better. We are stewards of forces that must be in order. Mankind are the creatures that innovate, create, and step past our expectations. Do not seek to become like us, Alistair, to be a god is to be incomplete."

A tear now, drawing a shining line down his cheek, "I will never be a fisherman upon a jetty in Andaris. I will never know the joy of raising a child. I will never grow old and spin stories to my progeny before the roaring flames of my sons home, I will never marry or be content in not knowing what tomorrow may bring." Ralaith looked up at Alistair, a smile working its way across his lips, "You men are so remarkable, so gifted, so beautiful and fortunate. You live so fleetingly, just long enough to write your name in fire but never fear the ramifications of eternity. Yes, Alistair, Magic can be used to help people, but the men who wield it never know the truth of their talents, what they are becoming, what they do become. In the end, we are left with tyrants and despots, conquerors and assassins, hermits and saboteurs. What man does not understand, he controls, abandons, or manipulates...and when a mage no longer understands man, he seeks dominion over them."

Distantly, on the other side of the hill, a keening rose. It was louder than the wind-whistle, louder than thunder. It sounded like fabric being torn, but greater, as if reality itself was screaming.

"You asked me why you, Alistair, a question I receive from all I visit eventually. Why you out of the millions, the billions. Why you out of all history. Why not Ellasin? Why not your teachers? Why not your father or your mother? So many questions, so many who think themselves unworthy of intervention."

He motioned for Alistair to follow him, helping him to his feet if he still knelt in the aftermath of pain. Together they crested the hill they stood on to look out upon the other side.

A city stood beneath them, a beautiful one with soaring battlements, roofs that gleamed with flecked gemstones, and streets that almost glowed. Many small buildings floated, bobbing gently in their lazy orbit, and the mighty wall that surrounded it seethed with Abrogative shields and enchantments. It was beautiful, a wonder.

But in the center, the keening grew louder. In the center, where a white castle spread towers toward the distant sky, a point of nothing had begun to grow. Louder. Louder the sound came, till it shrieked and whistled enough to drive blades of white-hot pain through Alistair's ears. Ralaith stood quietly at the top and watched as the darkness grew, as the city below them was unmade in twisting metal and screams drowned out by the loudest of all.

Something growing in that darkness.

Ralaith spoke and his voice echoed in Alistair's head. "Choice." He said simply, looking down, "You are chosen because your choice is important. You stand between paths of mighty import and your decision will shape the lives of many more after you, down and down and down again till you will be but dust, and still your name will live." The floating buildings were being drawn lower now, devoured piece by piece. Some massive shape was behind the nothing, something growing mightier, and mightier.

A god? A demon.

"I have come to you BECAUSE you are weak, Alistair. I have come to you BECAUSE you have only chosen yourself."

Thousands died in instants below. Alistair could feel their terror as their existences were devoured one by one, as raw arcane power scarred the earth.

"Many evil men say they had no choice," Ralaith continued, his voice much louder and more powerful than what happened below them, "Many believe their paths are set, their destinies immutable, their fates already decided."

The demon reared its head and roared, but the keening was still much louder. Ralaith slipped the golden cage into his pocket.

"How many of them do you think truly believed that, Alistair of Venora? How many of them truly had no option in the long tapestry of their lives?"

He would not look upon Alistair, on his knees again watching destruction unlike any he had seen profane all the splendor he had seen before.

"How many simply wanted someone to tell them that it was not too late, that they could step away from that edge?"

He turned to Alistair now, his face a terror of darkness and light. Oh the light. It grew behind him. It engulfed the city. It swallowed it all...till there was only Ralaith. Ralaith and the hill. And nothing else.

Alistair shut his eyes. It was all too much, the darkness roiling around him...so many dead, so many lost.

A hand on his shoulder, comforting, firm...gentle.

"Alistair," Ralaith said to him quietly in the aftermath. The Keening had become a whisper. "Alistair, you have a choice. You all do. I am giving you permission, the permission you never needed, to choose."

[Alistair]

A searing pain; anguish consumed him, his body wracked with a vibration of agony that washed over more than just his nerves. It bellowed from within, as he felt the fundamental balance of his personhood shift. Ralaith tore something away -- why? He didn't understand it. His mouth was stuck open, and his tongue paralyzed; he could barely even scream. It was so painful. It--

He felt empty. For a moment, he felt hollow, and imagined instinctively that this was the feeling of death. He lowered his face and stared narrowly at the floor, his vision blurring, both the scenes before him and in his peripherals fading out of his sight. The first thing he saw, upon looking back to the man standing over him, was what looked like a glowing sphere. It was small, it was terrified - it was... alive. What was it? What had Ralaith pulled from inside of him -- his magic? No, not all of it. Somehow, he knew that the rest was still there. It was a fruit, but not the whole tree.

