Asala didn't like this. She didn't want to go face demons down in the Fade. Yes, Cyrus was with them, but she felt more vulnerable here, and she did not know what the spirit--what Ethne expected. The instructions were clear and precise, go here and deal with the demons she was worried she would mess that up somehow, and the spirit judge her unworthy. She wasn't comfortable with that, not after essentially dragging her friends into the Fade with what amounted to a personal issue. She didn't want to let them down even more than the spirit, nor let them get injured in anyway for doing something for her.
This part of the Fade was far more eerie than the last. Where the last was pleasant and warm, this one was unnatural and cold, her mind edged with dread. She wasn't sure if it was her, or the Fade but regardless, she did not like the place. The sounds of tiny legs skittering at the edge of her vision made her jumpy, and she retreated closer to Leon as they traveled, her hand clutching her collar out of anxiety.
It did not take long after that to begin to see the demons in the distance. It felt as if the dread she had felt up to that point had up and suddenly intensified. "Are we--are we there? Here?" she stammered.
āThis is the place." Cyrus confirmed it without a trace of doubt in his tone. If anyone would know, it was him. āAnd those are the demons in question." As he said it, the group of them began to drift closer, though they did not charge in to attack or anything similar. She'd learned that demons were always drawn to the living, that it was basically a reflex for them.
Cyrus's brows drew togetherāshe'd also learned that people like him were more sensitive to their presence. Apparently, being near them caused some degree of pain in him, but from what she'd seen, he was usually pretty good at coping with it. āIt's your trial, Asala. What would you have us do?"
Some of the demons were starting to shift forms, clearly a reaction to whatever they were reading from the mortals who had entered their domain.
She frowned, unused to the feeling of everyone looking to her on what to do. She felt their eyes on her, but after a moment of hesitation she nodded. Though, her voice was far from sure. "Let us... go then?" she asked, rather than stated. Even after, she didn't immediately start forward. It took a moment or two for her to work up the nerve to begin moving.
That was all it took to garner the demon's attention. All at once, they turned their heads toward them and began to approach as they had. There were... a number of them, mostly of the fear variety. However, there was a single rage demon amongst the crowd. Lumped in with the usual shades and wraiths, there were small, knee high demons that looked like twisted deep stalkers. Gibbering Horrors, she thought they were called, and they were named appropriately. It hissed as they approached, chittering incessantly with with its bony maw. There were also fearlings, which took the form of large spiders-- whose appearance caused her to hesitate in her step before one of the others urged her forward.
There were also no few terror demons, and what she believed to be a fear demon. They did not charge them, but rather... watched them cautiously. She could feel her heart beat faster, and the desire to retreat into herself mounted as even more eyes alighted on her.
One of the terrors hissed, the metallic claws on the ends of its fingers scraping against the ground like fingernails on slate. It cocked its head at her, bending its neck at an unnatural, uncomfortable angle. "Little coward," it rasped. "Cannot even find the bravery to strike first. Flinches before spiders, bends before the slightest pressure... breaks with one little loss. Ssspinelesss."
"Look at her, ssstanding in the front." Another of the same creatures, stretched out and grotesque, rasped around its mouthful of jagged teeth. "As though she has the sssteel to lead. The courage. To tell these what they should do!" It gestured at the others behind her.
āAsala..." Cyrus's tone indicated that he was still waiting for that very thingāa command, perhaps, or at the very least permission.
Another terror demon approached languidly. Stopping a few paces short of the Gibbering Horrors. Its impossibly long limbs flexed out, trembled and tickled at the air as it stared at her with sightless eyes. Its mouth, a parish of dribbling teeth, hung opened. The gravelly voice, however, resonated in their minds, āDo nothing, little coward. Small, shaky moussse. They can sseee you tremble.ā
Zahra hadnāt moved from Romās side, though her fingers were itching at her sides. She glanced at Asala sidelong and cleared her throat. As good as anything to indicate that something much be done. Quickly.
The rage demon flared from the right side, eyes glowing white hot. Its back seemed to swell with every breath, birthing intense heat from its maw. "Turn your fear into fire, forlorn little mage!" It was hard to tell, but it looked as though it was grinning at her, pleased with what it was seeing. "Remember, wretched creature, what has taken life and love and peace from you! Strike us in anger... I will wear you, body and soul, and bring your rage to bear on the beast in your nightmares."
