What We Give

The scents of smoke and charred flesh carry on the wind from where the Plains of Aslinea still burn. If I listen closely, strain to hear, I might make out the sounds of the last remaining skirmishes. Those fought by the few among our soldiers who have not yet realised that our leader has fallen. Or those who are lost in the ecstasy of this realm. Or who the humans are not allowing escape.
The battlefield is far away, though, and straining for such trivialities would be a wasted effort. I don’t have the strength to spare anymore, not after my recent bought of insanity.

That’s all I can think of to call it. Well, no, that’s a lie and we can’t have that. Whatever the humans may believe of our kind, it’s the truth we relish. Twisted, distorted, even corrupted or perverted, but truth never-the-less. It’s the truth they fear, the truth that hurts, and it’s therefore uniquely suited to our needs. Of course, it’s not nearly so satisfying, and not even remotely as fun, when that blade turns inwards.

I shiver, feeling the stones beneath my knees, and watch the tattered remains of my once bright, many-coloured cloak shift in the breeze. It’s eerily silent here. The bells on my wrists and ankles have melted together and I am disoriented without their chimes. I haven’t heard a single sound since we arrived in the clearing, since he pulled himself away from me and backed into the trees.

This is all his fault. If he hadn’t followed me, our sentries never would have caught him. If he hadn’t been caught, he never would have been brought before our master. If he hadn’t been brought, I never would have been ordered to—

A rending slash of pain moves through my body, starting from the wound in my chest, and cuts my thoughts off. I hear a strangled wail, know it’s mine, but can’t seem to stop it. It is a thin and reedy sounding cry, and I can’t force my features into the deriding sneer it deserves in response.

As quick as it started, the pain subsides, at least for the moment. My thoughts skip a beat, one best left unthought-of, and then continue. If I hadn’t been so ordered, I never would have attacked my master. If I hadn’t attacked, there never would have been a need for the fight. If there had never been a fight, I wouldn’t be injured now.

I think I might actually be dying. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but I wanted to save him, and so it did. I thought only humans were this foolish. Perhaps their idiocy is contagious.

“Tishaani?” His voice is unusually soft as he says my name, causes me to look up. Even in the low light, I can see the slight frown, see his white teeth worry his lower lip, see something that might be concern in his eyes. His too-interesting eyes, dark blue like the sky right before night truly falls.

Gods, I’m pathetic. Maybe it’s best if I do die. “May I help you, Sire?”

He rolls those fascinating eyes at the use of the honorific, but then the concern is back as he looks me over. “How can I help you? What would work?” His hand moves to the medallion on his belt pouch. A sensible thought, if I were human and a healer’s magic could save me.

I consider his question and start to giggle. There’s a slightly insane edge to the sound, and it shoots unpleasant shards through my twitching limbs. “Suffering and pain,” I finally manage to answer.

“You aren’t in enough of that already?” he snaps, and this tone is so much more familiar than the concerned one.

“More than, thank you.” I can’t stop the giggles, even though he doesn’t seem to be finding this as funny as I apparently am.

“You never make any sense.” He crouches down beside me, pushes his hood back from his face and leans forward to try and get a better look at the scar on my chest. The wound is a dark, angry red, pulsing with energy I’m not certain he can see. It is more than physical, hurts terribly, but I still reach out to finally see if his hair is as coarse as the straw it resembles.

It’s not. It’s as soft as the down on the ducks in the moat, and it smells of the spicy herbs he uses to wash it.

He sits back at my touch, watches me. “Just for once, give me a straight answer.”

I wonder what he sees when he looks at me now. I guess it doesn’t really matter. “It’s what we’re here for, why we came. Our strength, well-being, we draw it from you.” I struggle with the words, trying not to mask them.

“I don’t understand,” he says the words like they’re a swear, the same way he always does when presented with something he doesn’t know and can’t immediately grasp. A scholar’s curse, I suppose, that resentment when their vast knowledge is lacking, coupled with the irresistible desire to learn.

That need is probably the only thing that’s kept him from turning me away entirely these past few months. The need to uncover my secrets overcame his distaste for my company. As for me, I was seduced with snide comments and scathing remarks, drawn from my duty of distracting the human king, towards the absolute joy of teasing his prickly advisor.

Who is starting to glare at me. Apparently, even impending death isn’t reason enough to withhold an answer.

“We don’t eat, Desian.” I’m using a tone more suited to an idiot child, which isn’t likely to earn me any favours, but brings a nice flush of annoyance to light cheeks. “The Dreamscape has nothing physical to feed on. Our strength, our sustenance, we draw it from others. Some from their fear, but mostly from their suffering, their pain.” I rock back a little and sigh. “We don’t always torment you because we enjoy it. Most of the time it’s just so we can survive.”

Pain is such a light delicacy in the Dreamscape. Suffering is easy, but true emotional pain is harder to procure, and is never really strong when finally earned. Not like physical pain, which overwhelms everything else and coats you in sharp, sticky sweetness. It’s so easy, so readily available in this realm, so fulfilling. Oh how I gorged on my first night here.

Which is something I won’t be telling him, ever. He’s looking away already, towards the side of the clearing. I don’t really want to see his reaction to the information, so I look down at my hands.

