Post by blazinvire on Jun 22, 2013 2:26:50 GMT -5
"Will you marry me?"
What an annoying memory... always back to that simple silver ring she refused to get rid of, always reminding her of that moment, but it always inevitably led to the worst moment in her living life.
His screams... so much, so loud, so blood-chilling from his monumental pain given voice. That woman destroyed him. Utterly. Made her watch -in a way, she more couldn't take her eyes off it. Then killed her like a footnote in a diary.
Just how long had it been since she'd destroyed that woman? Came back from death better than ever, hunted her across the entire planet, 'erased from existence' was the only description suitable enough.
Hell, she of all people had issues with keeping track of time, considering how useless it was when it was impossible to die, that she'd suffered a thousand deaths only to step forth from the the ashes like it hadn't happened.
Yet it was always frustrating to remember that; yet she would never throw away the one gift, the last trace of him: that simple silver ring.
Her moment in the past subsided, and Perish blinked a few times as the world came back into view around her, revealing only an empty castle in ruins with herself on the cold throne.
She'd long gotten over the depression of being unable to die, gone beyond madness, now quite nonchalant to anything the world could possibly throw at her; now, she simply did whatever pleased her, whatever kept her interest.
And right now, what pleased her was seeing the true extent of the abilities she'd earned in her undeath, which meant collecting blood in inordinate quantities. Of course that carried inherent issues that most sources of blood kind of needed said blood, and similar sources of blood grew upset when she tried harvesting.
She stood up from her throne and took powerful yet casually elegant strides along the tattered carpet to the stairs, her strange black robe sweeping with each step, and up onto the ruined balcony. Perish slightly leaned on the remnants of the railing and pushed aside some rogue locks of her brilliant white hair from her deep red eyes, her paler than marble skin reflecting the light quite spectacularly.
Blood Empress, they called her; a rather amusing moniker if anything, as she didn't particularly consider herself an Empress even though she'd been assembling something similar to an empire.
From her balcony she could see most of the land she'd effectively conquered, though it was more just an enormous prison.
In the streets, things almost looked normal from all the houses and people going about their business, but the people were pale and sorrowful, dragging their feet and staring mostly at the ground as they went about like drones. Enforcers of obsidian and constructions of bone were evenly spaced across the entire region, animated by scores of spirits each, their faceless visage a thing of nightmares.
On perhaps a positive there was no crime, no bickering or fighting all for fear of the Enforcers coming down on them in droves with lethal force -as long as they all went about their day harmlessly and gave blood, their lives were peaceful.
Though there were always that curious group that attempted to adapt and submit, that treated Perish like some deity and followed her zealously like a cult, regardless of the sorrow her reign brought.
They sought her favor and followed any careless demands from her with religious fervor, even going so far as to attempt to keep the non-religious in line -Perish didn't entirely care what they did, as long as they all contributed to the blood lake she had built beneath her castle.
Her greatest personal achievement to date was that very lake, an absolutely humongous cavern dug out of the ground beneath the castle by the labors of a legion of skeletons and slaves, building small rivers in aqueducts just under the surface about her domain for easy addition.
It was a center of tremendous power for her, as the entire basin was coated in dark necrotic symbols keeping the blood fresh and ready, she could only imagine the sheer chaos she could wreck with the amount she'd gathered already. But fortunately chaos didn't interest her -it was the power itself; she wanted to know its limits, and what would happen if pushed.
She had no idea when this project would be finished but nor did it really matter to one such as her, all she had to do was keep building.
One of her more zealous peons approached and dropped to his knees before speaking.
“Mistress! Word from the south! They build an army, they want to end your glorious reign!” the peon said, twitching and shaking yet almost furious at the words he was uttering.
Perish slowly took in a breath, and then let out an elongated sigh, her posture slumping a little and her expression growing slightly tired.
“I suppose it was only a matter of time. I'll go deal with it,” Perish said tiredly moving away from the balcony, the peon scampering across the floor to maintain a certain respectful distance all the while managing to remain on his knees.