"What are we doing, Asala?" Romulus asked, a bit nervously. His hand lingered near the hilt of his blade, ready to be drawn in an instant if she commanded it.
She didn't answer, and the fear demon noticed, laughing in a low, rumbling voice. "She fears us, just as she fears herself," the demon taunted. "So afraid of making the wrong choice, of letting her friends get hurt for her," the demon said the word with scorn and disdain. "You regret this, don't you. Wished you had never stepped into the Fade," it said, chuckling evilly. "It is too late, fearful little mage. You are here so face us!" The demon's voice boomed, and there was a shudder in the Fade as the fear demon's body twisted and contorted in jarring motions.
Asala's eyes went wide and she retreated a step as what stood before her no longer was a fear demon, but the form of the blighted dragon, the one that had taken her brother from her. It was not as large as the real one, maybe a fraction of its size, but it remained. "Ataashi hissra," she muttered before the dragon roared, shaking the Fade around them. Asala took another step backward and instinctively reached for the Fade, encasing the demon-turned-dragon in a large shimmering barrier. "No!" she yelled, trying to push the creature away with the barrier.
The first act of overt aggression made it a fight, and the other demons lunged, trying to free their leader from the barrier's confines, either by beating at it or lunging for Asala, who was holding it in place. Leon intercepted the first of these, planting his foot against the rage demon's chest and throwing it back several feet before pursuing it. When he brought an elbow down on the back of its head, the fire of its body sizzled against his light armor, cold from the pervasive chill in the area.
It lunged for him, raking hot claws across his midsection. He staggered backwards a step, but recovered quickly, throwing himself forward again.
Cyrus quite deliberately stepped away from Asala. Perhaps that made senseāhe'd made it clear that she was the one who had to actually face the trial, and Ethne has specified that the trial was Fear. Instead, he threw an almost-lazy ice spell at one of the terrors, freezing it just before it sank into the ground for one of its jumps. The other, however, disappeared into a dark circle on the floor. The lightning bolt that followed shattered the ice and the demon along with it. The terror's twin, however, emerged from the ground right behind him, throwing him forward with the force of its screeching attack.
Romulus fired a bolt from his crossbow, piercing the terror through the leg and interrupting its screeching. He rushed forward, but before he could reach it he was met with a swarm of fearlings, small skittering creatures that drove him back, too many at once for him to take them all on. He kicked one away, throwing another off his back, wounding another that bit into his leg. Another jumped for his face, but he bashed it aside with his shield, still steadily giving ground.
Zahra had already shrugged her bow from her shoulderājust in time to stop a fearling from clawing at her face, slamming it off to the side. She took a few steps forward and pinned an arrow through one of the hissing creatureās legs, one thatād been fixated on taking another bite out of Rom. She notched another arrow and took aim. Possibly intending to pelt another. Her distraction allowed one of the things to slink close enough to attach itself to her arm. Her bow clattered to the ground as she pushed her hand against its face, attempting to dislodge it.
The blight dragon began to push back against the barrier, but lacked the strength of the real one. The shield held its shape, but with a roar, the demon put its head against it and began to fight back, sliding the shield toward her through effort and strength. Asala could hear the fighting on either side of her, and a glance revealed her companion's struggles against the demons. She didn't want this, she thought a trial of Compassion would have been different, and not pit them against demons of the fade. Where was the compassion in this? What was this to prove? That they could fight against demons? Ever since the Inquisition was formed they had been fighting against demons.
"Stop," she whimpered as she was forced back a step. The demons did not start this, she did. She was the one who threw the first barrier, and because of that they had been drawn into the fight. If Compassion's trial was meant to make her throw her friends into battle with demons, then she wanted no part of it. She had asked them to accompany her, not to bleed for her. They had too many fights of their own to face without adding hers on top of it. "Stop." She was louder this time. This wasn't a test of compassion, this was just fighting.
This wasn't what Tammy meant when she told her to become a shield. A shield was meant to protect, but what was she protecting here? Nothing "I said stop it," she said, her words clear and audible. She didn't shout them, but she demanded it, her tone accidentally conveying that of a chiding mother-- the same one Tammy used with Meraad when he got into something he was not supposed to. She pushed off with her shield and let it fade, holding off the demon long enough to repositioned herself closer to her friends. A series of small shields dislodged anything clinging to her friends, before a larger one bloomed to life around them all, enveloping them in a large bubble, separating them from the demons.
