Upon His Return

[Forsaken]

((Thought we should continue this in a new thread, or things would get confusing since the two pairs of prisoner and torturer aren't interacting directly with each other.))

It would take an hour for Somriad to dispose of Prometheus' catch, and he deemed it an hour poorly used. That girl had been of little interest to him. Her mind had revealed nothing of importance concerning the rebels beyond their last known location, and what she knew of their present residence was speculation only. He suspected that none of the rebels knew exactly where they were going to stay for the night until the night was upon them and they somehow received word of it.

He would not trouble himself further with such trifles. The ill-fated girl would serve his purpose once he made an example of her before the city. In the meantime, he had a lovely little spaniel of his own to dominate.

As he steps back into her cell and closes the door with grave finality, he smiles at his inner phrasing. It would anger her to be called such. Yet as lovely as she was when she was angry, what he wanted was to catch her off-guard. To confuse her and open up a weakness to be explored.

"Ma petite louve..." His words whisper like the dry, wind-stirred leaves of a dying world as he breaths them out slowly in appreciation. Once more, he drifts toward her. Once more, he stands over her, looking down with shadowed cobalt eyes that hid impossible depths. Yet, for a reason that wouldn't be clear to her, this time he left her unchained. "The hour passed excruciating slowly while I was beyond your company." He smiles fondly upon his victim. "I missed you, and I don't even know your name. Would you do me the favor of sharing it?"

[The Imfamous AKA]

Rena was proud; she managed to keep the shudder that traveled up her spine from wracking her whole body at the sound of the door opening. That sound resonated through her system, the sound of metal and stone and footsteps. It was foreboding enough that his words that followed had a less horrified reaction. She had been dreading his return, hoping to have as long as possible to bulk up her confidence and cling to her self-control. It wasn't long enough.

But his words didn't scare her. She was excepting the subtle threats, or perhaps the not-so-subtle ones that he had given her during their first encounter. The sweetness of his words, which she could only think was meant to confuse her further by showing her the kindness she would have longed to see, only made her angrier. He thought her worse than weak; she was below even the level of the dirt beneath his feet if he thought she would break so easily.

It infuriated here, but his earlier attack had shown her the need for caution. She couldn't simply go spitting in his face--he had proven that tactic to be ineffective. If anything, outright defiance only amused him more. But she couldn't bring herself to grovel, not now, not ever, not even if grovelling only meant dropping the snarl that his words brought to her lips.

So she didn't, choosing the middle ground. Boosting herself a bit off the ground--supporting her weight on her good, uninjured hand, of course--she turned her snarling sneer up to him. Her defiance manifested itself in distaste: for him, for his tactics, for everything she was faced with. Her blood had matted her hair, the tangled mess clinging to her head where she had shoved it away from her eyes. There was no reason for her to hide them, not now.

The gold had begun to recede, but the flecks were still larger than usual. The strange mix of violet and gold stared up at him with disdain from the floor. It took every ounce of her strength to keep her arm from shaking as she began to speak.

"If I tell you my name, with you cease with that ridiculously affectionate pet name?" she asked, her voice droll, without the barest hint of a tremor. It took an effort to seem as bored as she did, and to keep the hatred from overwhelming the cultivated tones of tedium that laced the genuine revulsion.

[Forsaken]

The Guardian feigned hurt received from her comment. "Why, my lovely child, if I had known my fond title for you caused such offense, I would have demanded to know your true name sooner. Should you forgive my oversight and provide me with the means to correct it, I will retire the adopted name in favor of the true one."

Somriad leans toward his soon-to-be conquest and extends his hand to her, his movements unnaturally smooth, impossibly consistent. His form betrayed none of the tics or slight trembling usually present in muscles moving under skin. If a stature were made of water instead of stone and capable of movement, it would undulate in precisely this same fashion.

