Family reunion

Enn

The tourney was empty. Where there had been more people than he could count milling everywhere before, now he saw no one. And he didn't hear anyone either.

Silence. Enn noted just how silent, unused to not hearing anything at all. There were always people around him, or at least the rustle of the wind, or his cane hitting the ground.
None of that still applied.
He remembered.. He'd been here with Destry, no? Watching the knight compete in a jousting tournament? But all that was left of the tourney was a thick fog that hung low on the ground, empty tents, and Enn felt himself oddly lacking for memories of how he got here.

Should he call out? Would anyone even hear his voice? And then there were people he'd be happy not to find him.
A predicament, maybe.

His head snapped at someone moving in the corner of his eyes, defensive snarl on his face and a tight grip on his cane.
It'd been ten years, but the war was always on his heels. Always alert, always aggressive before asking questions.

"Who's there?" Enn called out to the figure in the fog, before his eyes dropped down to the ground in-between them.
There was a red cord of sort, tied to his wrist, leading all the way to the figure in the distance.

That hadn't been there a minute ago.

And it filled him with dread.

Keita

The mist hung thick and filled Keita’s lungs. Silence.

Something was watching.

Keita seemed to snap in and out of memories, scenes, moments of being and thinking, it was if they were a blink. The last memory they had was of another, one with brught blank eyes and a purple hue, they remembered being bound in red string, connected together. And then, Keita was gone again. It was as if someone kept shuffling a deck of cards, each linked to a memory. It made no sense.

Keita clutched their chest a moment, a strange giddy feeling overcame them as if gravity kept intensifying and vanishing, a hot stellar burn searing just under their skin yet no charred flesh or mark. Strange. How did they even get here? The grounds of Namrast seemed to be filled with faire-like decoration; yet not a single person in sight. The sky above twinkled and glittered with an ever moving mist and a blanket of stars. All Keita seemed to remember was that she was a student of the order, she was nothing special, just another number passing through the order. There were so many brilliant minds within the orders walls, she just blended in.

Another blink and flash and Keita noted a bind of red string around her wrist, snaking into the distant mist. Suddenly a figure emerged at the other end of the string. Keita walked towards it ”Who’s there” it called out, a regal sounding voice. Keita stepped forward and slowly the other came into view. He had intense and strong eyes that felt strangely familiar, his hair a mix of platinum and cream. He was rather well dressed in crimson shades and one piercing, strange blood eye stared directly at her.

"I’m here? Why are you tied in thread…” as she looked down to her wrist, the cord vanished in and out for a moment. Strange. Blinking a moment, the red cord shifted between the figure before her and the hulking giant on the horizon.
“I don’t understand…” Keita spoke, pained and confused. A moment of composure. “This place is strange, it is not how I remember it at all….I was somewhere else a moment ago….” She directed at the other, now walking closer to the gilded and red one, “We were connected a moment ago….”

Keita paused a moment “I am Keita…something is wrong here….”

Enn

His gaze was unmoving as it landed on the woman, something steely in his eyes. Something about her was familair, while at the same time,
nothing was.

Not her face, not the way she wore her hair, or the stars moving across her neck. He briefly thought of Ioeth at seeing her dark hands shimmer with pinpricks of light, but the thought was instantly dismissed when she spoke.

Keita. He felt like the name should be familiar, but..
"You think that name gives me any sort of pause?" His grip tightened on his cane as he sauntered over to her, the only other person in the near vicinity.
Something had to be going on, surely, and he was being hostile for no good reason. He often found himself hostile.
When Keita's eyes glanced upwards and elsewhere, he followed her direction, confronted by a monstrosity in the distance.

What on EARTH was THAT.

Briefly, wordlessly Enn focused on the monster in the distance, a moment of fear reflected in his eyes. How come he hadn't caught on yet? There was a monster on the Tourney grounds. It was too far away for his magic to reach it, though even if he tried, he figured there would be a block.
So far, there was one for Keita.

His magic rarely let him down like this. But it could mean all sorts of things.
⁽ˡᶦᵏᵉ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵇᵉᶦⁿᵍ ᶜˡᵒˢᵉ ᵃᵗ ᵃˡˡ, ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᵇᵉᶦⁿᵍ ˢᵗᵘᶜᵏ ᶦⁿ ᵃ ᵈʳᵉᵃᵐ⁾

"Who are you beyond your name."

