The Burning

Chapter Seven

Arsika had exhausted Advisor Duskingdawn completely. The blonde could not be coerced to awaken no matter what Arsika tried, and the elf merely lay curled up on the bed, wet, sticky, and unconcious. She still had plenty of lust left in her, but she also hungered for a new form of entertainment, and she planned to try to sate this hunger with the same energy as she had the previous mere moments ago, in bed. But then she encountered Aerai out here in the room outside her own. It was dark in here, with the windows boarded up, and it being three in the morning, but she still knew that Aerai was there. Her heightened senses told her so. So she now stood and waited for Aerai to speak, as her friend had said she needed to talk. However, mentally she was going over the possibilities, evaluating the situation, and trying to figure out what this could be about. There was a slight unease in her, nagging at the easy confidence she had possessed since shortly after the encounter in the Foothills Cave. She didn't know why she was worried, but her instincts told her something unpleasant could result from this meeting.

Aerai collected her thoughts, and formulated how to word what she needed to say. She had been working on a speech the entire time she had been waiting for Arsika to finish her playing and emerge from the room, as she had known the red-head would, but now that she was standing here facing her old friend, someone she knew and cared about, it didn't seem nearly as simple as the formulaic point-by-point explanation for why Arsika was going to have to suffer something akin to Hell in a few moments. Eventually she decided that simplicity was best, and she looked up at Arsika, studying the features of her travelling companion as she never had before, locking the details away in her mind lest they be lost.

"The magic you absorbed in the cave was that of Sargeras, the Dark Titan."
"I am aware of this." Arsika said swiftly. Aerai nodded.
"Sargeras is called the Dark Titan, because he was one of the creators of the cosmos, the Titans, who turned to darkness when he was corrupted."
"Yes, I know." Arsika once more answered quickly. Aerai continued.
"He is an evil influence. The embodiment of power corrupting the one who possesses it."
"Yes, yes, please get to the point." The red-head said irritably. Aerai was not put off by this rudeness and proceeded.
"He is evil. He corrupts all he touches." Then one of Aerai's hands raised, palm up, and a ball of light formed over it, brightening the room and revealing what Aerai had hoped not to find. Arsika had two shadows. Quietly the Mage said, "And he is inside of you."

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Arrwynn had fallen asleep propped up against the side of the barn. She dreamed that she was standing on an island in the middle of an endless ocean of red water. In the sky, countless planets hung in a black void. One by one they were engulfed in fire, and destroyed. To her left, Arsika stood, surrounded by flames, and the bodies of all those she cared about were strewn about at the red-head's feet. To her right, there was a tower of green stone lying in ruins, and a light so intense, so perfect, so right, that she could feel it with every fiber of her being, hanging above the ruins, casting a healing glow on a panorama of cities and people and places, touching everything with divine radiance, but there was a monument, a grave, standing untouched in the middle of the sea of images. Directly in front of her, a hooded figure stood, hands spread apart. One hand towards Arsika and the fire and the dead, one towards the light, and the tower, and the grave. Overhead, the burning of worlds crept closer.

"Choose," said the hooded figure. It was Aerai's voice, and it sounded urgent somehow. The piece of land that Arsika was on, along with the fire, began to seperate from Arrwynn's island, as did the land with the tower and the grave. The dirt sloughed off her island, and her own perch deteriorated rapidly, threatening to plunge her into the water. "Choose." Aerai said again, and the two seperate pieces of land continued to drift away from Arrwynn. 'Choose what?' She tried to ask, but no sound came from her mouth. "Choose!" Aerai ordered more urgently than before, and Arrwynn looked back and forth between the two choices, not knowing what to do. The ground was quickly vanishing from beneath her. She would soon have nowhere to stand. She couldn't choose. As the last piece of earth disappeared underneath her feet, she fell screaming towards the water.

And she awoke with a jolt. Looking around wildly it took her a moment to realize where she was. She was cold, and dew had gathered on her while she slept, but she was not being ordered to choose between two things she didn't understand, and Aerai was nowhere to be seen. She took a moment to calm herself and regain her senses, and wondered what, if anything, the dream had meant. It had been so strange, and nothing like what she ordinarily dreamed. Rubbing her hands on her face to try to wake up a bit, Arrwynn got to her feet and started heading towards the church, as the events of the previous day slowly returned to her. Her fear had not abated while she slept, and when she thought of the monstrous energy now residing in Arsika, it was all she could do not to bolt into the darkness and hide somewhere like a child. Making her way past delapitated houses, ruined businesses, empty stables, to the abandoned church, she sat on one of the pews that had not been broken or flipped over, and considered what she had been taught about Sargeras.

