[Flashback] With a Whimper (Hadrian)

[Alistair deGrey]

22nd of Winter, 507 AV All things come to an end. We float through foolishly believing we may impress something upon the world; that when the time comes to depart, we shall be remembered. This is untrue. The world ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Candlelight mixed joyously with the bleak sunlight filtering through the window above Alistair deGrey's head. The window above his head was dirty, but still allowed the overcast sky to peek into the shoddy apartment. Alistair was seated at a second hand writing desk, head bent over a musty book. The candle on his desk threw enough light to at least touch each of the four walls of his apartment, and everything contained within. The door blackened by some philtering incident, a bookcase containing borrowed university texts beside it, a counter with a wash basin, and the bed he and Magnolia Eirinn had shared so many times. The engineering student could only half immerse himself in the text, simply allowing the words to seep into his heads without registration. Later, Alistair would review the document he read, but at the moment he was nearly jittering with excitement. Sometime soon Magnolia would arrive, upon which the pair of them would dress and take off. Tonight was auspicious indeed, for the University of Zeltiva was throwing a private gala for the staff and notable members of the University. Magnolia and Alistair were neither, but the former had egged the latter into joining her on an escapade. Magnolia was far more social than deGrey, and he was clay in her hands. So tonight the two would dress up and insert themselves into the Gala crowds. As a reward for joining her, Magnolia had promised an extremely special night. Alistair did not hesitate. Within the complex Alistair heard footsteps of couples treading down the hallway. Many of the students had planned a second gala, a public one, as they had been denied access to the private party. So while the professors and nobility strode toward their fine wine and delicacies, the students of the university strutted to theirs, though it be a mummer's farce in comparison. Laughter sounded in the hallway, though it was not the sweet violin of Magnolia's voice. Alistair continued to wait. His lover was enrolled in the last class of the day, and would be another half hour in arriving. It mattered not, deGrey thought, for they had grander plans than their peers. The bell passed, and Magnolia had yet to arrive. The sky darkened quickly, Zeltiva's winter sun shying away from the world. Worry had begun to gnaw at the back of deGrey's mind, for his love was by far the more punctual of the two. When Magnolia made a social arrangement, she usually expended every ounce of effort to ensure it was kept. Alistair, on the other hand, usually did not care enough about people. Regardless, perhaps she had queries for the professor, who would no doubt be itching to leave for his Gala. deGrey's eyes continued to sweep over the pages, far too quickly to actually be reading. Something was beginning. Another bell tolled, the student gala would begin in another half bell, the private one should be commencing now. It was uncharacteristic of his partner to be this later, but Alistair had continued to read as if nothing was out of place. If he thought about it, he would have realized that this had never happened before, Magnolia was never late. deGrey shut the book now and pushed back his chair. He moved over to the bed where he had laid out the clothes. He had paid dearly to get this suit, and it was a trifle too large, but deGrey's eyes saw nothing but Magnolia taking it off of him. It was well worth the monetary sacrifice. Alistair awkwardly slipped from his clothes, his body had become rigid with worry, and he put the fine clothing on. Another five chimes of adjustment, and deGrey found himself laying prone on his bed, awaiting his love's arrival. Something was sick. Almost another bell, fifty chimes precisely. The professors were probably well into their gala, dining on imported wines and delicatessen. Footsteps were heard outside Alistair’s door. deGrey sat bolt upright as the sound ceased near his doorway. One second... Two... Three... Four... The feet proceeded down the hallway, his hope ushered aside as worry reinserted itself. Alistair's love had yet to arrive. Something was cracking. Alistair lifted himself, padding to the door. Just to check. Though it be foolish, deGrey hoped to find Magnolia outside leaning against the opposite wall, playful grin displayed for him. Salt and moisture had swollen the cheap wood of the portal, and Alistair had to yank it open. The hallway was empty, though he heard footsteps in the stairwell. Bemusement overtook Alistair’s face as he blinked down at what lay before his door. Resting on a black cloth was a scrap of parchment with a short notation scrawled over it. Alistair saw a shape beneath the black veil, but first bent to pick up the note. deGrey’s eyes widened as they mechanically read the words, and his head filled with helium. Dear Alistair deGrey, Greetings, I do hope you have been well since our last encounter. I confess, I sincerely miss the times we spent together. My scalpel misses your torso too, it sends its best. Sometimes I dream of the old days, and it makes me think, why did he leave? So I ask for a return reply as soon as possible my apprentice. I have heard you’re studying engineering at the University. This is a shame. You had such potential for magic! First rate magician, second rate inventor. Tonight I have decided to join the students of the University at their gala, will you be joining us? Of course you will, Magnolia told me. I saw her when she left her class. Or rather, I was waiting for her. Her body felt lovely. Sincerely yours, Rowan Cedany A wet sheen had materialized on Alistair’s forehead. Breathing was hard, iron tongs clamped his chest. His tendons had become brass, stiff and unyielding. Alistair deGrey was an automaton as he bent over to remove the black cloth from the floor. His eyes were the swollen wood of the door, affixed on the black cloth. deGrey trembled as his stiff fingers curled around the cloth and took the veil. It was a hand. The flesh pale, skin smooth, the fingers delicate and long. Alistair recognized the hand he had held so many times. Something had broken.

