These are some stories of a character that I developed but never really got around to creating ingame or roleplaying. I still think it was one of my better story lines, and had a lot of potential.
I was twelve when I killed my daddy. Just a little.Twist.
I made him red. Made him hurt. I killed Mommy too. She had watched as he shattered my face and didn't even try to help. When I rammed the knife into them, my fear died.I thought I was a bad girl. Daddy was always angry with me. He always hurt me and made my pale blue skin crimson with bruises. It was worse when I bled.
I tried to hide, but he always found my secret places.
I can see Daddy's hard blue eyes as he stared through the crack in the cupboard, catching my scared face in that small stream of light. He dragged me out when I began to scream and threw me against the wall. The house shook. Mother sat on the bed, still. Her eyes were white and quivering beneath her veil of dark hair. She held a hair comb in her ebony hands. Those hands were quivering too. "Red," he sneered, and then he smashed me face with his fist. My bones cracked under the iron glove. I saw the buckles on his plated armor shine dully in the candlelight. My jaw was shattered. I tried to speak but the pain brought red to my eyes.
“You stupid baby,” he said as blood dripped from my broken nose, and I tried to wipe it away, so I could breathe as it went down my throat. He pinned my arms against the wall and nearly crushed my hands. He took some kind of pleasure in watching me struggle. “You deserve to be red. It suits you.” Only when I stopped struggling did he let me go. He threw me onto the floor, near the bed. My mother did not move. Her hands were still half-curled around the comb. Daddy walked to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine and began to drink. I stared at the sword on his belt as he leaned against the chair. I remember the details. He was a Sentry of the Dark Elven Village, and he was my terrible god.
All I could think of was that they had to be punished. Daddy had to be punished. Mommy’s stillness had to be punished.
I got to my feet and walked to the kitchen.
“Did I tell you to get up?” He said. He sneered. I saw the top of his gums and he took another long swallow from the wine bottle.
There was a knife on the counter. Mommy had used it to cut vegetables. I picked it up.
“Put it down.” Daddy tried to set the bottle down, but it fell off the table and broke. I stepped over the glass and the wine. Blood followed me, a little trail of red. Daddy raised his fist again to hit me.
I didn’t even whimper, or make a noise as I shoved the knife into his belly. His eyes were white and cracked with red veins. I saw my own twisted and shattered face in the reflection of his pupils. I twisted. He slumped over and collapsed onto the floor. I pulled the knife out of the clenched muscles.
I walked slowly to Mommy, wincing with every step. She didn’t even make a noise when Daddy had died. The trail of red followed me.
The comb dropped from her hand. I gasped a little as I walked to the bed. She looked at me. It was the only time I could remember Mommy looking at me.
“Are you going to kill me?” She asked, her voice a whisper. She laid back against the bed, continuing to stare at me. Her skin was pale and beautiful. Her hair spilled across the pillows.
“Yes, Mommy,” I said. I didn’t blink as I held the knife with both hands and rammed it into her neck, pinning her to the bed. She shuddered a bit, and then was still. Blood began to move across the sheets.
I walked outside into the dark, and it was somewhere in a pool of shadow that I collapsed, far from the village.
I used to have another name, before I was Red, but I can’t remember it. It died that night when I killed Mommy and Daddy.
I awoke in the dark forest, in pain. Crusted blood dried over my face, around the rims of my eyes and swollen bruises. The broken places hurt the worst, where bone pierced my skin.
Someone was holding me in their lap, and stroking my hair. I did not open my swollen eyes.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered. It was a man’s voice, and the voice was kind and soft and like the rustling of grass. His hands fell to touch the fabric of my white dress, splattered with blood. He said nothing for several minutes. Nothing moved but my heart as he continued to hold me.
I opened my eyes. The man was wearing a dark cloak. I could not see his face covered in shadow underneath the hood. When he saw that I was awake he gently took my hands.
“I must have you,” the man said. I tried to speak, but he held a finger to my busted lip. “Don’t speak.” He picked me up. I didn’t struggle, even though I was afraid. So very afraid as I clung to him and pressed myself against the coolness of his robes.
I must have fallen asleep against his shoulder because when I awoke we were standing in front of a manor, somewhere deep in the forest. A night bird cried out somewhere. I clung even tighter to the man in fear.
He opened the door with a key and stepped inside, closing it behind him with a foot. I could not make out much of the room, so covered in absolute darkness. The man knew exactly where to go. He took me through a hallway to a bedroom, and sat me down on the large, canopied bed in the corner of the black room.
I collapsed, exhausted, too scared to run or try to fight. Somewhere in the back of my throat, I heard a whimper.
“Such a beautiful girl,” he said. My eyes ran across the room. I saw something move, a piece of shadow, and then just as quickly it was gone. My stomach dropped in sudden fear.
He began to take off my clothes.
I tried to move away, but his touch was almost paralyzing. He unbuttoned my bloodied dress and let it fall to the ground. He called out to the hallway something in a harsh tongue I didn’t even understand, that hurt my ears just to hear it. He picked me up and took me into another room.