With his unreadable eyes softly falling halfway closed to accentuate the warmth of his smile, he waits for her to take his hand and tell him her name. Do not fear me, his demeanor whispered slyly. The worst is over now.

[The Imfamous AKA]

She didn't move for a moment, hating the smooth, effortlessness of his movement. Even if she was stupid enough to place her hand in his, even if he was only going to help her rise, she would still have had to suppress a shudder at the effort it would take. Of course, in her current position, placing her hand in his would also mean giving him her already injured hand, making the action doubly stupid. Rena was gutsy, willing to take calculated risks, not a complete idiot with no regard for her own safety.

So, when she shifted, it was not to place her hand in his and let him do what he would with it. Instead, she pulled her legs beneath her, and, in a motion that was more show than actual pain, let her complete hand press against where her missing digit should have been, only for a moment. Only then did it return to the ground, pushing with her upper body from the ground as she managed to get one foot flat beneath her. It took more effort to prevent a slow, shaky, jerky rise than it did to actually rise, but, after a moment, she was on her feet, without his assistance, and, luckily, without jarring her hand. Her motions were no where near as fluid and perfect as his, but she managed not to show the weakness that tried to escape her.

When she faced him, her eyes still defiant but the snarl gone, it was on as even footing as she could manage. Injured, exhausted, and part human, she was not his equal. But she was no bug to be crushed beneath his boot.

She opened her mouth, a false name on her lips, but she paused, almost unnoticably. What was the point in giving a false name? It was expected, and he would know that whatever name she gave was not her own. And when the name she went by, even to her friends, even amongst the Rebellion, was not her own, what did it matter when he would expect her name to be anything but what she supplied?

"Rena," she offered, her voice soft, but strong. Soft, to keep the tremor from it, but strong, because nothing less was acceptable. "My name is Rena."

[Forsaken]

Somriad regarded her with laughing eyes as she ignored his hand and chose to rise under her own power instead. He did not take offense. After all, he knew what little power she did have would be stripped from her shortly. Her stubbornness only served to draw out his game, which was something he favored. An easy victory was a dull one.

His hand drifts back to his side, but his warm expression doesn't falter as he addresses her. "Rena..." The name slides off of his tongue strangely, slowly, as though he is savoring the taste. "Meeting you has been a sublime pleasure. My name is Somriad." The laughter returns to his eyes. It was unlikely that she hadn't recognized him. Everyone in Manticore knew his visage. "Though it is of little consequence. Yours is a lovely name. It suits you. Strong and abrupt, yet distinctly...feminine." His tone deepens and softens on the last word, becoming sensuous. On his left, half of the wall collapses into sand with a hissed cloud of dust, then reforms into a pallet. Somriad steps into Rena, placing a cool arm around her waist. "I have yet to discover you as thoroughly as I might, and discussions of any seriousness and depth are best divulged in comfort." As he speaks, he pressures her toward his newest creation. He wanted to see her struggle against him.

[The Imfamous AKA]

Perhaps there was a good reason to have given a false name. The sound of her name, what she was called by so many, on his lips as he twisted it to his purposes, disgusted her. She damned the moniker, and the fact that she had used it for so long and with so many people--she had taken the name as her own, and now her own choice of names would be her torment. She had never believed the superstition that had been foisted on her of the power of names, of true names and false ones, but she was beginning to. If a chosen alias could be so effectively used against her, she wondered how sickening the sound of her true name would be if used by this twisted excuse for a being, and she silently thanked her mentor for insisting she keep her birth name within her own head and his.