[Hadrian]

The old ballroom that the students had finagled for their own party was reputedly not so fine as that used by the regents, professors, and other important people, but Hadrian was quietly impressed all the same. The landscape of his childhood had been predominantly upper-class, but Syliras didn't boast such Alahean wonders of architecture. While his peers were busily partaking of kelp beer and the cheapest imports they could garner with their joint capital, he was calculating angles and guestimating weights and vectors. He was not the best at socializing, even among this generally socially-impaired caste. Architecture was not his forte, but he had studied his mathematics. His joy was the pure mathematics, theoretically distilling the world into elegant equations, but as he began to eat up theoretical mathematics, he began to wonder if he shouldn't continue begin work on magical mathematics. It sounded hokey even to him, but he imagined it to be fascinating all the same. Perhaps he should take a class on architecture after all. It would surely help if he ever built himself a magical castle. The thought made him snicker and a nearby girl with spectacles and a too-severe bun narrowed her eyes on him and walked farther away, leaving him to grow his wallflower self separated from his species. Looking around, he was surrounded by people he didn't know, and even the ones he recognized were not people with whom he particularly wanted to spend time. He didn't have friends, but he didn't mind. When he wanted to talk, he went to his professors' office hours and talked about what they were learning, and generally extrapolated into things they hadn't yet learned. With so much time on his hands, he read ahead. Then he read the suggested reading. And then he asked for more. And then someone in a class said, "You're coming to the party, right?" With peers present, it didn't seem copacetic to decline. So here he was, eyes blank and mouth working quietly as he tried to derive an equation for the tesseract using what he knew of three dimensional geometry so he could ask his professor if there was a relation between the tesseract and the Powercube. "In 4-space... four points (+/-1, +/-1, +/-1, +/-1)." He grunted. "So... x-sub-1, x-sub-2, x-sub-3, x-sub-4..." He frowned, calculated by visualizing in the aether. He saw: "Mm, I want one of those," he said to nobody in particular. Clearly, Hadrian Aelius was the life of the party. He managed to pass a couple of hours without really socializing, and finally he decided it would be more comfortable doing mathematics in his cottage where he had paper and ink. He was halfway out the door when he surprised even himself with instinctual agility, leaping back before a student vomited on the space where his feet had just been. Blinking, he recognized someone finally. The lad was a year or two older than him, and they had taken an anthropology class together. He searched through his memory. The guy had been particularly outspoken and remarkably xenophobic for a student in an anthropology class. After all, it wasn't required. All he wanted to do was leave, but a group of revelers were already wandering away, a few calling back to the unlucky--or just stupid--student who looked like he was about to pass out in his own vomit. "C'mon, arsehat," he said, sighing as he shoved his hands under the guy's arms and helped him to his feet. Carefully avoiding the vomit, he slung a dead weight arm over his shoulders and helped him shuffle down to the street without breaking his neck. "Where do you live?" Luckily for weak Hadrian, the building wasn't far, and he actually recognized it as the home of several university students. Why? Ah, a particularly vile group assignment that he had been forced to redo on his own because he was the only person apparently concerned with passing the class and moving on to bigger and better things. Once the inebriate was tucked in bed, Hadrian walked out, locking the door and shoving the key under the door for him to find when he woke up. With any lucky, his memory would be gone and he wouldn't seek out Hadrian. It wasn't shaping up to be a night he wanted to remember, unless he managed to do what was really beyond his mathematical skills. He began to mutter about four dimensional geometry as he moved to leave...