Keita

"You think that name gives me any sort of pause?"
Keita was taken aback a moment at the mans response – his voice boomed with domination expectation, of that she was not used to.

A brontidal groan emitted from the mists above that seemed to bellow through the mists above, offering a quick glimpse of the skeleton towering above them both. After a few moments, the mists shook and covered up the view once more. Keita looked down at her hands and her view seemed to constantly flux and shift – her space touched hands shifted into a more natural hue and for a moment. For a moment, the burning in her chest and behind her eyes ceased, as if it was a time before. Keita was stuck in a loop of reality. Again, the crimson one spoke toward

“Who are you beyond your name”
As Keita went to speak, two realities seemed to project, two voices from different times came out:

"I̷̙̓ ̶̛̖ă̸̪m̸̰̊ ̶͇̿K̵̺̍e̴͈͋i̶̥̇t̷̺͋a̷̛, corruption kissed̵̖̍,̷͒ banished fr̹͝o̵͖͗m̶̀ the̴ order̴͑ for ̴͚̋t̸͘he knǫw̸͈͋l̷̝̆e̵͖̍d̸̛ge I hold ͙̎i̵̹͐ŝ̶͓ feared."
”I guess not, I study here, in the order. Space magic, the stars. Under Hagia…”

Again the scene ripped and churned a moment as scenes of a giant lumbering worm attacking the city came in and out of view. As it went to strike them both with its infinite rows of teeth, the pair were transported once more, the tourney grounds no longer familiar. They were on the shores of Nymene.

Keita and the stranger stood as various scenes seemed to meld into another. Keita spotted a small woman, she was bald and held little stature. She had held the hand of another man, tall, horned, strange white markings and a sinister grin. She led him into a tent…Keita’s heart sunk when she realised it was her mother. Before she could speak, the vision warped and suddenly she saw her mother standing on the shore, sobbing and waving to a boat in the distance….with a horrified look on her face she looked to the other

“Did you see that man…?” Keita was puzzled, and her face wrought with confusion “That woman was my mother…..why am I seeing this, why are you seeing this with me…?!” Keita took a moment and spoke to the stranger “Who are you, I do not understand…"

Enn

Under Hagia?

When the worm appeared Enn repressed the urge to grab the stranger, something unfamiliar in his bones calling forward an urge to protect her.

But as the worm came crashing down and he couldn't feel Hagia's magic, he knew this wasn't real.
This was a dream. Helvete, it'd all been a dream. A magic had washed over the tourney grounds, and perhaps the lumbering skeleton was the least unrealistic part of the visions.

Enn already had his hand around Keita's lower arm, apparently not able to repress the urge after all. She was easily half a head taller than him, but that didn't seem to matter. It was in her way of speaking, of how she held herself. It spoke to something at his core that always dove forward to get in-between danger and those he was protecting.

He figured this was her dream. Whatever scene she saw was unfamiliar to him, though he recognized the tall, horned figure easily for the blue silver mask he wore.

Enn had met him once. It'd been a tough thing to organize, Azcasu unhelpful as ever. But Ioeth had a connection to him, the oddly jovial mask maker with the illusion magic.
That made sense, somehow. Was it not her dream either?
Was it Aleister's?
"I don't think it's supposed to make sense." Reassurance, perhaps untimely.

Enn's eyes turned back to Keita at her final question, the one he could answer. "I'm Enn Marren'vik."

Breathing his own name shifted the scene. The sand under their feet warping to hard flooring, the sky blackened out by an overhead roof, lights of all colors hanging from the wooden support beams high in the ceiling. His vision had become fuzzy at the edges, a white mask with large, golden teeth covering his face as he realized Keita now wore a mask as well.

A dance. The Harvest Masquerade in Ivras, and now his thoughts were drowned by unfamiliar music.
He had grabbed her other hand, even if he'd been unaware of doing so. They were surrounded by dancers in a similar pose.

This scene wasn't familiar to him either, but the dread it summoned to him was as real as could be. His gaze wandered from Keita's mask to the odd, faceless group of people around them. And again, there was one familiar mask.