"Enough," she stated firmly. It didn't matter if she failed the trial at this point, no one would get hurt because of her. Her friends, or the demons they fought against. If they did not attack them initially, then perhaps there may have still been a way for them to leave peacefully. "We will leave here," she said, staring down the fear demon, "No one else will get hurt here, not us nor you," she said, her barrier sparkling with renewed resolve.
Abruptly, the demons vanished. They made no noise, used no words, took no actions at all. They just wavered, like shimmering mirages in her native desert, and disappeared. In their place stood an image of Ethne. It must have been the way she was in life, for she looked as solid as the demons had. As solid as the others did, safe behind her shield. Her hair was redānot as red as Khari's, more like a strawberry blonde. Her eyes were blue-green, large in a very dainty-looking face. The robes she wore weren't like anything Asala had seen, either, except maybe in some of Cyrus's books.
She smiled slightly, an expression tinged with melancholy. "Sometimes, compassion is the hardest choice to make," she said quietly, reaching up to touch the barrier Asala had erected over her group. After a moment, it vanished under her fingers. "Sometimes, it will hurt, because no shield stands forever, and none can cover everyone." Her hand dropped back to her side. "But choosing it anyway and every time is what it will take, to learn what I have to teach. Compassion does not see even a demon and judge it worthy only of death. Some things must be fought, even I know this. But nothing may be fought only because of the face it wears or the things it thinks."
Ethne tilted her head. "This trial is over. But what lies ahead will be more difficult still. Are you willing to take that upon yourself, Beres-Taar?"
Asala winced as the barrier faded around them through no inclination of her own. In actuality, when the demons vanished, she was so struck by confusion that she had momentarily forgotten about it until it was stripped by Ethne. It made her feel powerless, as she remembered that they were in the Fade, and ordinary rules did not necessarily apply there. After hesitating, she let her hand fall limply to her side as Ethne spoke. At the end, Asala grew quiet and thoughtful once more, but when she spoke, it was with a firm confidence.
"I am."
"Good." Ethne seemed pleased, the sadness present in her smile abating for a moment at least. "Have your dreamer friend teach you how to locate the garden on your own. And when you can, I will be there, and I will help you." She gave a little nod.
"For now... I think it's time you wake up."
And she did, with a start. She pushed herself up from her pillow and looked around her dark room. After the initial confusion abated, she let her forehead fall back into her pillow and she closed her eyes-- though she doubted sleep would be easy to find again.
Then she wondered about the others, if they too had woken up from the dream like her and... if they were okay.
This part of the Fade was far more eerie than the last. Where the last was pleasant and warm, this one was unnatural and cold, her mind edged with dread. She wasn't sure if it was her, or the Fade but regardless, she did not like the place. The sounds of tiny legs skittering at the edge of her vision made her jumpy, and she retreated closer to Leon as they traveled, her hand clutching her collar out of anxiety.
It did not take long after that to begin to see the demons in the distance. It felt as if the dread she had felt up to that point had up and suddenly intensified. "Are we--are we there? Here?" she stammered.
āThis is the place." Cyrus confirmed it without a trace of doubt in his tone. If anyone would know, it was him. āAnd those are the demons in question." As he said it, the group of them began to drift closer, though they did not charge in to attack or anything similar. She'd learned that demons were always drawn to the living, that it was basically a reflex for them.
Cyrus's brows drew togetherāshe'd also learned that people like him were more sensitive to their presence. Apparently, being near them caused some degree of pain in him, but from what she'd seen, he was usually pretty good at coping with it. āIt's your trial, Asala. What would you have us do?"
Some of the demons were starting to shift forms, clearly a reaction to whatever they were reading from the mortals who had entered their domain.
She frowned, unused to the feeling of everyone looking to her on what to do. She felt their eyes on her, but after a moment of hesitation she nodded. Though, her voice was far from sure. "Let us... go then?" she asked, rather than stated. Even after, she didn't immediately start forward. It took a moment or two for her to work up the nerve to begin moving.
That was all it took to garner the demon's attention. All at once, they turned their heads toward them and began to approach as they had. There were... a number of them, mostly of the fear variety. However, there was a single rage demon amongst the crowd. Lumped in with the usual shades and wraiths, there were small, knee high demons that looked like twisted deep stalkers. Gibbering Horrors, she thought they were called, and they were named appropriately. It hissed as they approached, chittering incessantly with with its bony maw. There were also fearlings, which took the form of large spiders-- whose appearance caused her to hesitate in her step before one of the others urged her forward.