[Alistair deGrey]

Pain is a lance. Delirium. Fainting fast. Fading fast. I can't feel her anymore. Where is Magnolia? It was as if the walls before Alistair deGrey had fractured with the gravity of the situation. Small pieces of the world blew away like sawdust, leaving nothing but a cold oblivion. Where Magnolia's warm arms once wrapped around his neck, only void remained. Calamity had dipped its cold fingers into Alistair's life, and left with a jolt, taking his lover. Breath surged into his lungs, which had begun to burn from lack of air. deGrey's eyes, welded to the wall in front of him, saw nothing but the darkness. It overwhelmed him, washed over his prostrate form like ocean waves over sand. Magnolia's hand was clutched to Alistair's chest with both his hands. His knuckles had turned white as the corpse's with the immense pressure. Blood wiped away from the stump and onto Alistair's shirt as he clutched the disembodied hand. It was his, she was his. He had promised to never let her go. Now he never would. Breathe. One, two, three. Each breath was a labor of greed and infidelity. It was deGrey's wish, his duty, to join his love. Alistair tasted salty water. In the abyss, he longed for a knife. Nothing but the darkness persisted though, and one could not end something with emptiness. So instead a cry of anguish erupted from the caverns and catacombs of the student. Though he heard nothing. Sound does not travel in a vacuum. Still, every cord in Alistair thrummed with emotion, release like a lightning storm. The last fractions of the world fell away, leaving solely Alistair, his hand, and the trail of black cloths. deGrey clenched his lover's hand like a child clinging to his mother, and moved to the second black cloth. Another hand. Alistair bent to pick it up, falling to his knees instead. Clumsy hands of iron grasped his lover's other hand. In the night he watched her grow from the pair of hands he now held. Her phantom image growing from the stumps like a drawing. But stardust blew away at the slightest wind, and deGrey awkwardly stood. Something hot and salty blurred Alistair's vision and something crimson trickled down his chin. The man lurched toward the next black cloth.

[Hadrian]

Now that he could focus again, his mind ran into dead end after dead end with regard to the geometrical problem. Frustrated, he realized that while his mind could grok the concept, he didn't have the mathematical training to plod along step-by-step and reach what he already intuitively understood. Still, perhaps if he could get home to paper and ink he could figure it somehow. When he had come this way, he had been babysitting a drunk and hadn't noticed much else. But this time, he was more alert. He heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, turned the corner -- was this the right way? -- and nearly stumbled into something covered with black cloth. Managing not to trip, movement caught his eye and he turned, recognition following quick on the heels of shock. There was a familiar face with blood leaking from the nose and tears from the eyes, his arms full of pale body parts. Necrophiliac or mad scientist, Hadrian wasn't sure, but he blinked when his back hit the wall opposite the staircase. His hands spread out on the blank surface behind him. "Ahhh..." Great, his vaunted intelligence was clearly working out well for him.

[Alistair deGrey]