“M-Mistress, w-we...”
“No,” Perish tiredly cut off, “You're no use to me dead. I'll go discourage them, it's not like I can lose, right?”
“Y-yes Mistress, you're absolutely correct,” the peon stuttered, still scampering about to keep the distance as Perish wandered down the steps.
* * *
Such an eerie field, so peaceful and gentle; green rolling hills with barely any trees in sight, the wind caressing the long grass in waves and tousling the loose strands of Perish's hair as she stood alone on her side of the field.
On the other side was a veritable army, probably not the full force due to Perish's interruption, but still, the difference in numbers was more than ridiculous.
“I admire your courage, monster,” a valiant man's voice from across the field, standing at the front in sturdy armour with a pair of swords in his hands, “Or is it arrogance?”
The great 'Blood Empress' merely sighed, examining a black gloved hand and flexing her digits a few times as though bored.
“You assume it has to be one or the other,” Perish said conversationally, finally looking up at the army, “I have nothing left to fear and no pride to inflate. It's just a shame you probably won't survive learning that lesson.”
“Arrogance then,” the man said bluntly, raising a sword and holding its hilt before his face, bowing his head forward for a moment before thrusting the blade high, signaling hundreds of archers to load their arrows, and with a slash forward they all fired simultaneously in one giant storm.
Perish barely moved an eyelid as she raised a hand upward in a lackluster gesture, and dozens of large plates of obsidian rip out of the ground and form a basic overlapping barrier between her and the arrows. The synchronized volley met a very anti-climactic end bouncing off the obsidian, but the army had broken into a charge now.
With another flick of the wrist, Perish threw the obsidian shields aside and waved her other hand forward with a sweeping gesture parallel to the ground, rumblings under the ground immediately began and grew into extraordinary intensity in the space of the gesture -until with but a simple flick of her hand at the end caused a small army of undead hellhounds to exploded out of the ground in droves, crashing dramatically into the charging army.
The man at the forefront took to the fray with surprising ferocity and skill, ripping through her minions as casually as Perish had conjured them, his movements so abrupt and deadly, yet so quick to chain and roll into another chaotic combo. It was surprising to see such a fiery soul, so burning with passion to end her and the injustice she wrought, Perish actually found herself a little intrigued, wanting to know what this one's blood would do for her.
And just like that, another flashback; he had been a fiery soul too, doing so much damage to her minions like it was nothing... Perish found herself in the very same shoes of the one she had so vehemently destroyed in vengeance. It was not a pleasant feeling... she already knew she was more a monster than a person now, but she didn't want to be that kind of monster... she refused.
Her idly musings had taken up enough time for the heroic man to make a mad dash after a chain of kills, leaping the last few metres with both blades raised high, ready to reduce Perish to quarters.
With but a thought a black plume of smoke rushed from her hand and cleared as quick as it came, revealing a black sword of a truly twisted design, right on time to raise it up in a deflect and sidestep.
Perish's interest had been piqued, so she decided to fight this hero one on one for a little while at least, even though her swordsmanship probably paled in comparison. And it certainly did and clearly showed, as the hero recovered from his landing after missing Perish and immediately erupting into a chain of strikes at the necromancer.
She kind of carelessly got her blade to about half of his attacks, not even really bothering to try and keep up with the expert swordsman as she just sidestepped, retreated and wove, receiving more than a dozen neat slices in her body from the many she couldn't block or dodge. But all in all it seemed neither was gaining ground, as much as Perish effortlessly continued her mixture of parrying, lazy sidestepping and regenerating most of the countless wounds the hero scored, she wasn't really getting the chance to attack either.
It obviously grew boring pretty fast and Perish started employing her other hand, delivering sweeps of black magic that coated and dragged behind her hand, making it as formidable as a sword and twice as surprising, interrupting the hero quite frequently until he tried his own tactics and stomped Perish in the chest after an opening presented itself.