But Rena was effectively distracted by the sudden taint of his magic on the air and their surroundings. He wished to feel her struggle, and, though she knew his aim, she granted his wish. Her heels dug into the floor as she stiffened, eyes wide as they fixed upon his new creation. Her mind began to spin as she tried, frantically, to imagine a way to escape his grasp and the inevitability of the fate he had planned for her. With his arm about her waist as a cruel reminder and a means of controlling and limiting her motion, her options were to pull against his much stronger grip, or to drop to the ground. Neither was guaranteed to work--he could simply pull harder, and there was the possibility that she wouldn't be able to get back up if she went down. So she simply leaned away from him curling into herself, a not-so-subtle struggle as she tried to keep her ground, tried desperately to keep herself from the bed he had created. She needed, most urgently, to avoid the fate that the pallet implied. If he invaded her body, she wasn't sure if she could keep him from invading her mind.

[Forsaken]

Somriad was pleased to find that the set he was spinning together for the act that was about to unfold was indeed working it's magic. He ran an appreciative hand over her side in a languid caress, admiring the tension of her muscles. Exquisite. Her form alone sang her fear beautifully, but it wasn't enough. This stationary cowering was not the reaction he wished for.

He reluctantly draws his arm toward him from behind her back, letting his touch linger as he does so. But he does not entirely relinquish his hold. Instead, his hand trails up her arm and comes to rest lightly on her shoulder. As it does so, he turns so that he faces her and looks down into her violet, Guardian's eyes. Out of place in her human's form and corrupted by the gold of his enemy.

A shadow flickers briefly through his gaze, but as it was one of many it's significance would be lost on her. His voice carries his usual courtly charm once again when he speaks. "Rena, what is wrong? You look unwell..." His expression shifts to mimic concern as he stares at her. Waiting.

[The Imfamous AKA]

She flinched away from his stroking hand, but relished the freedom it offered, pulling further away from him. It was the opportunity she had wanted, his hand releasing her enough that she could pull away, put what distance she could between them. Of course, there wasn't far to go, there wasn't anywhere to run in the tiny cell she'd run herself into a wall or a corner or worse... that threatening pallet. There had to be a reason for him to hesitate to follow her.

The fear in her eyes was real, but hid the quick calculations. Weakness. Weakness. Weakness. Humanoid form. Easily accessible. Hit quick enough to avoid forewarning, but do enough damage to discourage proximity. Without realizing it, Rena had slipped into the perfunctory, predatory thoughts in the manner of the man who had trained her, as he had trained her. And, through the terror, fixed on the threat's face. That'll do.

Her hand shifted, the one he wasn't touching, her stronger hand. Of course, it was missing a digit, but she didn't need her fingers to hit with the heel of her hand. "I--" she broke off, not needing to manufacture the stutter of fear. "I am unwell..."

Her hand followed the distraction as her feet slid into a stronger position, her whole body following her hand as she thrust the weight of her hand, and then arm, and then entire upper body up and into his nose, snapping the cartilage and completely dislocating it from the stronger bone of his skull. The force of the follow-through of the blow let her move past him, slipping past his side to put distance between them, ending up halfway between him and the wall furthest from his makeshift bed.

She tried to keep her form loose, but the strain and stress meant that she would start to shake if she didn't hold herself rigid. So, taking the middle ground, she held herself tightly, her fists even tighter by her sides, with her feet spread enough to provide the balance and her knees bent to keep her center of gravity low. "But not too unwell," she completed, emphasizing what her pose already said--she was not giving in without a fight.

[Forsaken]

There would be no sound beyond that of the impact. No movement after Somriad had fallen back a step to keep his balance. For a short eternity, the struck Guardian would remain statuesque, still but as malevolent as an active time bomb.

The drip of blood was almost audible in the amplifying intensity of the atmosphere, ticking away lengthy and inaccurate seconds. Yet even after Rena moved to another section of the room and delivered her defiant line, Somriad's head remained turned, his tousled silver-tipped hair obstructing his vision...and keeping his eyes from view.

Rena would be able to take a dozen deep breaths between the moment she struck him and the sudden explosion of the single light bulb overhead. They were plunged into darkness, impossibly black. The barred window in the cell door seemed to have vanished with the light.