Before long, Ralaith confirmed it. It was a spark that he'd pulled, in a sensation similar to ripping a leech off a wound. It squirmed, it fought, it wanted to return to its trough. The trough, in this case, being Alistair's soul. Had it really fed upon him? He'd always thought that magic had enriched him. Was it making him less? Would it drain him empty?

His thoughts caught onto Ralaith's words, and he focused on a pronoun in particular. His, Him. Who was 'He'? The source of magic? What did Ralaith refer to?

"Him?" Alistair questioned, confused, unable to contain his curiosity. The secrets to magic laid before him -- the wisdom of the ancients. For his inquisitive nature, he could not help but wonder even through the agony as to where it had arrived from. From whom did this spark emerge?

Their Creators -- the Originals? His brows sunk in confusion. The irony was awful, all of those mages claiming that man could surpass God. In actuality, they were merely using a small portion of a greater God and allowing it more and more eminence and control. Mages had all been misled. They needed to know that, didn't they? Perhaps that could be something he strove for. To tell them what they had inside of them -- to teach them what it was, what it could be. If mages only knew these things, they could still yet be saved.

Wisdom and truth was worth more than just a musty text inscribed upon a codex of information. Others could be changed from these revelations, mages could be brought from the darkness. He'd seen them lingering on the precipice for so long -- he watched the Coven outgrow the Seekers, and all manner of cult spawn from the feeling of rejection they faced and the desire to reach Godliness. But Ralaith was right -- man was man for a reason. For man to become God was to defeat their virtue, their value.

They could do so many things that Immortals could not. They had a life, rather than merely a pre-ordained purpose. The Immortals walked their domains for all their lives as keepers of ideas, acting within a constrained set of laws and values. They were perhaps more simple than man was. Among his own, an innocent girl filled with life could transform into the scourge of an entire continent. An orphan boy could save a Kingdom, and a singer could enchant Immortals and men alike with their voice.

He realized that resisting against divinity arbitrarily was valueless. They were not like men, they were their own order, and many of them were shepherds. Ralaith had been kind, and he was not alone. There were others.

It was time for this to end, this rebellion. He accepted his role. He accepted Ralaith's role - he embraced who they both were within their own destinies. The thought... made him happy. It made him feel, for once, like he understood his own meaning. Nothing from this point on would ever take that away from him, he decided.

Alistair watched the beauty before him, the shining city... he watched the death and destruction that followed, and then he knew. This was ultimately his choice -- to create, or to destroy. To walk the path he was born to walk, or to choose the profane anarchy that his magic had always beckoned him to. Alistair would shape history. He would rule, he would do great things -- he would change the world. Now, the question was... what would that look like, ten arcs from now? A hundred? Would they speak of him in harsh, cold whispers, or with a recognition of the greatness that mankind had to offer?

He knew his answer. Ideology was not the answer, power was not the answer. Magic was a mighty thing, but it was not his ruler. He would no longer allow it to be.

"I choose prosperity, Ralaith," he whispered, watching as all became light, and everything faded around him. He felt like little more than a wisp in that moment, floating about as all was made simple around him. He knew in this moment alone who he would be. Where he would go.

Ralaith comforted him. This was the fork in the road.

"I choose wisdom, I choose justice, I choose truth. I choose humility over power, and precedence over blind ideology. I know who I want to be, now, Ralaith. And thanks to you, I know that this man I see will be worth his life."

The mage stood, and without much warning, stepped forward and held the Immortal, squeezing him in a warm hug. He was still the Bear, after all... maybe he didn't mind a bit of a cuddle every now and then.

"I don't want to reveal," he whispered, shaking his head. "I want to be me. I want to own my own body, and walk my own path. I want to bring about goodness. This is what I choose."

[Plague]

The light might have reached them, once.

Instead they were gone before it devoured the hill, the city of Lenore, they were no longer in that time or that place. Alistair once more felt the nausea, the yanking feeling of immeasurable distance. But deep in the embrace of the god, he felt safe, no...he felt home. And then he was. They stood at the edge of the bridge leading down to Oxentide, behind them the Sunset Palace glimmered in the late noonday light. Clouds gathered as they had before, but never sought to advance. Ralaith was smaller now, no longer the towering god Alistair had followed from place to place. He was the same unsure, nervous man who had first presented Alistair with a gift from his childhood.

The Immortal looked old to Alistair this close, very old and very tired. The years that must settle heavy on his shoulders, the time he must be forced to follow. The vision of destruction was gone, Ellasin was gone, his childhood was gone. Now they were as if they had never left and Ralaith gently released Alistair from the desperate hug and leaned back against the railing of the bridge. It was a lovely day, too lovely and Alistair hadn't noticed it before. How many days had crossed by while he was studying magic or laying his insidious plots? The scent of bread rose to them and Ralaith closed his eyes, smiling.

These moments. These were the eternal ones. These were the ones that mattered.

