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Nathair (contin.):

 

With age comes understanding. Or maybe just deceitfulness.

Day in and day out, Yasha come in. And for some reason Nathair went along with it – even enjoyed it. He just talked, told Nathair what he should be doing and that was annoying but…at least someone was talking to him instead of at him. It was endless babbling honestly – some kid stole his lunch he’d have to kill him (that was a joke, he promised) one day he’d be alpha or he’d be king and he’d conquer the lands and rule and eat cakes all day, maybe one day he’d be a hero and save the world from the entire cult.

Nathair didn’t really think much of that. He didn’t care if he ever became a hero or got all the power he could. No, he was desperately clinging to the paper-thin ideal that he would never lose himself to the killing, he’d never lose his humanity. They could try to make a monster out of him but one day he’d escape and there’d be no more killing, no more blood on his hands. He’d just have a quiet, peaceful life.

But that was of course, just an elysian illusion…

 

Training started once they realized their perfect little weapon was behaving. He’d decided to play along – thanks to Yasha – just long enough to find a way out. That’s how you play the game after all.

It took ten years before they stopped bothering to chain him again at the end of every lesson. Another five before he was allowed to roam freely through the buildings.

By then Yasha wasn’t some idol or monster, he was…unpredictable and scary but he was a friend. Maybe more, maybe a part of Nathair’s sanity.

 

Clit-clatter

He could hear all the noises now, they stopped bothering to drug him constantly. Pairs of two held matches in the expansive grey hall, in the dark dimly lit with blurry, flickery blue fire. In a corner there’s some group playing cards again. Another clit-clatter of dice.

All the students who survive past fifteen were there to stay they’d get some privileges and freedoms if they earned it, they didn’t train in the halls anymore that was too basic too clean. So Nathair was “free” for the day, he’d earned it from his last mission.

Not that there was much to do other than train and play cards and get entangled in school-drama. Nathair hated all his peers and they hated him so he stayed away from everyone and waited for Yasha.

 

Stitches.

Nathair was scared of needles so Yasha kept trying to get him to sew. He’d already bonded with needles. The advanced students bonded with items and that enhanced their powers. But again, Nathair had a useless power and he was a late bloomer.

He couldn’t stand needles, he couldn’t stand holding them, he couldn’t stand thinking about them. Every cold sensation felt like a prickling snap through his bones again. Over and over again, Nathair punctured this doll he attempted to make. It looked loosely like his father and he kept stabbing it over and over and over and over and over, almost soothingly if his actions weren’t so stiff and frenetic.

Maybe memories were seeping into every stab maybe not, it wasn’t like he could use his power on himself. But it was almost like with every stab the emotions, the sensations faded to anesthesia.

“So…what’s that supposed to be?” The voice behind him made Nathair jump as a hand clamped on his head, ruffling his hair.

“Hey would you stop that!” Nathair snapped at the sparkling dark eyes. He huffed at Yasha like he wanted to strangle him – well that’s what he thought he looked like, he actually looked like an indignant puppy.

“Come on it’s shiny.” Yasha said and mock-smirked. “besides you can’t make me.”

Mmph. Nathair jabbed him in the stomach and pounced him with a growl. It knocked Yasha to the floor, but not before he dragged Nathair with him. They rolled, cackling with laughter. Then Yasha pinned him.

“Ack, get off!” Nathair complained, slightly miffed he never won a tussling match.

“Crybaby,” Yasha grinned, but got off him. Nathair swatted him on the head the moment he was up.

“Yeah yeah, kiss a ghoul.” Nathair grumbled…before remembering he was a half ghoul. That was awkward, hopefully Yasha didn’t notice. Nathair squinted at him suspiciously with exaggerated sass. “What’ve you been up to anyway?”

“Pft, murder.” Yasha snorted, propping himself on his elbows with a sigh. “when I take over we’ll run the world, and run it proper, huh? Nobody pushin’ us around.”

Yasha kept saying those words, he always did, but he actually meant them. It was a desperate, dying dream but not as ideal as Nathair’s. More realistic as always. They wouldn’t get out, might as well aim to get powerful and in that way, more comfortable.