Again, time creeps the span of a dozen breaths. The unseen Guardian remains unheard. After that uneasy silence, small blue flames flared into existence around them with the sound of many silenced gun shots. Hundreds of small flames sparked in the air, dancing upon the invisible wicks of unseen candles. The motionless Guardian slowly turns his head toward Rena, all pretense of friendliness vanished. His visage showed only the bright expression of spilled blood. His eyes...black. All shadows having crowded to the foreground.

He intones coldly; "You have made a mistake, Rena." Reaching up, he straightens his ruined nose as best he can, modeling it back into a shape similar to the original as though it were clay. He seems to feel no pain.

"I have a gift for you, though you are hardly deserving." As he speaks in that same cold voice that seems to echo within itself, he reaches into an inner pocket of his sapphire outer robe and pulls out a small bird cage, housing a small winged lizard inside. The reptile, once in the light, flutters wildly around it's too-small enclosure. "Watch." He hisses the order, and sets the creature free.

It flies wildly around the room, as a frenzied bat would have when caught in a small room in a time when there were bats, until one delicate wing clips an equally delicate flame. The wing is severed from the tiny body as it passes through the flame, no, as the flame passes through it, and the lizard falls to the ground at Somriad's feet, shrieking. He watches it struggle passively for a short while. Then lifts one foot over the dying reptile and gradually leans into it with an audible collection of crunching sounds. Again, the room is silent.

He lifts his head, blood still trickling down his chin unacknowledged, and speaks again. "Now, let us see what you have learned. Come here." The entire collection of levitating flames wheels sickeningly around them, proving to her that they are indeed mobile, and remain beyond the space she is inhabiting only by order of the Guardian.

[The Imfamous AKA]

In his inactivity, she remained just as frozen, out of anticipation, out of fear. She was not disappointed. The explosion of the light bulb was immediately followed by the shortest yelp, high-pitched and belying her species. She sounded like a startled, injured dog as she dropped into a crouch, instinctively covering her head and neck with her arms. The darkness was not what scared her; as a thief, she was used to creeping about in it. Not having any idea if he had moved closer to her, that was what scared her.

Her first emotion as the eerie blue light illuminated the room was relief--she could still see him, exactly where he had been before. He was not directly behind her, waiting for her to realize it to strike. He was not hovering over her, about to grab her by the neck and hoist her into the air or against the wall. He was still a good few paces away. His calm words, his lack of pain, his still position all only made her more anxious

His order of "Watch" was unnecessary. She couldn't take her eyes from him, for once the prey animal that her kind should have hunted. Only as the tiny, confused, panicked animal--a mirror of her own emotions--began to flutter about the room, desperately seeking the escape she had been denied, did her eyes follow it, as he commanded.

For the first time since the shattering of the light bulb, she moved, one hand covering her mouth is shock and disgust as the flames severed the wing of the poor, terrified creature. Her eyes and mouth were wide in horror for the cruelty toward the poor creature, and in recognition for the blue flames now. Shaking from stress and fear, her other hand dropped to the ground to steady herself in the crouch as he began to move.

But he came to stand beside the little creature, and his eyes met it as hers did. Or, rather, not as hers did. Without emotion, sans compassion, he snuffed out the tiny, significant life, drawing another tiny noise, this time a whimper, from his prisoner.

As a second order left his mouth, this time, she did move. She lost balance, her knees hitting the cold stone floor and sending a shock through her system as she was reduced to nothing but an instinct driven, terrified creature. Something between a little girl and an animal. Something which began to crawl to the feet of its master and roll over to wait to be kicked.

But as she shifted her weight onto her hand to begin to cross the cold floor, she stopped.

If it had just been Rena's life at stake, she would have undoubtedly crawled, an animal in submission to a larger, more powerful creature, to his feet and waited, terrified, for what he had in store for her. If it had just been her sanity, she would have not hesitated to do as he said. If it was only her secrets, she would have offered up her mind on a platter to be taken.