Again time, time. Something gone. Dismembered. Forever dismembered. Calculations. Savage black eyes. Gone. Shadow. Shadow. The wet black cloth Hadrian had nearly stumbled on was the last and largest in the trail. Hands and feet and strips of flesh fell from Alistair's arms to limply hit the ground at the foot of the stairs as he came upon the end of the trail. Insanity boiled in his mercury eyes, a storm waiting to be leashed upon the world. Forward deGrey staggered, a resembling a corpse himself. His joints had rusted through, his tendons turned to dust with time. This was the end of eternity, and deGrey had withered with the acceleration of time. Nothing was left except for what lay before him, and shadows. Shadow. Alistair peripherally became aware of the form against the wall. Registration of this did not reveal the form's identity, he could not make it out. Alistair shambled forth to the black cloth that lay draped over Magnolia, and subsequently toward the figure against the wall. Some mechanism deep within the now forgotten reaches of Alistair's brain must still have ticked, for he still knew shadows. He knew not why knowledge of shadows remained, but they did. They remained before him. Bruises had already been made from where Alistair had fell previously, and two more would not damage them. The calculation in this act was nil, deGrey fell to his knees before the veiled figure. His red hands tore away at the blood soaked cloth, ripped it off of Magnolia's half gone torso and head. deGrey opened his mouth to let out one more cry, but his larynx had fell victim to dissolution. He bent over to wrap his arms about the mutilated corpse before him, blood seeping into the front of his shirt. He hugged her tightly, as if the act of asphyxiation might breathe life back into her. Whispers frantically escaped Alistair's lips as he kissed Magnolia's neck. Speech pained him, as if his voice really had been ripped from him, "We are fine. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing has happened. Wake up my love, it is time to greet the day. Wake up." Their lips brushed, she would awaken. He trembled. Something else stirred in the abyssal reaches of the labyrinth. It threw itself against the walls, seeking escape. It screamed, and raged, consuming everything. Alistair had bitten through his lip, blood dripping onto Magnolia's cold bosom. He clung to her even as the devourer found the last mechanism. The machine that told him of darkness, and shadow. Shadow. Alistair released his grip upon Magnolia and wearily stood. He stared at Shadow, his eyes oddly focused. They spoke of pain and distress. A profound sorrow that Hadrian too might feel one day, when he watched the world end. Blood soaked almost the entirety of Alistair's shirt, and his hands were just as red. Alistair rushed forward and slammed his hands into Shadow's shoulders, pinning them back against the wall. The smell of salt and blood mixed in Shadow's nostrils, and the blood on deGrey's hands seeped into his shirt. The tormented man's face was a matter of inches away from Shadow's, and he spoke in mad whispers. "Rozatl. Rozatlas." The same words he had thought when Shadow had first intruded. Alistair's voice was tumultuous, cracking and heaving. "Navrtlas. Give me fire, Shadow. We shall burn like the sun. Navr."

[Hadrian]

The man's armful of spare parts had been shock enough, but the ruin revealed by the blood-soaked black cloth pushed him over the edge. And that was also when the smell hit him. He heard a rushing deafness in his ears and his gorge rose, driving him to his knees to vomit up his dinner, a mortal sin in famine-ridden Zeltiva. Disgusted with himself, trembling and sweating from reaction, he spat several times to get the bile out of his mouth before the acids ate at his teeth and he began to look like some hygiene-impaired hillbilly. His mind, of course, shunted away the memory of just what had caused the nausea, but only long enough for him to get back to his shaky feet. He gaped down at the crazy man and his graveyard bride. And then of course (OF COURSE), he began to go crazy. Wide-eyed, Hadrian watched, hands coming up to uselessly fend off the man's crazy strong strength. As the back of his head slammed into the wall, the man's aura blinked in and out of his vision, shot through with raging red, sickly, mourning yellow, and a flickering visual cacophony like nothing he had ever seen. The coruscating chaos nearly made him nauseous again, but his fight or flight response was activated and a more primal part of him, a part he didn't realize he had, took instant, iron-fisted control. He drew back his hand, felt power squeezing out from between his fingers, and swung, connecting wildly with the crazed man's jaw, bits of ice and bluish res fell from the impact. Water was his element, not fire, and since Ivak had played a joke on him, the water he called tended to freeze rather than scald. Hands shoved at the other man, trying to get free. "Get off me! Get off me!"