It struck Enn as odd that he could recognize Aleister only with a mask. Would the man take it off, Enn would have no idea who he was.
When the giant focused on him, or seemed to, he realized who his dance partner was.
Should've recognized that blue dress earlier.

It wasn't real.

The knife that he held wasn't real, nor had he really stepped away from Keita to approach the pair clearly ignoring him, his teeth in a venomous snarl and his clothes a deep, deep red.
The scene disappeared before he could do anything, a red cord almost strangling him. He had to turn to create some slack in it, realizing it once more connected to Keita.

Bright, wide eyes stared directly at her.

"Who's your father?"

Keita

“I'm  Enn Marren’vik”

A name that was familiar to her – faint at first, but a history before her hung overhead.
Depending on which side of history you sat, the name would incite some reaction. For Keita, her life was largely unaffected by the historic events associated with that name. Kings slain and royal anarchy meant very little to one who peered into the echoes of great beasts past and yet, the name filled her with a familiarity…strange. His touch was comforting and ballast in the tempest they found themselves in; soon she realised these apparitions were dreams too.

Before too long the scene of the tents and the dim shores of Nymene faded from view and swirled into a hall filled with glittering masks, regalia and merriment. The two held eachother in a dancers pose for a moment, Keita’s mask a strange mix of dark glittering space and stars, and Enn’s, a golden maw and crimson curled horns. As the pair stepped in half time, the faceless ones around them moved in double time before easing again, ebb and flow, the dance went on. Keita had never been to events such as this, held themselves in isolation the deeper they went to a breakthrough. She wondered if this was Enn’s memory, but his eyes were faintly visible through the mask, and she could see the piercing blue confusion in the other eye. Sure enough, a prickle ran up her spine,

There in the distance, a tall man with a silvery blue mask and strange white markings held the arm of another in a royal blue dress…everyone locked eyes and the vision rushed from view as if caught red handed;

The pair pulled closer and closer by the unbreakable red thread, it had wrapped around Keita’s wrist and fingers so tight now it could have almost severed them, all the while Enn was almost breathless. The two were bound in a way neither had come to realise;

”Who’s your father?”
The air left the room, the sound warping and muffled for a moment as reality after reality came crashing upon another. Memories that neither were in but inextricably linked to were presented to them. Origins, beginnings of the thread that bound them – the one with the silver devilish smile, perhaps more ever present than they realised…. Keita responded, breathless, guilty for something she had no control over

“I never met him. My mother spoke of him once, honey spilled from his lips as she was wrapped in a world of…false magic. Mighty magic. She thought that if they bed, she could free Nymene as magic touched herself, instead….I….she said he had a piercing smile and he could touch the sky should he wish…..he was so tall, she had told me”

Her mouth went dry and her gilded eyes burned with fear and confirmation back at Enn. The room was dark in the moment, faint clusters of stars began to flicker into view; hues of purple, silver, red, blue and gold galaxies began to swirl around each other like veins, blood and sinew. Connectedness.

Her voice touched with fear and angst,

“The hall with masks. The blue dress….Who is your father Enn?”

Enn

The flashes of other times gave him a headache. Things were spilling into one another, and his red eye felt like it was throbbing out of his skull. At some point, the scar had seemingly bled. At another, it burned like the gold was freshly being applied. He had waged war with Keita's angry Order professors in one instance, and helped her ascent the Siregal throne in another.

It didn't make sense. None of it did.

Enn focused on her words, laid the obvious link she had made as well. He had to feel sorry for her mother, whatever image the illusionist had laid out would've been false. Or maybe he was making assumptions.

He seemed briefly distracted by the galaxies surrounding them, and Enn let go of her hands as she asked her question. A blazing red eye, and one blue, focused on the woman.

"I don't know."

It was easy to come to the conclusion she was steering him to. He knew, from the accounting books they'd stolen in Siregal, in what years his parents had travelled to Ivras to join their festivities, and which matched with his birth. He could make an estimate, counting back from what month he was born, and come to that same ending.

But there was no way. And by the turmoil on his face, this was a conclusion he wasn't ready to make.
And.. Did it matter??
He'd long thrown out the bindings of blood, had made his own family instead. What interest did he have in the half that wasn't from his mother?
Why wouldn't they leave him too?