Everything seemed to point to him being utterly evil, intent on destroying entire worlds, and having done so more than once. What did that mean then? That Arsika was going to try to destroy the planet? The concept seemed laughable at first, since she knew even with Arsika's power increase she did not have the capability to ruin a planet on her own. Yet she couldn't be left alone and allowed to plot, could she? Arrwynn tried to figure out what, if anything, she could or should do, and almost wished she was still in her dream. At least there she had two choices to pick from, and even if she didn't understand them, she at least knew that she had a choice. Here in the real world, things weren't that clear. Sighing, Arrwynn wondered how her husband was doing.

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"So that's it?" Arsika asked with a smirk. "You think I've been corrupted? That I'm evil?" She didn't seem insulted or put out by the suggestion, though there was an undercurrent of tension in her voice and body language. Aerai shook her head.
"No, I don't. At least not yet. There's still time."
"Time for what?" Arsika snapped, abruptly angry. "What do you think you can do? Sargeras's power is within me now. It's too late. And maybe it's better this way. Maybe I deserve this power. Maybe I was meant to have it! With the strength I have now, I could do so much!"
"What could you do?" Aerai inquired calmly. Starting to pace back and forth, Arsika's voice raised as she gestured with her hands while she spoke.
"I could greatly aid the war effort, for one thing. Those filthy Darnassians wouldn't stand a chance against us with the power at my disposal! I could burn those barbarians off the face of the planet! Destroy the treacherous humans! Rid this planet of all the vermin that infest it! I could--"
"Since when have you been interested in genocide?" Aerai interrupted Arsika's rant. The red-head stopped in mid-step, turning to look at Aerai with surprise. "Well? Since when did you have any desire to kill all the Darnassians? The humans? ANY other species?" Arsika seemed to wobble a bit, as though off-balance.
"Well, I--" She started, but Aerai interrupted again.
"You've never been part of any racial purges! You usually avoid getting more involved in the war than you have to! You've always wanted to help people by learning all you could and using that knowledge to make the world a better place!"
"I..." Arsika looked down at her hands.
"This isn't you, Arsika." Aerai said quietly.
Arsika looked up from her hands. She seemed confused, but still defiant, straightening up and saying with a quiver in her voice, "I could use this power to help."
"How?"
"I--I could cure our race's magic addiction!" Arsika, in her mind, saw this as a worthy goal, and started to build up the determination to achieve it, but Aerai derailed her thoughts.
"By doing what? What would you do with the power of Sargeras to cure our addiction? Would you give the power you possess to every sin'dorei? Would you be able to seperate yourself from this precious Dark Titan power, and willingly hand over even a fraction of it to one other living being?"
"I... I don't..." Arsika tried to come up with some counter to that, but she realized internally that she wouldn't willingly part with the power she now had. She couldn't. She enjoyed it too much.
"Sargeras's power is not a cure, it's a corruption. Don't ever think it's anything else." Aerai said seriously.
Arsika's lips tightened as she looked into Aerai's green eyes with her own, and tried to muster the last defiance she could, even her mind and emotions were set into turmoil at the assault of her friend's words. "It cured me."
Arsika flinched back, then, when Aerai verbally exploded, angrily demanding, "At what cost!?" Arsika stuttered out, "W-what do you--?"
"What was that about earlier with the lion?" Aerai prodded, aware that she was winning this battle, that she had Arsika almost beaten mentally. Arsika winced at the memory of what had happened with that mountain lion, and didn't respond. "What were you about to do when you left your room? What would have happened if I hadn't stopped you?" She persisted. Arsika still refused to speak. She didn't have an answer. Or rather, she did, but she didn't like it.

She knew that the hunger that had appeared in her after her love making session with Duskingdawn was the hunger for blood. She had planned to go out and find things to fight. To hurt. To kill. She wanted to test out her abilities, and marvel at her own greatness. Arsika knew that all that Aerai had said was true, but the darkness inside of her was still raw and unrestrained, engulfing her thoughts, trying to turn her completely to its methods. She could not find it within herself, no matter how hard she tried, to resist the darkness. The magic was too sweet to give up. She knew there had to be a light inside of her, a true self somewhere that could fight Sargeras's influence, but that light, that hope, was lost in the shadows that had taken up residence in her being, and all of her strength and skill in magic could not save her.