It’s hard to tell in the low light, with the dark clouds hiding the first strains of dawn, but I think my skin is fading. I’m almost positive I can see through myself, as though only a tanned veil covers the shape I chose. I reach up to my head, run my hands over my own hair, now. This is my pride, these myriad of tiny braids bound with beads, bones, or gemstones. So much of my concentration went into making certain the black strands were bound just right, that I never noticed what an unnaturally bright colour of green I made my eyes.

The braids are still in place, though frayed, but their decorations are losing definition, softening. I may very well lose my hard-earned grasp on the physical realm before I die. I whimper, a little, at the thought that I will fade back into the Dreamscape alone, rather than dying here with him.

The sound seems to draw his attention back to me. I glance up again in time to catch his appraising look. “I see.” His voice is softer than I have ever heard it. My entire being tingles in fresh awareness as the air shimmers with the gentle touch of fear. His fear.

In an instant, dying with him here is no longer an option. “Now that you do, I really would appreciate it if you left.” There is no one else around us and even this small taste is a great temptation. I don’t know how I will react in my final moments of desperation. If he stays here, I might carry out my orders after all.

He’s spent months telling me to go away, and now that the tables are turned he’s listening about as well as I did. His fear is humming between us, growing brighter. He must realise the danger he’s in. Why hasn’t he left yet?

He shifts, moving closer instead of away. I hear the whisper of metal against leather as he pulls a sharp dirk from the hidden sheath in his boot.

“Desian? What?” Not that it matters. I’m weak enough that he can take revenge for his entire kingdom in one strike, if that’s his aim.

It is a single strike he makes, before I can speak another word. He drives the blade into his palm, and pain fills the area around us, hitting my skin like rain, coating it. I can’t help the small moan of appreciation that escapes without permission, but I try to take it back.

“Don’t.” It’s a weak protest, oddly pitched and full of need. It’s hardly surprising that he ignores me. He’s hunched over, trembling, pressing the blade deeper. I reach out, find him and hold him as well as I can. “Stop.” I try to grasp his shaking hands, pull them away. He won’t be able to continue, not when the blade is scraping bone and he doesn’t have the training to resist torture.

He’s anticipated the action, one step ahead of me for a change. Instead of allowing my hand to settle on his wrist, he wraps it around the dirk’s handle.

“Shut up.” Short words, delivered in a voice already wet with pain. I can’t stop. I don’t have it in me to refuse.

He chokes on a scream as I drive the blade completely through his hand, and then twist. The shaking moves up his arms and throughout his entire body as I reverse the turn, slower, drawing it out. His pain is a storm now, flowing over me, cloying, the taste melting and sweet. He is still silent, and I am oddly proud of him.

I didn’t want him hurt, I tried to save him, and now I am torturing him. His agony is glorious. I cannot stop, not even when the air fills with the metallic-tasting scent of his blood. There is a pool of red growing over the grass around us, expanding by increments, sticky as his pain. The stain is far too large by the time I have the will-power needed to force my hand from its white-knuckle grip on the handle of the blade.

He is still shuddering, almost limp in my arms, still silent, his breath whispering, uneven gasps. I don’t know what to say to him, and settle for words that are pale, extremely insufficient. “Thank you.”

“Was that enough?” His voice is raspy, hoarse from restrained cries. I wish I had a canteen to give him. I wish he’d never drawn the blade in the first place.

“Quite.”

He nods, slumps farther for a moment, and then pulls the dirk from his brutalised palm. One last sharp morsel caresses me, and then he drops the blade to the ground before holding his injured hand tight in the other, pressing the two against his medallion and casting a simple healing spell.

I expect him to pull back when he’s finished, but he doesn’t. We lean against each other, trying to stave off exhaustion. We can’t stay here very long, not with his blood and pain blanketing the area, but we can wait for a moment, try to recover.

The sun has cleared the horizon, finally breaking free from the clouds, when he stands and moves away. He flexes his hand, testing it. It moves, but even I know that it will never again be as strong as it was.

This is my fault, all of it. I rise without realising it, walking over to take his hand, brushing my fingers over the angry scar in his palm. He allows the touch for a moment, returns it, pressing his other hand against the now unmarked skin of my chest, and then he pulls away to retrieve the dirk. He wipes it clean on one of the small patches of grass before hiding it away again.

I watch, motionless, as he walks to the edge of the clearing. As he reaches it, he stops, looking back with a frown to where I am still standing in the circle of his blood. His eyes narrow in annoyance, and the familiar look is almost enough to make me smile through the knowledge that he is leaving.

“I didn’t tell them,” he says after a moment, his voice still sore, but better. A bonus from the spell, I imagine. He looks down at his palm, flexing it again. “What you are. I didn’t get a chance before,” he waves his hand in the direction of the Plains, which no longer seem to be burning, “everything.” When he looks back at me the annoyance is gone, but his eyes are shuttered, preventing even my interpretation. “You could come back. Try it again, without the sabotage and betrayal this time.”

“ It would be an interesting change,” I respond, pretending my answer is in doubt. I have as little choice in this as I did in saving him. This time, when he walks away, I follow.