"I don't care" He snarled, needing someone to direct his flare of anger to. "This isn't real, this didn't happen. All we are seeing is illusions."
Enn felt out of breath. He hadn't been moving at all.

All they had to do, was wake up.

Keita

A sneer cut through the panic that was rising in Keita’s chest. Visions of royalty, ships plunging across the sea, a misled mother, a curled smile….surely it meant something. It felt familiar enough….maybe Enn was right and all they were seeing was an illusion. Keita always thought the mark of a good illusion was two parts wonder and one part reality – there was a thread amongst it that bound them surely.

Ringing began to waver in her ears and the visions of stars and swirlings of colours began to fall, as each slither of cosmos sunk back into the earth, once again, the pair were in the grounds of Namrast. Except for the occasional wobble of a tent, or a blip of time that seemed to be completely localised to around them – things were normal enough. Keita took a deep breath a moment. Despite the whirlwinds of memory and images, the pair were still bound by a thread. As Keita looked at her hands, she noticed that the familiar inly dark and small flecks of light returned to her skin, as she pulled a hand up to her chest, she could feel the deep thrum and stellar warmth beneath her skin that she was afflicted with currently. She took a moment before looking to Enn,

“I think…..I think its stopped?” Her voice of thundering echoes seemed to ease and the two dual voices merged into one regular tone. “I…I am not sure what….” Keita’s words trailed off a moment and looked wearily with worry to Enn “the thread, it’s still tied….” Any attempts to pull it or bite it off were fraught. “I think we are stable…”

A guttural groan and creaking of bones thundered in the clouds above the seemingly unaffected city. Keita looked up to where their string led, to the giant beast above. Perhaps there was something left unsaid before they were taken from this plane.

Above them, a giant head began to lower from the heavens and arch down into view – an unblinking orb of intense purples and blues staring at them. Keita stood perfectly still, both in awe at the magnitude of raw magic that caused this, but also fear. What was it doing?

“Who was this…?” they spoke out silently at the creature looming above.

Enn / Aleister

"Stable?" Enn's snarl hadn't faded, instead grabbing onto the thread and trying to break it as if it was real.
It didn't yield. It didn't even stretch, nor did it pull taut in any way that indicated it'd ever be close to breaking.
His knee didn't hurt, and he couldn't feel the magic of an obvious mage.

"This isn't stable." Sure, okay, they weren't flashing through time and false realities, but this almost felt worse to the kingslayer. He had no control over the situation, and he needed it desperately.

Enn barely heard the beast approach, Keita's attention long on the looming monster instead of the short, feral man trying to pull a fake string apart.
Only when the giant, purple eye turned towards Enn did he let go with a scream.

"Is," the eye spoke, no mouth, and yet faintly bemused sounding. "Was, will be, has been.  You know me well, I am half of you, and you not a millimeter of me. But I'd recognize my blood when I see it, come on." The giant eye rolled, the jaws that held it unmoving.

Enn realized he was having a panic attack, his heart beating as if he was running a marathon instead of somewhere asleep in the dirt.
And even though Enn was sure he didn't blink nor avert his eyes, the giant eyeball disappeared without a sound. In the far distance there was a monster, surrounded by fog, holding the giant eyeball as if it'd never moved.

A man grabbed Keita by the shoulder, spinning her around.

"Are you looking for me, doll?" He laughed, black sclera and pink eyes and a voice that didn't seem to come from his throat. Enn stirred at that, a knife pulled from his sleeve as he pushed himself in-between the pair.
"Don't touch her."

Keita

The beast spoke as its eye rolled, Keita stood in fear and epiphany. Surely the beast was not inferring, and yet, the answer seemed to be in front of them the whole time, bound in blood red thread.

”Was, will be, has been.  You know me well, I am half of you, and you not a millimeter of me. But I'd recognize my blood when I see it, come on.”

She watched as Enn began to fray at the edges and Keita just stood still, enthralled by the beast before them. In the same breath, she could feel a voice creep up her spine and dig its teeth deep in her mind - ”are you looking for me, doll”. Before Keita had a chance to react, Enn had pushed the tall man aside and drew a knife. Stunned a moment, Keita noticed the similarity in the eyes, the ones that haunted this place looked just like his. She spoke, in shock, silent at first whilst Enn held her. A vision flooded her mind, she stood in Sterre’s body a moment, a tall man and a dark taloned hand curled around her arm….