Aerai seemed to realize the kind of turmoil that the red-head in front of her was in, and sighed, hating herself for what she was about to do. She had hoped to bring her out of it with words alone, to inspire the emotions needed to fight off the corruption, but the hold on her by Sargeras' essence was already deeper than she had thought, and she knew there was no other method available to her. "I want to help you be free," she tried once more, delaying action, even though she knew that doing so risked not only her friend but many more lives. "Let me help you." Aerai said as she stepped forward. This was the wrong move, as Arsika, who had seemed on the verge of snapping out of it, suddenly whipped her head up, and narrowed her eyes at Aerai.
"Help me? How do you plan to help me? And why? What makes you think I need your 'help'? If I decide that it's necessary to be rid of this power, then I'll do it myself. In the meantime, don't get in my way, or you might get hurt." She pushed past Aerai, and started heading towards the stairs, but stopped when Aerai called out to her.
"Wait!"
"What is it?" Arsika asked, her back still to Aerai, not walking away, but not coming back. Aerai sighed as though defeated.
"You're right. You need to do what you think is best. But if you plan to use this power to help people, then at least let me give you a blessing." Aerai looked at Arsika with an expression of sadness, and put as much honesty and reluctant acceptance into her voice as possible.
"A blessing?" Arsika asked as she turned around, and eyed Aerai suspiciously. Aerai nodded energetically, and smiled, relying on Arsika being as muddled by the darkness inside of her as she hoped she was to pull this off. Arsika, indeed, sought to try to find some objection, some trick, in Aerai's words, or actions, but though the obvious one, that Aerai wasn't a priestess and didn't grant blessings, was right there in front of her face, she completely overlooked it, as the same dark energy that tried to dominate her contributed to the impairment of her logic. Arsika, not finding any reason not to believe Aerai, shrugged, and nonchalantly walked back over to her friend, waiting for the blessing.
"Thank you," Aerai said as she smiled sadly, and held her left hand up in front of her face, fingers vertical, palm facing to the right, and prepared herself to do something she had hoped never to have to do. "I'll see you in a moment."

Arsika had only a couple seconds to think about what an odd thing that was for Aerai to say, and then just before the index finger of Aerai's other hand came into contact with her forehead, danger instincts flared in her that warned her something that was a threat was building in Aerai. Before she could react, however, the finger touched her skin, and Arsika's world exploded into agony.

The magic filling her, the Mana of deepest pitch, tore itself from the outer layers of her skin, where it had begun to insinuate itself, and recoiled inwards. The darkness retreated deeper into her body, every speck of her that it abandoned being filled with pain, until it was coiled into a tiny ball of blackness at her core. Then came the chains. Chains of magic flowed into Arsika, and wrapped themselves around the dark sphere, sinking into and merging with the ball, and leaving runes etched on its surface. When it was all over, the pain dulled, and awareness flooded back into Arsika's mind. The Blood Elf was lying on the floor, feeling cold, feeling sore, feeling exhausted, like she had run around the entire world a thousand times, and never stopped to rest until now. She felt the power that had filled her bound at the center of her being. But the feeling she noticed the most was that of hunger. Hunger for magic. Her addiction had returned, not only not sated, but demanding sustenance more strongly than she had ever felt it. Despite the pain of hunger for magic, she thrilled at its return, and realized that as great as that fulfillment had been when she embraced the darkness, she had missed the desire to consume magic. It had been with her for her entire life. It was a part of her, and to lose it was to lose part of herself.

She was shaking as she took in all that had happened, all she had done while influenced by Sargeras' essence, and the fact that even now she could feel the darkness beginning to stir within its prison, and knew that this was not over. Tears ran out of her emerald eyes as she began crying, releasing all the pain, all the hurt that filled her soul until it could no longer be contained, and overflowed. Aerai was there on the floor with her, putting Arsika's head in her lap, and stroking her hair, while whispering to her to calm her down. Eventually, Arsika settled, and though still sniffling, Aerai helped the exhausted Blood Elf back into her room, and helped her to curl up on the bed with Advisor Duskingdawn, and covered them both with the covers. Arsika was asleep almost immediately, but Aerai still waited a few minutes to make sure everything was going to remain calm after she left.

The black-haired elf then departed the room in the inn, and went down the stairs, having to use the handrail to avoid falling down them. What she had just done had been very taxing. It was tiring for an Arch-Mage, and she was no Arch-Mage. But it had to be done. Leaving the inn, she saw that it was nearing morning. "One problem down," she muttered to herself. "Now for problem number two." Then she began looking for Arrwynn.

-----------End Chapter Seven-----------