But it wasn't. And it wasn't her voice that rang in her head, but the memory and words of the man who had been her Master, who was not the abomination standing in his place before her.

"Get up, little girl," rang the memory of his gruff words in her head. "You say you have people to protect? Prove it."

She didn't move for a moment, still on her hands and knees on the floor. Her free hand, her injured hand, pressed into her mouth, as though pressing back the bile that was threatening to rise from a combination of the sickness of his destruction of life right before her and the striking realization of what she had been about to do. Once her body ceased to threaten to turn on her itself, she moved.

In a motion so similar to one she had done so recently, she pushed herself slowly, carefully, to her feet, taking the greatest care to keep the trembling out of her limbs as she did so. Once she was balanced on two limbs again, she regarded him with the same defiance her eyes had held before. But something was different. The disdain she had held had been replaced by a burning hatred for how close he had forced her to giving up.

Rena never gave up.

Her eyes left his bleeding face quickly enough, moving to consider the slowly cycling flames that surrounded them both. Rather than step toward him, as he had commanded, she moved to the side, toward the boundary that surrounded them, that obvious threat of what waited should she not cooperate.

She held out a hand, far from stupid enough to touch the flames. Instead, she took advantage of his newest alteration to her body, spreading her fingers widely as a flame passed. It slipped between her index and ring finger, scorching the cloth that bandaged her middle finger so quickly and completely that it was left with a ragged, fused edge. Something about that amused her.

Perhaps it was the fact that she had come so close to the Cleansing Flame with no damage, but Rena was restored to the defiance she had held upon his first entrance into the cell, some hours before. She had already enraged him, he was already torturing her, was already planning on raping her. If she kept her mind her own, she had nothing to lose.

"What have I learned?" she murmured, letting her eyes drift away from the flames before her feet followed. "I have learned that your blatant disregard for life is not a rumor." She turned to face him once more, expression impassive, but her eyes danced in the blue light. "I have learned that your careful, unaffected facade is not unbreakable. I have learned that I was properly instructed on how to break someone's nose..."

She began to cross the space between them, letting those words trail off with a small smile before she continued. "I have learned that, somehow, inexplicably, you manage to fit a birdcage in your robes... " She let those words trail off, a hint of something that was almost like amusement, almost like confusion, tinging her tone. "I have learned that I am, perhaps, stronger than mere threats and the actions of instinct." She paused before him, just outside of arm's reach, though he could easily close the difference. "I have learned that you're noticeably uglier with a broken nose and blood streaming down your face.

"And I have learned that you must be particularly stupid if you want me this close to you right now." She didn't even finish the sentence before she moved. She was out of arm's length, but not leg's, and she took advantage of that, twisting to one side to balance as she swung one foot out, leaning away to counterbalance the motion.

She would have aimed for the groin, had she not thought that he could easily block her, catch her. Instead, she aimed lower, just below the kneecap, with the intention of dislocating it and severely limiting, if not completely taking away, his ability to stand.

[Forsaken]

Somriad watched her coolly, his expression so perfectly indifferent that, should it be worn by a being of any other nature, it could be called a blank mask. Yet it was now that he was hiding nothing. It was his smile, his laughter, the mimicry of human emotion that so often animated his features that was the lie. For beneath the surface expressions that played as delightfully across his features as light did across a crystalline stream, was a power-hungry void that knew nothing of sentiment.

So Rena approaches, and as she does so she would believe Somriad to be waiting for her to take the initiative for the second time. She was too blinded by her own pride to realize how foolhardy such an assumption was. She was so sure of her own power that she could not recognize his. It was quite laughable, really.

It made his weave of a slightly altered reality easy to apply over her senses. He watches her approach and stop five feet before him, believing herself to be within arm's reach. He reveals his teeth in a thin slice of white among slick crimson. A smile. His real one. It is the last action shared with his counterpart that crosses over into this reality.

