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"The One Who Sees"
Searlait stood away from everyone, biting down on her hand; canines tearing through the leather of her glove and then the veneer of her skin to draw forth blood in abundance. Everyone continued to look at her confused - the three Drow she had come to know (more than they expected) and the two Sunites. A dazzling array of beauty from the most exotic corners of this world - and something had gone wrong.
Searlait started to spill her blood, letting it stream from her hand to the ground in a sickening torrent. One of the Drow reached out for her bleeding hand and Searlait recoiled.
"That's MY flesh!" she screamed, drawing her hand away from the Drow and completing her circle of blood.
"What do you need?" the strong Drow asked - Iara - some voice in the back of her head mentioned - her name is Iara.
"This one needs to get home!" Searlait whined, inwardly preparing her spell, making ready to leap across the planes, "This one will return later!"
"What is your name?" Asked the third and last Drow - the two Sunites watching wordlessly, one having backed away from the insane elf.
"E! For Ecstasy."
"Truly?"
"Truly, call this one E."
And before any further interruption, she fired her focus, the spell released its energy - she could feel its power radiate outwards from her heart - foul magics of the blood invoked. The ground beneath her became insubstantial and the world began to change. Colours mixed and swirled, matter became hazy.
Searlait hastily grabbed her spider, Lelith - and even she looked surprised at the turn of events. A few more moments, and a gut wrenching feeling of being thrown a great distance, eyes closed at the disorienting feeling - one could never adapt to this. Then nothing. A stillness had taken hold of the world, but not a silence. Never silence.
She opened her eyes to the world around her, a small corner of some plane tainted by her madness and her blood. The voices came here to ask her favour, ask for her blood, scream for her, demand her, insist upon her--
"Shut UP!" she screamed at the cacophony of bodiless voices. None of them did. The elf gripped her head in her hands, struggling to drown out the voices as she usually did - focus, the key is focus. But this was not a simple task, a crisis had arisen - to her it was more terrifying than any nova, any disaster, more prominent than any tyrant seeking to dominate her, more dangerous than any psychopathic instinct. The crisis was right inside her head.
"I will kill her!"
"Don't let her do it!"
"She's not going to do it."
"I will!"
"She will! Don't call her bluff! You know as well as this one does!"
"She won't kill you. We complied!"
Searlait had sat herself down, head in her hands, rocking back and forth. A small breeze swirled about her.
"What is your problem?!"
"You know what this one's issue is! You two! Shameless! HONOURLESS!"
"So honourless that we threaten to kill our sister, no less!"
"Shut up!'
"No! Not this time!'
"We have been bullied long enough!"
The woman sat and listened to the world around her, a momentary distraction from her own mind. She ran her fingers through mussed hair, eyes wide and seeking - but only staring at the cold, dead ground. One of them dared her mind again.
"This one wants to move on."
"This one does too!"
"How can we move on? How was -that- moving on?! You mocked everything we had attained!"
"How?! As far as this can throw her understanding, you are being selfish."
"You were hanging off of our shadow-skinned cousins, slaves to your desires as they are slaves to their shadowy dance."
"Yes! We were! It's been an eternity!"
"What about Loque?!"
"LOQUE IS DEAD!"
"and I must respect him in death."
"We DO! I DO! But Loque told us to be free!"
"Actually, he told us 'Never trust a demon'."
"But we learned to live free through him! Now what is this? That one seeks to confine us again?"
"This one is not trying to confine us."
"Then what do you do?!"
"Loque was love. Forever and for ALWAYS. You say true love is forever and for always, and yet?"
"It has been an eternity! ETERNITY! Loque is dust! His soul is DUST! He was not eternal!"
"Love is forever and for--"
"We will never love another!"
"Do you not understand?!"
"No, this one does not understand."
"Clearly! Because Nicole had to pay the ultimate price for your misunderstanding!"
"Don't speak of her."
"I loved Nicole! She was us!"
"She loved another."
"We deserved that love!"
"But we do not need it!"
Searlait closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples gingerly. Some of the bodiless voices were phantasmal, ghostly and dancing around her.
"Ah?Ah?I--I just want to move on." She said aloud to the world around her, struggling to say the words against the will of another.
"This one does not! This one has been loved, and needs no more."
"Why do you insist on Loque?"
"He understood us! Me! -I-! He understood, and still loved us. Me."
"Others will love you."
"Not the same! They will love - and hate! As this one seems to."
"They will if you search!"
"We already found Loque!"
"Loque is ASH!"
"Loque is alive in memory."
"Loque would understand!'
"He would condemn our weakness without him!"
"Then he does not love us."
The world seemed to shatter.
"No, no no no - that's not what--"
"Shut up! You have killed over this before! You MURDERER! We will let others understand, but you insist on being misunderstood!"
"No! No no no!"
"Shut UP! We are moving on. We will kill you. We will be TWO instead of live with your?cruelty! We want to love!"
Searlait stood up suddenly, "I want to love!"
"--and we will not be bullied by you any longer!"
"Stop it! Stop yelling! This one hates it when you two fight! She can't see! She can't think!"
Searlait put her head in her hands and began to weep. Bitter, salty tears forced out by wracking sobs.
"All?I want to do?is?"
"Shut up."