Activity

Oh oops. I just realized I started spelling Aydin’s name wrong at some point…

Niarok

As Niarok took a step towards Aydin, he saw a spark of anger and hatred in the man’s eyes, something he’d never seen before.

He stopped.

He needed to think this through. Aydin either had some completely unknown reason for hating Niarok and just hadn’t shown it until now, or he hated himself and therefore was angry that Niarok hadn’t let Yila kill him.

He chose to go with the latter of the two, hoping he was right.

Meaning his next statement wouldn’t help that much, but he knew civility was the only constructive thing to do right now.

“I know you may not believe me, but I don’t hate you,” he said quietly.

Aydin smiled. He smiled. It was the most derisive, hopeless thing Niarok had ever seen, and he resisted the urge to flinch. This wasn’t going to be easy, and he hated the castle so much for it.

“If you don’t see anything wrong with what I did you’re worse than I am,” he said. His eyes begged Niarok to just give in and hate him already.

Niarok opened his mouth to speak, but a bellow interrupted his sentence.

“Idiots, knock it off!” Klein yelled. Niarok spun to face him, but not before he saw the slightest miniscule flinch in Aydin’s posture.

He shut his eyes. This was a disaster of the highest proportions.

“Look at yourselves,” Klein snapped. At least someone was addressing the other half of the problem. “You go and try to kill each other just because you learned the other is an assassin like you. After all we’ve gone through. Think about it. Y’all could have been killed a dozen times over but you weren’t. This… entity is trying to pit y’all against each other for sport.”

“What’s new?” Aydin snarled, voice cold and biting.

Niarok shook his head. Klein was right, in his own way. Niarok certainly hadn’t been trying to kill Aydin, and Aydin hadn’t been trying to kill him either. He hoped. Lorcan was just standing there passively. He apparently figured that since everyone already knew who he was there was nothing to be concerned about.

Klein had to have been referring to Yila.

Niarok was honestly concerned that the castle hadn’t announced his sister’s name. That meant it didn’t know just general knowledge – it knew specifics. Which was absolutely terrifying, and Niarok really didn’t want to know how it knew.

Klein was still talking, and Niarok noticed his eyes were concerningly animalian. That couldn’t be natural.

“Since this has proved to be an issue, lets eliminate it,” Klein said. He was taller than most of the people in the cavern, and his eyes hit Niarok’s forehead. The man was huge.

He sat down, like he was preparing to tell a long story by the campfire. Niarok braced himself.

“My full name is Klein Mattias Gray. I’m a gunnery sergeant in United States Marine Corp, part of the Marine Raiders special forces detachment. I am a biologically enhanced soldier. I am trained as a scout sniper and shock trooper. I’ve been deployed to Iran, Afghanistan, Mars and the Asteroid belt in nearly ten years of service. I have 89 confirmed kills with nearly as many unconfirmed.”

Niarok winced. That was a lot of people dead. He hardly recognized the language. The names were unfamiliar, but that was to be expected from someone from a completely different world.

But the part about the 89 kills. That hurt. A lot.

Niarok’s mind involuntarily conjured a picture of his father, and he reeled, sitting down quickly so he wouldn’t look suddenly intoxicated.

The nightmares all came rushing back, and he shut his eyes against the terrible memories. The day that had killed not only his father but his sister as well.

He pulled himself back to the present. Aydin was speaking. He looked so broken by himself, and Niarok once again saw himself there.

“Aydin, son of nobody,” he said, his voice hesitant and quiet.

“Member of the Servane Siya for three years. Assassins,” he continued, his voice sharpening. His eyes focused on a distant point, and it seemed as though it was not him, but rather a memory of a former Aydin, speaking.

“Head poisoner. Dishonorably expelled on an accusation of sabotage.” Ayden paused, his eyes flickering. Niarok got the feeling that “dishonorably expelled” was putting it extremely lightly.

“Transferred to the lower spy corps. Worked there for a year,” Aydin resumed. “Confirmed kills–” He hesitated, as if he was trying to decide if he should speak or not. “One.”

Niarok lowered his head. It was the one.

The picture flashed before his eyes. The distant stare, the blood, the arrow perfectly lodged in the man’s heart.

No one would ever know who killed him. It was his own arrow that had drawn his life away.

He had been seventeen.

A year older than Niarok.

His cousin.

Tears stung the back of Niarok’s eyes, but he shoved them down. If they were having sharing time, he better share.

“My whole family was part of a secret order risen from the ancient wizards, law-keepers and justice warriors,” he said quietly. He dreaded speaking of his father.

“My sister was trained to be a Shadow, a ninja who can kill without feeling and disappear without a trace. I was trained in the art of assassination, and my title was Mist. I was to be able to kill anyone anywhere at anytime. My father was our primary trainer, and we saw nothing wrong with it as small children. But as I grew older I… I discovered that to kill another was to kill a part of myself. Things happened, and I chose to learn the art of poison as a guise to hide the fact I was really learning to save the people I was supposed to kill. But they discovered what I was doing, and they threatened to assassinate my family if I didn’t stop. I continued, but did so in complete secret. Then a year and a half ago, my father renounced his vow to the order. They killed him.”

Niarok lowered his head, swallowing hard and trying to keep the tears at bay. He hadn’t said everything, not by a long shot. But at least they knew the important things.

“Confirmed kills…” he trailed off, the boy’s face staring blankly into his memory. “Ten. Unconfirmed kills, fifteen.”

They were staring at him, but he didn’t care. He’d said it. He’d admitted his past, and he didn’t care. It was behind him now, and now all that mattered was regaining their trust.

He took a sip of water and shoved his emotions behind a stone face.

“I need to check on my sister,” he said quietly.

 

Okay then… I may have just broken my own heart but… that’s okay.

Yeah, there’s a WHOLE lot more to his backstory than that, but he wasn’t lying.