Rena would realize too late that she had made a grievous error in judgment as the Somriad in her altered vision crosses one arm over his chest and sweeps it sharply downward, like a horror story's bladed pendulum over her offending limb. His arm, of course, falls short of the target. But the small flames guided downward by that arm in a swift slice of piercingly bright blue fire do not.

Rena's lower leg was flawless in it's aim, and did indeed contact his kneecap. However, without the rest of her body to follow through, it only dropped impotently to the stone floor. The Guardian still stands, a sprayed line his amputee's blood across his knees.

He looks down on her with eyes composed of a blackness as vast and cold and a starless universe. Any sound of agony she may have made would fall on indifferent ears. "Mind your insults, Rena." His warning reaches her with all the warmth of an arctic gale. "I promise you, for every slight you unwisely launch, I will be sure to bestow a more terrible reality on your weaker person."

As soon as the last word was spoken he was abruptly five feet beyond her, the illusion banished. "This is your last warning. You are fortunate to have been so indulged." He holds out his hand in an authoritarian gesture that demanded fealty. "Come here." His tone would blast her novice psychological defenses with a painful, far-reaching chill. This time, he allowed her to sample his power in a display that would underline his previous warning.

Of warnings, he had already given her many. He would not give her anymore.

[The Imfamous AKA]

Whatever scream he was expecting to ignore was not present. Shock set in too quickly as the dark spray of her blood crossed her vision. Without the weight of her leg, she went crashing backwards, dropping to the ground. Though she didn't make a sound, her mouth was shaped into the form of an agonized scream.

It felt as though time had slowed down. It took forever to hit the ground, it took forever for the sheet of blood to strike him and the floor. More than long enough for Rena to feel relieved through the shock and endorphin dimmed pain. It won't take long for this to bleed out. At least I'll die soon...

His words interrupted her thoughts as she hit the ground. She continued to fall backwards, her head striking the cold, hard stone of the floor, leaving her nothing to do except gasp, the pain finally beginning to catch up to her, as she stared up at him. If time wasn't moving slowly, then her brain certainly was to give everything else a chance to catch up, and it took long moments for his words to completely penetrate. And they were almost immediately forgotten.

She let out a sob as the pain immediately cut off. The relief of having the limb back in place was completely overcome by the fact that her body had not yet begun to comprehend that it had returned and the horrible falling feeling in her stomach that death was far off once again, even though she was flat against the floor.

But it was his final, repetitive order that finally snapped her from her shock, the cold penetrating her entire body. She was not stupid enough not to obey now. The question was, did she have the strength to?

She managed to lift her head to look down at her own body. It was still a shock to see her leg there, in tact, but, where she had fallen, her feet were still close to his. She looked up at him, confusion tinging her pained expression, then shook her head. "I am here," she muttered under her breath as she struggled to force herself into a sitting position. She paused for the barest moment, her intact hand brushing against her leg, as though to reassure herself of it's tangibility. The pain was already fleeing her body, and she was starting to be able to think clearly again. Or as close to clearly as she could manage in such a state.

From there, she managed to curl her legs beneath herself, wincing as she managed to rise for the miraculous third time. It put her in front of him, well within reach, and far too close for comfort. It felt strange to be putting weight on a limb that she wasn't entirely convinced was there, but she pushed that thought from her mind and focused on the problem at hand. Her eyes, wary and scared, though they hadn't lost the last tinge of defiance, fixed on his as she waited for him to act. It was time to accept the inevitable, and hope that the fact that she had fought as hard as she could would be enough to protect herself with.

[Forsaken]

As she stands before him, Somriad gazes at her with his eerily empty expression for a long moment. Though he was impossible to read accurately at the best of times, he would seem almost disappointed. As though he would have preferred it if she'd continued to defy him, given him reasons to cripple her physical frame before he went after her mind. He would have greatly enjoyed that release, but it was no longer the correct one. A single drop of deep blue creeps back into each of his eyes, flaws in the perfectly black orbs. With irrefutable clarity he remembers his official reason for being here.