A warm bath was waiting. He lowered me gently into the water. I saw something in the shadows move again, but it was gone quickly. I became rigid with fear. He did not say anything as I sat in the warm water. He bathed me and washed my hair. When he took me out of the bath the water was pink with my blood.
He took me back into the bedroom, and dressed me in a thick white gown. He combed my wet hair out as he sat beside me on the bed.
“My name is Dareith,” he said. He let the hood fall from his face as he leaned me back against the bed, and pulled the sheets over me. He was a dark elf. I mostly remember his eyes. They were blue, and warm.
“Sleep,” he said. “Sleep, my beautiful girl. I await the day when I can know your name.” I became painfully aware of my crushed jaw.
I slept, and dreamed of shadowy things coming to my bed through the night. They were silhouettes without form that plunged their shadows into my face, resetting the bones beneath my skin as I struggled not to scream. They held me down on the bed as they worked.
When I awoke from the nightmares, I found that my face had been bandaged and patched up. The broken skin was stitched tightly together. I was still in incredible pain.
I tried to move my hands, but they would not. Somewhere far away, echoing off my ears I heard a rattling sound. I looked down and saw my wrists had been chained together, making a cross against my body. The links were connected to the bedposts.
I began to panic.
Dareith heard my screams and walked into the room. I swore that I saw a shade move behind him as he entered. His black cloaked flowed behind him. He sat down on the bed beside me, and stroked my hair.
“Calm down,” he whispered.
“Are you going to kill me?” I tried to ask. I tried to ask so many things that my pounding heart demanded that I ask, but my mouth would not work in my broken face. All my words came out muffled and edged with pain. He said nothing as I stared up at him through my bandaged face.
“You are mine now, beautiful child,” he said. “I’m going to teach you. I’ll take care of you.” His voice was soft and calm. His cool blue eyes stared into mine. I felt a cold, invisible thing enter my head and I fell fast asleep.
When I awoke, he was there. He fed me broth with a small spoon and I clenched it down, wincing with every swallow. Later, he bathed me again, and dressed me.
I lost all sense of time; Dareith’s manor had no windows and no light shone through the cracks in the walls. Whenever I went to sleep, the silhouettes and the shadows came back in my nightmares. They held me down as I struggled, chains clinking against each other, the bed moving. They tried to fix the broken parts of me, their shadow going through my skin.
I don’t know how long it was – months probably, but it could have been years – before Dareith came into the room with a hand mirror and set it into my chained hands. Then he carefully peeled away the bandages on my face.
“Look how beautiful you are,” he said. He smiled.
I looked into the mirror.
My face was badly disfigured on the left side where Daddy had smashed it with his glove. It looked warped, almost burned, because the skin was a deep flushed color in several places. My smashed nose had been set after it broke, but it looked crooked. My left eye seemed almost to sink into my face. Only the far right of my face was smooth and unscarred.
“Now I want my reward,” He said. “Tell me your name.”
I set the mirror down on my lap, trying to edge away from him. I was so scared. I had the idea that he could see my pumping heart becoming faster and faster.
I faltered for a minute, trying to remember that old name. But it wouldn’t come to me. I remembered what Daddy had called me as he broke my face. I remembered what came as my retribution when I punished him.
“Red.” I didn’t recognize my own voice, but I could speak. I could speak in this broken face. It calmed me.
Dareith smiled without teeth, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “What a beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” he took my chained hand, kissed it.
“How strange, that you do not seem afraid.” He let my hand fall back against my lap.
I said nothing.
“Do you know why you are here?”
I said nothing.
“I knew I had to have you, when I found you in the dark forest. You deserve to live without fear.”
I said nothing.
“Tell me how you got out there. Tell me what happened to your face.”
I began to speak, slowly at first, then more rapidly. I told him about Daddy, a sentry of the Dark Elven Village, and how he had abused me for as long as I could remember. I told him of Mommy, who was more like a ghost than a living thing, who had never tried to help me as Daddy beat me.
I told him how I killed them both.
He was silent for several moments after I finished speaking. I looked into his cool blue eyes, waiting for him to speak. I expected him to hit me, to scream at me, to call in the guards or kill me.
He did none of those things.
“Do you want to live without fear? Do you want to live so that no one can ever touch you like that again?” He took my small hands in his own, and stared deep into me.
I opened my mouth to speak. Gently, he took a finger and closed them. “Listen to me first. Once you tell me your answer, you can’t go back. If you say no, I will release you into the forest. I will never allow you back into my Manor again. I will pretend like I have never known you. I will not lay a hand on you.
“But if you say yes, then you cannot leave until I have deemed you ready. You will have to serve me as a slave, do you understand? It will be painful and you will wish that you had said no. But no one will ever be able to hurt you after I have taught you. You will live without fear, for the rest of your life. There will be no place that is forbidden to you.”
I closed my eyes. Beneath my eyelids I saw the red. I saw every night where I had tried to hide, and Daddy had found me. I saw every night where I lived in fear.