“We could always just go,” Nathair muttered “run away to some place no one will ever find us again…start a new life…all over…”

He continued to jab the doll in his hands, staring down and sounding casual like he was maybe just joking. Yasha laughed brittlely.

“Right, and draekons’ll eat grass,” He said. “look, there’s nowhere to go, where would you go? Even if there was we’re weapons now, you get that? You don’t know how to do anything else I don’t know how to do anything else that’s over. You don’t…you wouldn’t be useful to them they’d just call us monsters and try to kill us, and what? You’ll just get out…of life?”

It just doesn’t work that way.”

“Yeah…it was a stupid thought…” Nathair went along with a shrug.

“Yeah, it was,” He laughed a little and jostled Nathair’s shoulder. “You outgrow it after a few years.”

Nathair didn’t mention how he’d already started trying to build a false identity outside during missions on the chance he might use it when he did escape, how carefully he planned a route to the North, which was far away from the current politics, or how he kept up studies as a wizard to have a profession that would excuse whatever “quirks” he didn’t manage to cover up. No, he didn’t mention any of that. After all, it was just a silly dream somewhere in the distant future.

So he just kept stabbing the frazzled, broken doll, mumbling an old nursery rhyme under his breath to distract himself from the needle in his hand. He could still feel it in his spine, in every bone of his body it was driving him mad.

“Hey so what’s that?” Yasha asked, perching on Nathair’s shoulder. Nathair jumped but Yasha already made a grab for the doll and got it before he could stop him.

“Ahh!!”

Nathair jerked around to snatch the item back but all at once Yasha started screaming, writhing on the floor. Inhuman screams that curdled his blood and froze his very marrow. Nobody around them made a move, they kept training, terrified to stop. Screams weren’t unusual, but there were looks. Yasha was powerful.

Nathair saw red even as he panicked, shaking his deathly pale friend viciously. In his haste he knocked the doll out of Yasha’s hand. He felt like dead weight, his skin was cold, foam on the corners of his lips but the screaming stopped when the stupid toy was out of reach.

Yasha’s body was stiff, so cold Nathair had never felt that kind of chill on any person pre rigor mortis. But maybe that was just his imagination. Maybe it wasn’t real.

He didn’t make a sound, nobody would help and anybody who came would do it for sport. Shock was blocking his mind from anything he could say, think or do. He just clutched Yasha and kept shaking him.

Yasha wasn’t still, he was trembling, but Nathair couldn’t tell if there was any life left. Then he could hear heavy, shaky panting. His eyelids fluttered some but…

Then Yasha bolted upright coughing and shivering madly, eyes bloodshot like a psychotic animal.

“The devil did you do to that thing!?!” He slurred in a screech.

“I didn’t do anything!” Nathair pleaded but Yasha started laughing like a maniac.

“The devil you didn’t stop me from grabbing it!?” He exclaimed in a hysterical voice. “Nice trick, you could play a pretty good game with that one. What’d you do, blend your ability with magic?”

“I-I don’t know what it did I didn-I didn’t do tha-“ Before he could finish Yasha clapped him on the shoulder and shook him.

“Next time, fair warning, ok?” He shook his head, clamping a hand over his eye. “Ugh…needles.”

He said the last word in a whisper like he was trying to keep Nathair from hearing it but he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to succeed.

“So,” Yasha looked him over seriously then. “you can project memories on dolls now, make people reexperience things? That’s useful, I knew I kept you for a reason. Who are you gonna use it on?”

“I…uh…I don’t know- I don’t know yet wh–“

“Right right,” Yasha swallowed with a wave of his hand. “You work on that, got it? Ha, that might put you in the favorite weapons list, like me, that’ll help you climb higher. I’ll tell you when I’ll need it.”

“…sure.”

“I’ma get a drink.” Yasha groaned and used Nathair as a prop to stumble to his feet. Then he staggered off.

Nathair glanced at the offending doll…with tattered brown eyes (the Necromancer’s eyes were blue…that’s what he’d drawn…Maybe the color had been burned out or distorted with the frays?)

The tiny stitches of the mouth seemed to almost be twitched upward just every so slightly.

And there was a tiny red drop, the size of a pinprick touching the fabric.

 

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