There were also no few terror demons, and what she believed to be a fear demon. They did not charge them, but rather... watched them cautiously. She could feel her heart beat faster, and the desire to retreat into herself mounted as even more eyes alighted on her.
One of the terrors hissed, the metallic claws on the ends of its fingers scraping against the ground like fingernails on slate. It cocked its head at her, bending its neck at an unnatural, uncomfortable angle. "Little coward," it rasped. "Cannot even find the bravery to strike first. Flinches before spiders, bends before the slightest pressure... breaks with one little loss. Ssspinelesss."
"Look at her, ssstanding in the front." Another of the same creatures, stretched out and grotesque, rasped around its mouthful of jagged teeth. "As though she has the sssteel to lead. The courage. To tell these what they should do!" It gestured at the others behind her.
āAsala..." Cyrus's tone indicated that he was still waiting for that very thingāa command, perhaps, or at the very least permission.
Another terror demon approached languidly. Stopping a few paces short of the Gibbering Horrors. Its impossibly long limbs flexed out, trembled and tickled at the air as it stared at her with sightless eyes. Its mouth, a parish of dribbling teeth, hung opened. The gravelly voice, however, resonated in their minds, āDo nothing, little coward. Small, shaky moussse. They can sseee you tremble.ā
Zahra hadnāt moved from Romās side, though her fingers were itching at her sides. She glanced at Asala sidelong and cleared her throat. As good as anything to indicate that something much be done. Quickly.
The rage demon flared from the right side, eyes glowing white hot. Its back seemed to swell with every breath, birthing intense heat from its maw. "Turn your fear into fire, forlorn little mage!" It was hard to tell, but it looked as though it was grinning at her, pleased with what it was seeing. "Remember, wretched creature, what has taken life and love and peace from you! Strike us in anger... I will wear you, body and soul, and bring your rage to bear on the beast in your nightmares."
"What are we doing, Asala?" Romulus asked, a bit nervously. His hand lingered near the hilt of his blade, ready to be drawn in an instant if she commanded it.
She didn't answer, and the fear demon noticed, laughing in a low, rumbling voice. "She fears us, just as she fears herself," the demon taunted. "So afraid of making the wrong choice, of letting her friends get hurt for her," the demon said the word with scorn and disdain. "You regret this, don't you. Wished you had never stepped into the Fade," it said, chuckling evilly. "It is too late, fearful little mage. You are here so face us!" The demon's voice boomed, and there was a shudder in the Fade as the fear demon's body twisted and contorted in jarring motions.
Asala's eyes went wide and she retreated a step as what stood before her no longer was a fear demon, but the form of the blighted dragon, the one that had taken her brother from her. It was not as large as the real one, maybe a fraction of its size, but it remained. "Ataashi hissra," she muttered before the dragon roared, shaking the Fade around them. Asala took another step backward and instinctively reached for the Fade, encasing the demon-turned-dragon in a large shimmering barrier. "No!" she yelled, trying to push the creature away with the barrier.
The first act of overt aggression made it a fight, and the other demons lunged, trying to free their leader from the barrier's confines, either by beating at it or lunging for Asala, who was holding it in place. Leon intercepted the first of these, planting his foot against the rage demon's chest and throwing it back several feet before pursuing it. When he brought an elbow down on the back of its head, the fire of its body sizzled against his light armor, cold from the pervasive chill in the area.
It lunged for him, raking hot claws across his midsection. He staggered backwards a step, but recovered quickly, throwing himself forward again.
Cyrus quite deliberately stepped away from Asala. Perhaps that made senseāhe'd made it clear that she was the one who had to actually face the trial, and Ethne has specified that the trial was Fear. Instead, he threw an almost-lazy ice spell at one of the terrors, freezing it just before it sank into the ground for one of its jumps. The other, however, disappeared into a dark circle on the floor. The lightning bolt that followed shattered the ice and the demon along with it. The terror's twin, however, emerged from the ground right behind him, throwing him forward with the force of its screeching attack.
Romulus fired a bolt from his crossbow, piercing the terror through the leg and interrupting its screeching. He rushed forward, but before he could reach it he was met with a swarm of fearlings, small skittering creatures that drove him back, too many at once for him to take them all on. He kicked one away, throwing another off his back, wounding another that bit into his leg. Another jumped for his face, but he bashed it aside with his shield, still steadily giving ground.