For the next seven years, I wore the collar of Dareith Dul’vac. He broke all my barriers of fear, and regret.
Dareith lived alone, as far as I could tell – the Dul’vac mansion was more like a labyrinth. Secret passageways, hidden chambers, and rooms of mysterious purpose were built throughout the house. There were no candles or windows in any of the rooms. The only light was the oil lamp that Dareith lit sometimes as we ate. And sometimes, when he wanted to see the expression on my face.
I had my first “lesson,” shortly after my recovery. After I had taken a bath, he set out a dress for me on a stand near the door. I slipped it over my head, and as soon as I stepped through the arch of the door he took me gently by the hand. The action was so quick and unexpected I jumped.
“Are you ready, my beautiful one?” He asked. I did not respond, but let him lead me through the dark corridors, past the flickering shadows that rattled and slid through the shadows, into a small room.
My eyes had since adjusted to the darkness. I saw a table full of instruments of torture – knives and needles that glistened in the silvery shadow. I tensed. He led me, gently but firm, to the middle of the room. I did not see the chains he put on my wrists before they clamped tight. I closed my eyes and let out a shuddering breath. He bent down and quickly chained my feet.
Then he turned to the wall, and a catch lifted. The chains, connected to links in the wall, began to pull my arms upward. I began to struggle. Soon my body was stretched so that I could barely move.
Dareith stopped the catch, and asked me one thing before gliding over to the table with knives. “Are you afraid?”
Tied like that, with my lungs stretched and sweat glistening on my face, claustrophobia began to set in. I panicked. I began to twist and buck, straining against the chains. I saw the plumes of my long, white dress swirl around my bare ankles. I struggled until my vision narrowed and I nearly blacked out. I sank, exhausted, against the chains.
The table and Dareith were behind me where I was tied. I could not see him, or what was happening. I heard metal scrape against the wood of the table. I tensed.
He reached up behind my ears and tied a black cloth over my eyes so that I was blinded. Then he asked the question again as he went around to the front of me. I felt a cold blade trace down the bulging veins in my neck.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes,” I whispered. Then he grabbed the collar of my dress and ripped it in one fast, hard motion. It fell torn to the floor.
“I am going to teach you about pain, Red.” He was behind me again. I could feel his breath against the nape of my neck. “It is inevitable.”
The first ***** of pain was from a sharp needle. It shot up on the back of my neck. I instantly tried to squirm away from that pain.
“Be still,” he whispered soothingly. “Be still, Red. If you are not the needle may break inside you.” With that word, there was another jab. And another. Quick, rapid pain that brought tears to my eyes. I screamed.
“Pain is a sensation – like the cold, or the heat, or the texture of skin. It is not a negative experience. On the contrary, pain tells us that we are still alive.”
He continued to jab the needle against my skin, in rapid succession. I did not know when the pain would end. I had nothing to bite down on except my tongue,nothing to make it stop. I began to plead with him, but he did not relent.
“Pain cannot be avoided, Red. It is best not to worry or squirm. Nothing you will do or say can make me stop. You have to accept this. If you are hurt enough, your body will no longer fear it.”
It must have been hours before he stopped. I could not see, I could not think past the needle that was being tapped into my skin. The needle drove a path through my back – first at my neck, then slowly in a spiraling pattern down my spine. My body was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. I had to consciously stop myself from moving, from squirming away. I was rigid. Sometimes he would stop, and I would think it was over, only for him to start up again.
In a way, it was worst than what Daddy had put me through. At least that had been quick. This was slow, painful torture.
Finally, he stopped. I sagged against the chains and began to sob. He undid the chains and I collapsed. He caught my in his arms. My arms hurt too badly from tensing up that I couldn’t even find the strength to undo my blind.
“There, there,” he whispered. “It is over for now. And you will learn that pain can be beautiful.” He half dragged me across the room. I heard heavy fabric being pulled and dropped to the ground. Dareith undid my blind.
I was standing between two mirrors. If I moved at the right angle I could see my back, and I saw what Dareith had done in the places where the needle pierced my skin.
Reaching from the nape of my neck to the small of my back was a dark crimson rose inked into my skin. At the bottom, near the end of the stem, there were black words engraved in a language that I could not understand.
I began to cry. He hugged me as I sobbed, his fingers lightly touching the crimson petals.
mmmhm.. i was also kinda wondering why phantom summoner, but it was really nicely put into story. and yeah.. blue eyes ;) warm brown just doesnt fit :p
Nabi when the hell are you going to finish your story >.>
lol as soon as i can...i got a new job and it's killing me (and my writing/playing time :eek:) i haven't forgotten it and i promise it will be finished :cool: i'll have this weekend off, so once i'm done with my thanksgiving festivities i will do nothing but write my story :)
Daiya - had to think back to that one. She was an oracle character I had one summer, but I later rerolled. Her brother, Dareith (also known as my brother in real life) became a phantom summoner. Both characters however, are no longer played.
Yes, I have severe reroll syndrome and too many characters to count. :D