This time, he will be sure not to lose sight of it. It was his practice to take the most from those who fought him most, and he wasn't about to let his habit slide now.

First, he would rape her. Then he would plunder her mind. Only then could he allow himself to break her physically...but that was a luxury not to be enjoyed here. He would call forth the entire population of Manticore to enjoy her final destruction along with him. After all, he could only be labeled as selfish if he kept such a grand, final scene behind closed doors.

To Rena he murmurs; "Much better...", and closes one hand around her wrist, pulling her viciously into him. The other, he grasps firmly and twists behind her back. The result is a strange and fierce embrace. "Look around at our own personal stars, Rena. Until I am through here, they will remain for your..." He pauses, carefully searching for the perfect word in a brief pause that clearly signaled it's insincerity. "enjoyment. You would do us both a great disservice if you gave them cause to fall." He gaze assaults her own with bitter darkness as he looks down upon her, searching for her reaction.

[The Imfamous AKA]

She hated his eyes, but refused to take her eyes from them. As threatening as they were, they were the perfect anchor for her hatred--and if she had something to concentrate on, maybe she would be able to protect herself better. She tensed as he tugged her to him, expecting something harsher in his touch than simply pinning her to his body, but she most certainly did not relax once there. If anything, she stiffened even further, like a board under his hands. She knew that loose muscles were less easily damaged, but he was past the stage of simply hurting her.

His words were only rewarded with the slightest sneer--one that didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes were cold, though how such bright, warm colors could turn so cold was a mystery. All she was concerned about now was keeping her mind intact through his torment. His pretty words made no difference to that, though she wondered when he would let the flames fall--when he was through raping her, or through torturing her in general. She didn't want to find out, but in a way, she did. When she found out, it would be over, at least for the time being.

She didn't particularly care for his question, but knew better than to not answer it as he strove for a reaction. It didn't help that even the pain he was threatening her with, had already inflicted, she still couldn't keep the defiance, the absolute disdain for the creature before her, from her attitude, and, by extension, words. "Your stars," she murmured, never taking her eyes from his to look about the room at their own little galaxy, as he bade her to do. "My hell."

[Forsaken]

The Guardian laughs softly at her last line. "Hell is known to be a lovely place to those who appreciate fire's heat and blazing glory. For fire, as you may know, releases all that is unpleasant and, through doing so, brings about renewal." His tone is patiently instructive. It would seem that, once again, he has assumed the role of wise master to a particularly dim student.

Then he whispers conspiratorially to her. "Fight me if you are so inclined, but know that exhausted resources only leave a fortress susceptible to defeat." A strange warning so saturated with the poisons of double meaning and hidden motive that it would be hard to digest. He gives her little enough time to do so, for he has begun to pace backward toward his improvised pallet, pulling her with him. Behind him, the small flames expand to accommodate him as he passes through, closing behind Rena as she is forced to follow. It took precious little time for them to reach the stage of her downfall.

Abruptly, he releases her, the blue flames rushing in to enclose Rena in a glittering cylinder as Somriad slips out of the rich sapphire satin of his outer robe and drapes it on the cold pallet he has constructed. Then he turns back and reaches again for her, and the flames scatter like a graceful flock of startled birds, allowing him to enclose his hand over her right wrist and pull her toward him with no harm done. His actions then are startling coming from a man whose every movement seemed so deliberate and carefully thought out. He pulls Rena around sharply in a motion that lifts her into the air and drops her hard on the pallet. Then he is abruptly on top of her, with all the deadly swiftness of a striking viper. He closes one hand around her throat and bears down with enough pressure to force her to struggle for her next breath.

"You must regret the damage you have done so senselessly to my visage. For now, as I take everything from you, you will not even have the comfort of a beautiful face."