”I was looking….for you….you pull these strings, don’t you?” Keita’s voice quivered part fear. She looked to Enn, horrified, staring into the truth he was trying to bury deeper.

”Enn…” part fear of saying the truth further, somehow making it real, part yearning for a connection from her lonely existence. She turned to fully face the visioned man, staring deep into his chaos ridden eyes, sensing the corruption seeded deep in his heart ”Enn, he cannot hurt us, not here…he plays in a world amongst the living, he stands here in desperation scrambling onto a raft but he’s drowning, drowning us into the mists….”

For a moment, a wave of inspiration washed over Keita, realising these were the last shreds of his mind playing havoc before the magic overcame him. Keita’s heartbeat seemed to calm briefly in that moment and spoke calmly, ”We do have to wake up, we just have to realise that there’s two parts truth and one part lie to this place…”

Looking to the skulls eye, Keita stared deeply and spoke intently, perhaps this was the way out, through. The implications of being bound in blood to this once-man bared on her, but it was just another stone on the pile.

”I do see you, I know you, but you do NOT know me”

Enn / Aleister

The tall man and Enn turned to look at Keita with the same exact expression on their faces as she revealed she had been looking for Aleister. But one face melted into amusement, and the other confusion.
Enn had been falling apart for a while now. But Aleister didn't remember what it was like to be in one piece. "Are you daft?" They both asked in very different tones, Enn holding onto her gaze as Aleister laughed.
"Truly," Al spoke up, tilting his head downward to the woman as Enn stepped aside, "pull the strings? People pull their own strings. I am a foundation you walk upon. We just happen to be connected."

Yet, she was right.
He was an echo of an existance right before he'd passed.

When she ignored him and talked over him to Enn, Aleister's face contorted. It washed away before he could say anything else.
"You obviously know more about this than I would." Enn answered her statement, bright eyes on the stranger. This wasn't his ballgame, even if there was something mocking about his tone. A tension he didn't seem to be able to get rid of.
For Enn, this was a lot.

A lot and too much.

"Tell me then," the distorted voice spoke up, "did your mother assign your angry outbursts to herself? Did she gaze on the features of your face, and recognize hers? Did she also have more enemies than friends, given her occupation and goals? Don't be stupid." the words a laugh. "I know you, Keita. Always looking for approval and finding none. You two are so similar" Al hissed, and Enn sheeted his knife.
"You're dead. It doesn't matter."

Keita

In all the years Keita had researched corruption – never had there been a connection to one, nor had she ever spoken to one. It took her a moment to be pulled back from her analytical mind and back to the mention of a mother. Was it Enn’s mother he spoke of, was it her own. Blood curling in her own heart at the sheer situation – he taking advantage of Sterre and in turn, Sterre allowing it all the same – Agency was so freely given away, Keita would not give her agency to the echo that threatened them.

Keita could tell Enn was furious, lost, she stood a moment, noting his own features and seeing threads of herself on his face, looking back to the echo and sighing. This would stay with them for the rest of their days. “You’re dead, it doesn’t matter” Enn spoke, taking his knife away once more. Keita looked to Enn and nodded in agreeance, but her curiosity would prevail…perhaps she would regret it later. A risk she was willing to take, there nothing more they could do. Perhaps they both had to fully accept the reality of the situation before they’d awake, or perhaps the Monster would finally succumb to all the attacks that were thrown at it.

She paused a moment, breathing slowly, there was nothing more to lose, nothing left for her to hide. She had so little connection to this man who was her father and it was already too late to even say something to the living version she would regret…”Yes…..I suppose we are similar” her voice calm and cold“And I am sure we get our fair share of failures from your side of the family too” meeting him eye to eye, her eyes streaming with stellar fire. ”So how does it come to pass now, echo, Aleister, soon you will fade from this place. What brought you here? How does this happen?” she looked intently at the vision before her and back to the skull behind them. She wondered how much longer this echo would last, how would it maintain. Surely its time was soon up.

Aleister / Enn

Failures.
When had he mentioned failures?

