Leonaess Dawnbinder

Transformation

Obsolete shadows moved out of the corner of her subjugated mind. Overcome with whispers many, silent babbling prayers to any and all that might take it upon themselves to listen. Effortless chill, the permeating damp of a musky reptilian slither crawled slippery smooth through magically intoxicated veins. Palms pressed flat against the glossy surface of what appeared to be a slowly churning riverway, black obsidian ripples expanding with the simplest movement as Leonaess Dawnbinder stood from where she had been crouched in a rabbit-like fear in this dank oubliette.

She had been here before but never had it been so void of colorful expression.

There was no light, but eyes adjusted to the gloom with amethyst gaze casting over the sinuous coil of shapes in disgustingly sensual movements; turning in on themselves just out of peripheral reach. Skirt felt heavy as it dragged slow, dredging up memories from the bottom of this rank river that seemed to be picking up a tugging current. A stone bench sat in the middle of this twilight pit, a beam of singular light casting it in welcoming illumination. As she was about to near, trudging silent though the stranger be burdened in a full set of plate was the hulking figure of a Blood Knight. A helmet concealed features, even the regalia that clung to a proud masculine form looked rusted and splattered with a black ooze that dripped from the breaks in armor. Lowering himself to sit down on the bench, smoldering and burning were the eyes that found purchase on the aura soother’s opposite.

“ Your mind is crumbling. “

The echo of his tenor which normally would have boomed eternal was whispery soft, mingling with the crazed cacophony that had paused the moment she reached the bench to sit alongside the forsaken Knight.

“ That it is and this time there is no coming out of this unscathed.”

Just below the translucent surface did objects start to float upward from memorial depths: flower petals, a bracelet, the furred form of a rabbit…

The touch of an encumbered hand drew her attention back towards the hulking metallic apparition that unlike the rest of the drifting objects had waded through the river of her thoughts like a bound ghost. A slender, pale hand reached up to curl fingers in desperate claim to protected digits.

“ Alassian, I don’t think that I can do this.”

The Knight’s hand slipped from her own and rested against her pale cheek, a biting nip of cold teasing her skin that had at first thought to be numb. Gesture caused eyes to lift from where gaze had fallen to the lifeless cony, finding herself struck by the intensity burning beneath the cover of that concealing helm. Taloned edges teased through Leonaess’s unbound curls that shimmered like rich threads of silver, but it was a singular strand of gold that remained which had caught Alassian’s attention, letting it twirl affectionately before a painful exhale as if some strong emotion overcame the male construct, drawing her head closer to rest heavy brow against her starry pale own.

“ You must prevail, rise stronger than before and continue to see the good in the world though there be darkness. Don’t be afraid to let go, dalah’surfal.”

How long she had been crying was unknown to her, but it came out a wracking sob as everything around her started to shift and that decrepit comfort of a time-lost memory of a love long dead crumbled away like wind blown ash but yet his voice remained.

“ Let go of it all, for he will need you in the end.”

The last bastion of her sanity slipped as she let her mind, this safe haven slip beneath the corrosive surface as the remaining tethers to a sordid past were cut.

-----------------------------------------

How many times had she begged to be taken deep beneath the waves and left there? But now that she found herself beneath the lapping cover of trickling despair, body in a fluid suspension of neither here nor there, she wanted nothing more than to breathe. The hand that came down to pull the pair from the abyss was unexpected, cresting the waves of amethyst subconsciousness to realize she was bound to a chair. The drugged after effected pumped sloshing and befuddling through poisoned veins, silvery blue eyes swiveling a moment in her collecting stupor - this feeling was one she had only ever experienced after a bad trip.

While it was familiar, this group surrounding them like a occultist cabal around the bonfire was not. Voice, a whisper as throat felt raw from soundless screams, “ Fools. “ The ghost of a smile at the corner of her lips, but soon she grimaced as wrists twisted and the hand which bore a nasty gash was reopened to drip once more. Slipping soundless to the right of the seated Castinus was a figure hooded and cloaked, thick heavy boots crushing the decayed earth beneath. A long bow of intricate woodwork was slung over an armored shoulder with a fully quiver in adjoining hand - in the shadows of that cowl one eye burned in a silent sneer as Zalmora Starhaven let his brother do the talking.

It was these estranged figures, with Cassimir at her side bound and helpless, that would herald her rebirth.