What's in a name?

[Tsaba]

20th Summer, 438 AV Dominic carefully traced out the artful letters, his face a mask of intensity. It just took control and practice. Everything was a matter of control and practice. "You're never gonna get it," Anna's voice suddenly said right behind his ear. Dominic jumped, smearing a like of ink across the page. "Anna..." "Sorry. But it was lopsided anyway." "Slanted. It's calligraphy. It's meant to be slanted." "Not that slanted." Dominic tried to glare at his foster sister, but as always, his gaze softened as soon as their eyes met. They'd never been able to stay angry at each other. "What's wrong?" "Nothin'. I'm just... hanging around." Anna chewed nervously on her lip as she pulled herself up to sit on the edge of Dominic's desk. "'Cause I'm bored." Dominic knew better than to push her. He picked up his brush again. Sure enough, she continued less than a minute later. "You think we should do it?" "Do what?" "The... y'know..." she indicated her body with one hand. "The Daek-Nuit?" "Yeah." "We already decided that." Dominic frowned. "Are you having second thoughts, Anna? Because if you don't want to..." "Then what, I randomly starve or walk into a pocket of toxic gas and die? The only reason either of us are still alive is 'cause Craun takes care of us." "We could leave." Anna shook her head. "Not for twenty more days." "Then we wait twenty days." Dominic shrugged. "Besides, Craun would help us get out early." "Yeah," she said wistfully. "He would." She looked at Dominic sharply. "Why, do you wanna leave? Stay human?" What did Dominic want? He thought. He wanted to not die randomly in something as pathetic as a cave-in and leave his loved ones behind. He wanted to not betray people by ageing and passing without them. He wanted to write. To read. To help people. "No. No, I want to do it. But I'll go with you." Anna shook her head. "I don't... I don't really want to go. I mean, I'm not sure. I don't think I know what I want any more." Dominic put his brush down and took his sister's hands in his. "That's just cold feet. You're nervous." He smiled. "But it'll pass. And then we can be a family forever." She slid off the desk and hugged him, tightly. "Better?" he murmured into her hair. "Much better. Thanks, Dominic."

[Tsaba]

23rd Summer, 438 AV "Do you remember how Animation works, Child?" Dominic glanced up at his Master, but Craun wasn't looking at him. He was pacing the outside of the Destination circle, occasionally crouching down to inscribe a glyph on the ground outside it. He didn't simply start writing and walk in a circle, but stopped at apparently random points to draw. Yet, as he worked, a circle of glyphs was slowly but surely filled out. Dominic didn't recognise the glyphs, but they were similar in form to the ones on each corner of the table to which his sister was strapped. "We're moving information from one circle to the other," Dominic answered neutrally, as if reciting a lesson by rote. "In Animation, a soul in one circle is used as a template for a facsimile of a soul bound to a form in the other circle." "Yes, exactly. Except in the case of the Daek-Nuit, we take the art one step further." Craun paused to draw another glyph. "In this case, we do not copy a existing soul. We move it." He looked up long enough to indicate the corpse in the other circle, chosen for its resemblance to Anna. Dominic glanced down at his sister, then back at Craun. "You know that this is dangerous," Craun continued, "so I will not waste time by detailing that yet again. But your role is very important. Your timing is vital. We must work in perfect synchronisation. Are you both ready?" "Anna," Dominic murmured. She seemed only half-conscious, drugged as she was, but she nodded, and smiled. "I'll see you on the other side, brother." He gripped her hand with one of his own. The other was clenched around the hilt of a long, spike-like dagger, his knuckles white. "See you on the other side, sis." Dominic raised his voice. "Yes," he said. "We're ready."

[Tsaba]

When Craun sealed the circle with his own ichor, Dominic knew that it was far too late to back out. Then Craun's voice rose in chant, more powerful and commanding than Dominic had ever heard it before. "Yaq koradt. Yaq pechit. Abase-rekas rozat; Abase-ichor pechit. Nader Daraqt. Abasedalat... djas-zapatl gligt. Nader-zapatl gligatl. Gligt! Now, child!" Dominic thrust the long needle dagger down, between Anna's ribs and into her heart. The world swayed dizzyingly, and he lost track of Craun's chanting as it became a tide of guttural, disconnected syllables and the power roared around him, light flared... Slowly, Anna's blood dripped from the table onto the floor. Only Dominic's own breathing broke the silence. He looked to the body in the other circle. It didn't move. Craun walked over to it and placed a hand on its forehead. "Dominic..." "No." He pushed away the chill gripping his heart. "No, it wasn't..." "It is an inherently dangerous ritual, Dominic." "Stop it! Stop using my name!" Craun never used his name. Not unless something was very, very wrong. "She's just weak. In stupor. Give her a few days and..." "There's no spirit here, Child." "So you killed her. You're saying you killed my sister." "Yes." Craun headed for Domnic and Anna's body, in their circle. "No! Get away from us!" Dominic threw the dagger at his mentor, missing by a couple of feet. Nevertheless, the Nuit stopped. "We will leave her for a couple of days. In case you are right." He turned and walked out the door, leaving Dominic crouched in the magic circle, alone in the room with two corpses.