[Alistair deGrey]

This world is drained of light. Something clicked into place. Alistair had been thrust into the eye of the tornado. Dark wind swirled around him in a dusty vortex. The cold fist impacted his jaw like a brick thrown from a child, and deGrey reeled. Blue lightning leaped from Alistair's eyes to Shadow, evacuating the last remnants of uncontrollable anger. deGrey's hands tightly gripped Shadow's shoulders to prevent him from toppling over. The cacophonous world passed overhead, leaving him somewhere detached. Hands began to slip, and Alistair shoved Shadow sideways. The man he had just invited to die with him disappeared, spirited away from Alistair. He was alone in the void again. He fell forward, hands bracing himself against the wall, staring down at the great nothingness that surrounded him. Crimson liquid dripped from his face. deGrey tried to swallow, but a spray of spit and blood erupted from his mouth as his body coughed its protest. He stood erect, turning and falling back against the wall. Alistair leaned his head back, and saw Shadow. Quiet words trickled from Alistair's larynx, whether or not the man heard him seemed irrelevant, "Are we not upright? Do we cringe... The knell of sanity?" deGrey gazed pleadingly at Shadow, the request of a fading man trapped in a nightmare. He was lost in the bedlam. With great effort, Alistair moved himself from the wall, slowly stepping within several paces of his companion. "Canoch abase, but we only take. I want to take back. Give me fire, Shadow. We shall take everything back. Alignment" His voice was cold, a cadaver's. Nothing was quite right with this man. He stood crookedly but calmly, as if nothing was wrong. No notice was taken of the blood stains, nor of the developing bruise on his face, or the gash on his lip. If it were not for his eyes, Alistair might be sane. The jury rigged self composure collapsed, inundating his brain and eyes. A new torrent of hot tears sprang forth, and deGrey clenched his fists. Eyes narrowed, and he shouted at his Shadow, "She was mine, how dare he take her from me! But he was only speaking to shadows, flickering and impermanent.

[Hadrian]

Of a few things Hadrian was certain: the person who had been this dismembered corpse was dear to the man; the man was nuttier than a fruitcake, more so than he remembered; his hand hurt like no other. There was a sliver of compassion crucifying his heart for the grieving man's sake, but the larger portion of himself wanted to survive this encounter and, preferably, not be charged with the murder of the poor girl. To that end, he purposely engaged his magesight, blinking until his vision lit up with colors and patterns of energy that he was only beginning to be able to interpret. It was all as he had seen it in that shocking flash of unintentional vision when he began to act on instinct with magic, which he could only assume might lead to greater danger. As part of him analyzed what was happening, intuition urged him to act. "This one is gone, friend," he said in the Ancient Tongue, slowly as he conjugated, declined, and chose the right words. That might work, to play along with his madness until he could be calmed down, or at least sucker punched in the back of the head so he might wake up with a headache, but also his sanity. That ice fist maneuver had been rather impressive for a fledgling reimancer, he had to admit to himself. "Seek not your end. Destruction added to destruction is only destruction; this will not help."

[Alistair deGrey]

Sanity is not statistical. Change perspective and sanity follows suit The cold blood coating Alistair's fingers smeared into his hair as his palms clasped over his eyes. As if he could shut out the world and pretend this had not happened. Just think, think harder so I might not think. He shook his head at Shadow's words. Holding a conversation with something as hollow as he, it was insanity. But most importantly, it was his. As Magnolia had been torn away, deGrey needed an anchor, even if temporary. He had discovered it in Shadow. Though this silhouette tied him to this world, the pain still ate away at his insides like fire. A burning in his stomach that a thousand connections could not quell. Alistair's voice shook and cracked as he spoke to Hadrian, unable to maintain the vicious fervor that had fueled his earlier outbursts, "Stop stop stop stop stop. This is enough. I have been wronged, this place is defiled." A shiver ran down his spine as the first tendrils of the night chill seeped into him. His body was cold, but his nerves had gone numb. deGrey took his hands off his face, seemingly oblivious to the red stains that marred his eyes and hair. His voice became a plea, the shoots of logic beginning to break through the earth. He grasped for sunlight, but whether it was for light or fire, was indecipherable. "Help me Shadow. Cedany has wronged me again, I need your help. We must purge him of his insanity." Fire. He was definitely reaching for fire.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian considered the crackpot carefully, lips slightly pursed in thought. He was certainly making a mess of himself, griming up his face and hair with gore. If someone poked their head out of their door, an alarm would go up and guards would appear. If they caught Hadrian there with the demented man, he would likely be charged as an accessory to murder and dismemberment. He sighed, played along. "All right. What's the plan?"