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Hahhhhhhaaaa I’m bacckkkkkkk

I am also way too lazy right now to respond to anyone in any way whatsoever so y’all are awesome, this is awesome, I’m currently dying inside and that’s awesome too.

I’m tired.

Can you tell? XD

Okay mooooving on.

Also @rose-colored-fancy I love your new pfp. Beautifulness. 😀

Niarok

Niarok helped Yila off the floor, and they slowly walked back to the group. He could practically feel her climbing behind her shell and shoring up her walls.

She was the silent Shadow again.

Niarok wondered if she’d ever open up with anyone besides him, but he also figured that wasn’t important. At least she had one person.

A person that wouldn’t kill her for her guilt.

Why did they kill “mad” Shadows?

They were apparently just bent on destroying every person who had a heart?

Yep. That sounded about right.

Niarok shook his head slightly. When did he get this pessimistic?

Right. They were trapped in a castle that seemed to want to pit them against each other, his sister was having extreme flashbacks, he was having flashbacks, and they were all in a mess.

That pretty much explained things.

Wow. I need to stop.

Just then the light from the main room’s torches and fires appeared ahead and Yila visibly straightened.

Her eyes locked into their distant ice and she looked every bit the part of a Shadow.

Niarok lowered his eyes.

How had it come to this?

As they emerged from the tunnel, there was a crackling noise. Niarok stiffened and Yila’s hand flew to a knife.

“That was extremely disappointing,” came the chilling metallic voice. “You are all so kind; so trusting. So…forgiving! This next one should cure you of that.”

Niarok groaned and set an arrow to the string. It probably wouldn’t do much shooting it at an inanimate object, but he was past the point of caring. This had to be the most draining thing he’d ever experienced.

“Assassins, three–or should I say five? Klein and Basil surprised me by classing themselves with the other assassins. I would have classed them as weapons…biologically enhanced, and all.”

Niarok raised an eyebrow. Okay…

This was getting extremely out of hand. People weren’t weapons. 

He growled, and Yila’s muscles hardened under her skin. She was a terrifying picture of death, and Niarok smiled grimly. If it could be harmed at all, the castle had definitely chosen the wrong group of people to play with.

“Anyway, moving on.

Assassins, three.

Weapons, two.

Murderers, two.”

Niarok gritted his teeth. Yila was definitely among that number, and that just served to increase his anger.

But who was the other one? Misu? Certainly not. Leytera? Impossible. Qatar, perhaps? If he had been anyone else, Niarok would have betted on him, but there was something too… protectively broken in the man for him to be a murderer.

That left Quin.

No.

An involuntary participant in a terrible disaster, but certainly not a murderer.

Niarok tightened his grip on the bow. This was about to get very, very ugly.

“Yila–the Shadow.”

Niarok almost exploded. Even though it was clear that everyone already knew that, no one called his sister out like that. No one.

Yila was still in a spring-ready crouch, but her head was turned to one side and her eyes were squeezed shut.

The castle had just rubbed salt in a very open wound, and Niarok barely held himself in check.

He was going to tear this castle down brick by accursed brick.

But who was the other?

“Quin Lieland Miller!”

Niarok nearly dropped his bow. Quin? Impossible.

Liar. The castle is a liar. Why am I not surprised?

“Liar!” Basil screamed, and Niarok raised his eyebrows.

This was bad. Very bad.

Especially when Quin nearly fell off the rock he was sitting on in the throes of a panic attack. The flashback was clearly intense and Niarok wanted nothing more than to murder this castle.

He’d never felt this much concentrated hatred towards one person or thing. Not even the man who had killed his father.

Basil sprang forward and death-gripped Quin’s shoulder.

“Stop it!” he yelled.  “You’re not going to listen to it, are you?  Don’t you know it’s lying?”

Niarok winced. Underneath the man’s anger, he could see terror. White-hot fear that had been suppressed but ever present.

He shivered.

He’d seen that look in the eyes of his cousin, right before he was smote by his own arrow.

Niarok closed his eyes, lowering his bow.

He couldn’t do this.

“You have no right to accuse him,” Aydin’s accented voice snapped.

Niarok glanced at the former assassin.

He definitely had the right idea, though he’d probably pay the consequences. Niarok vowed he wouldn’t let the man face them alone.

“Him? I have as much right to accuse him as I have to accuse you,” the Castle stated as though it were commenting on the weather. The voice carried an undertone of extreme perturbation, and Niarok gritted his teeth.

Yes, that’s it. Come out and fight.

“There is a difference between accusing the guilty and accusing the innocent. The former is justice, the latter is cruelty,” Aydin snapped back, emerging from the shadows. His shoulders were erect, though his gaze was distant. He wasn’t looking at Quin, he was looking at a memory. Defending a memory. Niarok knew the feeling.

“You know about cruelty, don’t you?” the Castle’s voice came, though it was low and cunning. Niarok narrowed his eyes. It was trying to prey on Aydin’s discernment, but it was clearly failing. The man had seen more than it knew.

“I’ve been on both ends and I never will again. Leave us alone,” Aydin said, and he didn’t flinch under the heavy hand of the Castle. He stood still as a stone with his hand shoved into his pocket in a way that seemed noble, not fearful.

Niarok couldn’t help wondering what kind of a warrior he would have been if the assassins hadn’t caught him first. And if whatever had possibly occurred to his hand hadn’t occurred to his hand.

“What are you going to do about it? You don’t know what I am and you don’t know what I’m capable of,” the Castle retorted, and Niarok glared up at the ceiling. He was going to kill it.

“Do I genuinely look like I care?” Aydin snapped, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You should,” the voice snapped, its annoyance at a breaking point, and crackled away.

The silence was heavy even though Basil was talking to Quin.

Niarok made a point not to listen to their conversation which did not look like it was going well.

Yila stood from her crouch, her body relaxed.

But her eyes displayed the tension within, raging hot beneath her ice.

She was fighting an impossible war, and Niarok wished he could help her fight it.

He squeezed her shoulder, and she glanced at him.

I can’t do this, her eyes whispered.

I know. Neither can I, he replied.

Well great. Some help that’s going to be.

Niarok smirked, but the smile held no mirth. Only dry, cold sadness that had been overused and worn down to a crackled shred. He was sick of this.

He replaced the arrow in the quiver and slung his bow over his shoulder, walking along the shadowy wall to reach the shadows that Aydin was once again hiding in.

He found the man sitting with his back to the wall, left hand still unconsciously gripping Yila’s knife.

Niarok sat down a few feet from him, silent and waiting.

“Your sister will want this,” Aydin said, his voice cold from self-deprication.

He slid the knife across the floor, and Niarok caught it.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

Aydin looked at him like he was expecting him to leave and not quite sure if he wanted him to or not, but Niarok had already decided to be stubborn.

He wasn’t going anywhere until Aydin was willing to talk.

 

GuYs NiArOk is AcTiNg WeiRDdddd

Sorry you know those days when your character is just like “aaannd now I’m going to have a weird mood swing and you’re not going to know what to do about it!”

Yeah.

@rose-colored-fancy up to you how you want this to work. Obviously if Aydin silently pleads with Niarok to leave him alone, Niarok will…

Okay now I’m going to pull Leytera out and drop Evie in because I’m bored and I’d like to do that instead of sleeping so… XD