[Tsaba]

24th Summer, 438 AV Dominic had insisted on helping embalm his sister's body. He was no embalmer, and should have been brushed off. But the body was worth rather less due to the stab wound in the chest, and some junior embalmer was handling it, and she had enough heart to let Dominic carry things for her and lurk about, even if she didn't trust him with anything tricky or important. He watched the embalmer cut his sister open. He watched her saw open the breastbone. He cradled her damaged heart in his hands as she used some sort of suction device to draw out stray blood where it had spilled in the chest cavity. He watched her shake her head as she inspected the wound his dagger had left in her left lung, and ultimately decide to take it out, although it would reduce the ability to speak of whoever took the body. Dominic had seen the dead before. He'd seen his own father's remains wrapped up and carried away before he could see enough to 'traumatise' him. He'd seen patients expire from disease, hypothermia, and occasionally massive blood loss. But this was Anna. And she was there. And she was gone. Dominic carted away unneeded organs and carted back linens and salts. He threaded the embalmer's needle and handed it over, and carried away bowls of blood. He watched his sister become a commodity, a new home for some Nuit somewhere down the line. And then then took her away.

[Tsaba]

"I want to do it." Dominic perched on the edge of Craun's desk in a manner reminiscient of his sister. "I want to undergo the Daek-Nuit. I want to be like you." Craun didn't look up from his book. "I would expect recent events to have dulled your enthusiasm for such a venture." "Well, you're wrong." "Yes, Child, that is what concerns me. You are in grief. You are not in a fit state to make this sort of decision." "Yeah, I know. But I was in a fit state to do so... before. And I'm making the same decision now as I did then. Besides, the grief doesn't seem to have affected you very much." "Ah." Craun closed his book, then. "You think that death, in one way or another, will erase your pain." He fixed his dark eyes on Dominic. "You think that if you can die on that altar, it will make this all better? You think that you'll wake up without the pain and be able to go on?" "Or not wake up at all." Dominic's eyes narrowed. "You don't have the best track record." "I can find somebody else to -- " "No. You do it." "I will not. Not until you are in a fit state to make this decision with a clear head." Dominic fixed him with an accusing stare. "You promised. You promised when we came here with you." Craun sighed and looked away. "Yes," he said. "I did promise." He turned back to his book. "Tomorrow. Prepare the drug. I will clear our schedules. And Dominic... if you die?" "I promised her that I would see her on the other side." Dominic headed for the door. In the doorway, he paused, and looked back. "Does is dull the pain? Being like you?" "Not in any way that you should look forward to," Craun said sadly. "Some forms of pain can be a sign of healing. Losing them isn't always a step forward."

[Tsaba]

32nd Summer, 438 AV "Child." Dominic didn't move. He didn't look up at Craun. He just sat, motionless, staring at his own folded hands. Well, not his hands. He didn't think he would ever see them as his hands. "It takes some time to adjust after the Daek-Nuit, Child. Time to regain one's strength, time to adapt to your body. But you haven't moved at all for a week." Still, Dominic didn't move. "If I could not see the aura of your soul bound bright and strong to your body, I would doubt that the ritual was a success. At least reassure me that your mind was not damaged." "I should have gone first." "Hmm?" "I should have died. She should be here. In fact, if I... if I had gone first, neither of us would be dead. She wouldn't have messed up. She wouldn't have killed me." "Perhaps. Perhaps not. But that it the meaning of risk, Child. It was not your fault. It was, perhaps, mine, for allowing you to assist." "Yes. It was." "Come to -- " "No. Go away. I don't want to see you right now. I don't want to see any of you... you dead things, in this place." Dominic clenched his own dead hands. Monsters, all of them. He should've known, when Craun had brought them to such a dangerous place, when they'd considered -- and accepted! -- death as a price for safety. Who did that? In what world was that a legitimate choice? He'd been blinded by Craun's apparent kindness, the healer who'd taken in two orphan children, who had raised and protected them and offered them immortality. But he'd been using them the whole time. He'd tricked minds far too young to make such a choice, dragged them away to an isolated monster volcano, and murdered Anna. Then he'd turned Dominic into a monster, like him. Hadn't he? He didn't feel like a monster. Not really. But how would he know? After all, nine days ago, he'd stabbed his own sister through the heart, and killed her. Was that something a human would do? And it had been under Craun's direction. And then Craun had made his form the same as his heart. Dead. Then why did it hurt so much? "So I should leave you alone here?" Craun asked. "For how long? Until you simply rot away?" "If that's what it takes." He sighed. Out of the corner of his eye, Dominic saw him shaking his head. "You have picked an extremely elaborate suicide, my Child." "That's not really any of your business." "I daresay it is. You owe me a debt, after all." Dominic frowned, and turned to look at him. "How so?" "I gave you twelve years." He snorted. "That's not -- " "I gave her twelve years. Twelve years beyond the day that she would've starved or frozen to death, or had to make extremely difficult choices for her own survival." "Yeah. You did." Dominic sighed. "What do you want from me? You want this body back?" "No. I want three years from you. I want three years in which you work with me, in which you do everything within your power to preserve your own life. If I cannot change your mind in that time..." he shrugged. "To a Nuit, three years is hardly any time at all. It is not a great price." "Fine. Three years. But that's all." Craun smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Dominic." "Dominic died with Anna." "Then what would you prefer to be called?" "I... I don't know." He looked away. "Something... Name me for the promise. My promise to you. Name me so that every time somebody says my name, I will remember, I won't be able to forget or dismiss it. Because if you don't..." Craun nodded. "As you wish... Tsaba." "Tsaba." He frowned as he rolled it over his tongue. Then he smiled; not in happiness, perhaps, but in understanding. "Yes. Tsaba. It will do."

[Mirage]

Tsaba:

XP:
N/A

Lores:
A New Name: Tsaba
A promise that was broken
Animation: A Soul is used as a template
Daek-Nuit Ritual: Moving one soul to another body
Daek-Nuit Ritual: You must die to be reborn
Death... is just the begining
Killing a Loved One
Three Years of Dedication Owed

Additional:
Yay thread graded! I am afraid there were not really any points I could offer for this, but you did get some nifty lores! I hope you enjoyed your time alive, because those days are now long past you . PM me with any concerns