Zahra had already shrugged her bow from her shoulderājust in time to stop a fearling from clawing at her face, slamming it off to the side. She took a few steps forward and pinned an arrow through one of the hissing creatureās legs, one thatād been fixated on taking another bite out of Rom. She notched another arrow and took aim. Possibly intending to pelt another. Her distraction allowed one of the things to slink close enough to attach itself to her arm. Her bow clattered to the ground as she pushed her hand against its face, attempting to dislodge it.
The blight dragon began to push back against the barrier, but lacked the strength of the real one. The shield held its shape, but with a roar, the demon put its head against it and began to fight back, sliding the shield toward her through effort and strength. Asala could hear the fighting on either side of her, and a glance revealed her companion's struggles against the demons. She didn't want this, she thought a trial of Compassion would have been different, and not pit them against demons of the fade. Where was the compassion in this? What was this to prove? That they could fight against demons? Ever since the Inquisition was formed they had been fighting against demons.
"Stop," she whimpered as she was forced back a step. The demons did not start this, she did. She was the one who threw the first barrier, and because of that they had been drawn into the fight. If Compassion's trial was meant to make her throw her friends into battle with demons, then she wanted no part of it. She had asked them to accompany her, not to bleed for her. They had too many fights of their own to face without adding hers on top of it. "Stop." She was louder this time. This wasn't a test of compassion, this was just fighting.
This wasn't what Tammy meant when she told her to become a shield. A shield was meant to protect, but what was she protecting here? Nothing "I said stop it," she said, her words clear and audible. She didn't shout them, but she demanded it, her tone accidentally conveying that of a chiding mother-- the same one Tammy used with Meraad when he got into something he was not supposed to. She pushed off with her shield and let it fade, holding off the demon long enough to repositioned herself closer to her friends. A series of small shields dislodged anything clinging to her friends, before a larger one bloomed to life around them all, enveloping them in a large bubble, separating them from the demons.
"Enough," she stated firmly. It didn't matter if she failed the trial at this point, no one would get hurt because of her. Her friends, or the demons they fought against. If they did not attack them initially, then perhaps there may have still been a way for them to leave peacefully. "We will leave here," she said, staring down the fear demon, "No one else will get hurt here, not us nor you," she said, her barrier sparkling with renewed resolve.
Abruptly, the demons vanished. They made no noise, used no words, took no actions at all. They just wavered, like shimmering mirages in her native desert, and disappeared. In their place stood an image of Ethne. It must have been the way she was in life, for she looked as solid as the demons had. As solid as the others did, safe behind her shield. Her hair was redānot as red as Khari's, more like a strawberry blonde. Her eyes were blue-green, large in a very dainty-looking face. The robes she wore weren't like anything Asala had seen, either, except maybe in some of Cyrus's books.
She smiled slightly, an expression tinged with melancholy. "Sometimes, compassion is the hardest choice to make," she said quietly, reaching up to touch the barrier Asala had erected over her group. After a moment, it vanished under her fingers. "Sometimes, it will hurt, because no shield stands forever, and none can cover everyone." Her hand dropped back to her side. "But choosing it anyway and every time is what it will take, to learn what I have to teach. Compassion does not see even a demon and judge it worthy only of death. Some things must be fought, even I know this. But nothing may be fought only because of the face it wears or the things it thinks."
Ethne tilted her head. "This trial is over. But what lies ahead will be more difficult still. Are you willing to take that upon yourself, Beres-Taar?"
Asala winced as the barrier faded around them through no inclination of her own. In actuality, when the demons vanished, she was so struck by confusion that she had momentarily forgotten about it until it was stripped by Ethne. It made her feel powerless, as she remembered that they were in the Fade, and ordinary rules did not necessarily apply there. After hesitating, she let her hand fall limply to her side as Ethne spoke. At the end, Asala grew quiet and thoughtful once more, but when she spoke, it was with a firm confidence.
"I am."
"Good." Ethne seemed pleased, the sadness present in her smile abating for a moment at least. "Have your dreamer friend teach you how to locate the garden on your own. And when you can, I will be there, and I will help you." She gave a little nod.
"For now... I think it's time you wake up."
And she did, with a start. She pushed herself up from her pillow and looked around her dark room. After the initial confusion abated, she let her forehead fall back into her pillow and she closed her eyes-- though she doubted sleep would be easy to find again.
Then she wondered about the others, if they too had woken up from the dream like her and... if they were okay.