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@denali-christianson

I noticed a really interesting contrast between the way Aydin told his history and how Niarok told his. Aydin almost exclusively spoke in third person, leaving himself out of the story completely, while Niarok owned up to his backstory.

I think it’s also because Aydin won’t accept it, he’s trying so hard to reject his history that he can’t bear to associate himself with it, while Niarok accepts that it happened and and that there’s nothing he can do about it.

Aydin

Now they all knew. They knew everything except that I couldn’t use my right hand anymore, and it wouldn’t take long for them to figure that out as well.

My heart was pounding and it was hard to hold myself together. Niarok spoke next, his voice sounded distant.

“My whole family was part of a secret order risen from the ancient wizards, law-keepers and justice warriors.” His voice was even and controlled, as though the story was just a part of history.

“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.”

His voice caught and I shuddered, crossing my arms tighter. I had found that out too. That first time I killed someone a part of me had died and I’d never get it back.

Niarok gathered himself and continued.

“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.”

Of course they had. You didn’t leave. You never left.

I should have died that day. If only I had.

Our stories were eerily similar. I refused to think about how similar.

“Confirmed kills…” he was now obviously struggling not to fall apart. “Ten. Unconfirmed kills, fifteen.”

He looked away and took a sip of water. It didn’t properly hide the tears glistening in his eyes.

“I need to check on my sister,” he said quietly, then turned and left.

I was still trembling but I refused to let anyone see it.

I pressed my back against the stone wall and absently picked up the dagger Yila had intended to end my life with.

I turned it over and over, it was beautiful, the smooth curve of the steel perfectly balanced.

Assassination was the art of a thousand deaths. Not only when a knife found a target or a poison finally completed its work, but the way you died a thousand times before it stopped aching.

Niarok hadn’t deserved that. He had quit out of love for people, out of moral objections. It was heroic in a twisted way.

I had slunk out of it like the coward I was.

My left hand tightened on the knife, gripping the cold metal.

I had been afraid. I’d been afraid I’d become like them. I’d been afraid that one day the blood wouldn’t make me sick, that wiping blood off a knife would one day be as natural a movement as breathing, that I could look someone in the eye and kill them anyway.

I’d been afraid I would become like my father.

I’d taken the coward’s way out. Cautious sabotage, hoping nobody would notice as I changed the doses and diluted the poison. Who cared if I’d saved a life here or there, I’d only done it out of selfish motives.

I had been sixteen and furious at the world and furious at everything they’d driven me to and desperate enough to do anything to destroy them. Until they killed that part of me too. I’d died a thousand deaths and I’d die a thousand more before this was over.

What was I now? What would they take next? What did I have left to destroy? They’d taken my innocence and my morals, then they’d taken my anger, my spirit and my mind, and finally my strength and my love had found their graves and there was nothing left to lose.

They hadn’t killed those parts of me. I’d done it myself. All of it was a natural consequence of my actions and I hated myself for it.

I heard the faintest motion and looked up, ready for anything. It was Quin. He shot me a look so filled with fear I felt sick to my stomach. That was who I was and that was who I would always be. It was the only way people would ever look at me.

I looked back at the knife idle in my hand and wished I could become invisible. I was so tired of this. I was so tired of being hated.

Niarok still hadn’t returned. I was only distantly worried. He could take care of himself, he was probably one of the most capable people here. Besides that, he was one of the few genuinely kind ones. Kind people were the rarest, and nothing in his past could change that.

The walls were on fire again and there was no way to stop it, so I sat back and watched the flames.

________

I warned y’all it was going to be dark XD

Just to be clear, that part about the walls being on fire is a hallucination again 😉