"Once I had a brother," Ralaith told Alistair quietly, wistfully, "He was...different from us. I suppose we are all different, the Immortals, I mean, depending on how we manifest or interact. But he...was special." The god shook his head and Alistair could almost feel the weight of bitterness upon him. How many had he seen perish, how many of his own kind? Could gods truly die? "So few of us that are gone now left anything on this world, we didn't think to. Jyvran, however, he knew...maybe he was one of the few that did. He created a device, it was designed to purge a soul, to dissect the most fundamental part of a mortal and purify it." Turning he put his arms over the rail and looked down at Oxentide.

"It is far from here, above Uthaldria, past the Frozen North and into the dark of the sea there. The journey will be perilous, but it should work one last time before it falls into disrepair." Ralaith was quiet a moment, before looking back at Alistair, "You must go this way by foot, by your own efforts. Once there, you will understand what to do."

He pushed back from the bridge and started up towards the Palace, bidding Alistair follow. "It will not be easy and the danger is great. If you choose this path, and it is a choice, you must do so before the Revelation. After it may not be possible."

They climbed the hill towards the door but did not go inside, instead Ralaith turned to Alistair and set another firm hand on his shoulder. He could feel the power emanating from it but did not feel fear. "All men choose how to live their lives. It is never too late to change. We, the Immortals, we are eternal and unchanging. Many of us envy the agency man has. Remember that if you meet my more...disagreeable siblings."

The hand on his shoulder moved down to take his hand and Ralaith slipped something into it. On inspection, Alistair could see it was a pocket watch with a golden back and silver hands. Ralaith closed it gently, and pressed Alistair's finders around it. "This is much to process, young man. When I leave your presence your memory of this will fade. What you will recall is that those memories are in this watch and when you are ready, you will open it." Ralaith smiled, no longer so uneasy around Alistair. They had experienced the flow of time together, Alistair understood. There was no longer a reason for Ralaith to not know him. "Every ten trials, this pocket watch will store up to one break of time. If you are the only one in a closed room when you open this, all time outside will freeze for exactly one break. Open a door or leave the room and the effect ends immediately. I give this gift to you in case you need it...and should you endeavor this journey, I will extend to you my blessing as well."

Reaching into his coat he pulled out the doll, Ellasin's doll, still dirty from where it was hurled onto the ground. He offered it to Alistair, "We must always remember that no one is born without choices. From the greatest of villains to the purest of heroes, we all came from similar beginnings and we will all meet similar ends."

He turned to go, walking a few strides from Alistair before stopping, and turning. "You wish to know the correct way to rule, Alistair of Venora? With humility. Remember that little separates you from the subjects you rule. Your noble blood, your riches, your skill...these are all trappings of time and could have been anyone's gift. Never believe yourself greater and never put yourself lesser. You facilitate so they may know peace. You sacrifice so they may know joy."

He turned and continued down the road toward the bridge. "Alistair of Venora," he called back, "I wonder what they will say of you?"

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[Alistair]

They returned home. Well -- Alistair's home, at least. Ralaith likely didn't have any such thing, now or in any point in time. He must've been among the world's greatest wanderers, the noble had to think. In only so short a time, he introduced Alistair to whole different lifetimes, and so many viewpoints within. Ralaith knew these things like his own body -- he knew what Alistair was to see, and where to look for it. The mage was impressed... the Chronologer was as meticulous as he was wise, and in fact, as he was kind.

Today, Alistair held in his heart a belief, one worth fighting for. Perhaps Ralaith, in his view of humility, did not wish to be worshiped or sought after ideologically. Even so, he had a new follower, an aspirant Chronologer himself. Rather than being worshiped, he was looked towards, like a role-model. Alistair wanted to be wise, and humble, and to see things from perspective rather than the unilateralism he'd pursued for all of his life.

He felt a comfort in the Immortal's presence, and listened closely to his words. This man cared, he felt that way. Believed it. For some reason, he appeared to hold value on the young noble's future... and he had the wisdom to make that mean something. He knew how to cure Alistair of what he viewed to be his ethereal affliction, bound to consume his body. While the mage relented at the thought of surrendering his spark, his time was limited, and soon enough the debate would need to be conclusively resolved. Ralaith's words, of this device north of Uthaldria, were things he would remember. Not now, not yet... but whenever the time came where he instinctively decided to open that watch. His task would be set in that moment, and he would need to choose.

A choice. Opposite extremes laid before him, and he faced a challenge in picking them apart and unfolding their narratives.

For now, though, his mind rested. He took the watch and listened, but the thoughts did not linger for long, nor did they have ample time to be absorbed. Before long, he was by himself. No - not by himself. There was a man - not very notable, of aging appearance and unimpressive stature. Alistair watched him step silently towards the road, his eyes staring at him with a sense of peculiarity... and a strange kinship with a stopwatch within his vest that he did not recall having before now.

Without thought, however, he returned to his duties for the day... of which there were many.