Enn had never blamed his own on his blood. They'd had little to do with him through most of his life, even if there was a lot of foundation to blame. Enn only ever blamed himself.
And Aleister,

Aleister didn't believe he'd ever failed.

He kept this quiet, instead a grin with more teeth appearing at her questions. "Ever the researcher, hm. I remember you, in that tower, sent away by your peers." Wasn't that novel? He remembered. Even the slice of him that was dead, held in purgatory by the survival of the corrupted part of his being, remembered.
The poor soul that'd wandered Ivras for centuries hadn't.

"What brought me here. Do you like stories?" Aleister asked, as if looking at a child, reaching out for Keita before Enn could intervene,

And whisking her away.

Any other dreams she'd have had earlier would look as if they were another reality. This one was distorted, held on by threads of old memory. And yet,
The woman had reddish brown hair, and big green eyes. She held a large knife, surprising a man with a stab in his back, before moving forward and slashing him over the eye.
She spoke, but the words didn't match her lips.
  "For looking at another woman,
          I curse you, to live unloved forever."

She left the man to bleed, the blood coalescing into a red helmet around his head, discoloring from red to white before the eye turned to look at Keita.
"̵̾͝Ì̷̋t̶̽͠ ̴̂͛h̴̛̄ā̴̆s̷͑́ ̵͂͠b̵̀͑ê̵͘en so long,̓̊ ̷̇̆K̴̒eita.
̓͑Ļ̷̏e̸͊̇t̶̍̕ ̷́me die."

Keita

Al had remembered Keita from the tower – a maddening feeling of pride, shame and guilt washed over her and she tried her best to not let him get to her, rather, the words….the idea of his words. Who was she kidding, she was conversing with an echo.

Somehow, that made it all the sadder.

Before there was a moment to respond, for Keita to go to Enn, she was gone, tumbling through tunnels of light and memory. She had let her guard down and he had taken root in it. There Keita stood as a vision of a red haired woman took his life with little effort.

Keita stood, staring as the image of Al bleeding out, pitifully, buried itself into her own memory. She felt dizzy, as if she was losing blood herself. Betrayal and deep sadness as if it was her lover, partner, close one that had stabbed her. Gasping for air, the eyeball turned to her, its voice distorting in pain, wavering in strength. What she did not know was that the outside world had taken effect on the monster, and soon the giant skeleton would crumple to the ground.
"̵̾͝Ì̷̋t̶̽͠ ̴̂͛h̴̛̄ā̴̆s̷͑́ ̵͂͠b̵̀͑e̵͘en so long, Keita. Lėt̶̍̕ ̷́me die."
Keita looked around for Enn, screamed out, anything. What if she was trapped in this place when the monster passed? Tears welling in her eyes, she looked to the limp body, every step she took towards it, the further it went as if it was passing through to the horizon. Around her, muffled sounds of voices and calamity came through the veil, muffled.

She whispered in the bodies direction as it had almost faded from view,

“Goodbye, fa-“
Everything went black, first there was nothingness, and then everything seemed to rush in to her senses all at once. Damp earth, trodden, soft, dust. Cold air. A hand on her shoulder.

“Enn…..?” Keita slurred, groggily, wondering where the other was.

Enn / Rhavid? :O

And that was the end of it.

If there was relief in that end for the man once called Aleister, no one would find out. The body fell, away from Mead somehow, with how slow it'd been. His grasp on the woman who shared his blood faded, letting her wake up.

Perhaps the same went for everyone in the mist.

His last lie went down with him. His last stain on Amary's memory, brought upon someone who could never find out what he was actually like.

Enn was spared whatever Aleister had inflicted upon Keita, though awoke around the same time she did. He found himself with the knight who had just killed him, and fading memories of an array of dreams he could make little sense of in the moment.
He had other things to worry about.

The person trying to wake Keita up didn't seem surprised at her asking for someone else. So many people had been, half in dreams about deceased relatives or lost loves. "Miss? It's alright, you're in Mead, at the Tourney." He wasn't sure how good he would be at comforting anyone. But Rhavid's blessing had been that the dreams didn't capture him, even if he couldn't fathom why.

Slowly, around them, everyone would be waking up, with only the memories the dreams had let them keep.