Perish staggered backwards to catch herself, sort of dropping her sword in surprise in the process but the weapon exploded into fragments and rapidly whirled around her, halting the hero when he attempted to push the assault. She recomposed herself and raised her left hand dramatically, a humongous shadowy spirit hand rose up from the ground behind her mimicking every movement of her arm -including when she slammed palm down and went to crush the hero.
He deftly dived and rolled out of the way, not missing a beat as he returned to his feat instantly shoulder-charged clean through the whirling shards of obsidian, making a grand crescent moon of a slice, dragging his blade from the ground straight up and through Perish.
The necromancer nearly fell over again from the blow, surprised and watching the small trail of blood following the hero's sword as it exited her body; but a smirk grew on her face before she'd even started recovering, and the blood was quickly shrouding in black energy before bursting into black and violet flames, engulfing the whole area for a moment and throwing the hero flying away.
The deft bastard landed on his feet in a rather impressive pose, already in his combat stance, set to fight -except he held his ground and looked at Perish with narrowed eyes. The pieces of her sword flew back together and back into her hand, even as that dramatic last one she'd received quickly reknitted and disappeared. The hero had his left blade reversed behind him up in the air, and it gave it a few precise flicks and just waited, throwing a quick glance back at the army.
Right on cue, Perish turned to follow his gaze and found another storm of arrows already halfway to her position -not really much time for another shield, and to be honest, Perish no longer cared.
The deadly rain battered down on her and pierced her in countless places until she was but a pincushion of a thousand wooden shafts, barely bleeding and not phased in the slightest.
“After all this time you still attempt to kill the unkillable,” Perish sighed, shaking her head with disappointment.
“Everything can die, we just haven't hit you hard enough,” the hero assured, whirling his swords back to the ready and charging forward.
But the Blood Empress was bored and a touch frustrated; she tapped into some of the power she'd been building, bring her hands up and clenching them tightly into fists, the light of the whole area seeming to red-shift and seconds later explode violently as grand spires of obsidian and red crystal burst from the ground all over the place, whole towers that mostly fragmented on the way up and showered the area in razor shards.
Suffice to say there wasn't many left standing after it had run its course. But the hero had stubbornly held on, covered in cuts and a variety of wounds now, still clutching a sword in his right hand and his stomach with his left, staggering toward Perish vainly. He seemed so similar to him...
Perish swept up her right hand, black energy flowed over it and a huge skeletal serpent burst forth from the blackness though boasting a full maw of teeth as opposed to a simple pair of fangs. And it crashed head first into the hero, catching him in its jaws and almost snapping shut -mere inches from properly piercing him with the teeth.
The serpent looked frozen in time, pinning the hero to one of the obsidian pillars, quite ready to bite him in half but Perish had stopped it. Said necromancer wandered up beside the pinned hero to examine him thoughtfully for a moment, almost a hint of longing in her eyes.
“What are you waiting for?” the hero said with heavy breaths, looking down at Perish with a snarl on his face, “You expect me to beg or something?”
“...Not waiting,” Perish assured, her eyes kind of distant, like she was staring through the hero, “Just thinking...”
It made no sense to the hero, it just made him angry -he twisted his body, stabbing himself a little on the serpent's teeth as he made a final thrust with his sword, sinking the blade squarely through Perish's heart and out the other side with the force of the blow.
Only mildly jarred, Perish just looked off to one side regretfully.
“... I miss that fire. A burning soul,” Perish remarked idly, turning away and walking from the battlefield, pulling the sword out and discarding it carelessly.
“You... just finish me off, monster!” the hero said, both incredulous and slightly despairing, slightly imploring, causing Perish to pause for a moment and look over her shoulder with a rather sobering expression. An expression of someone who knew far, far too much about loss.
“...Stoke that fire. Don't ever let it go out,” Perish said with a certain abruptness to it before continuing her path from the field.
What an annoying memory... always back to that simple silver ring she refused to get rid of, always reminding her of that moment, but it always inevitably led to the worst moment in her living life.
His screams... so much, so loud, so blood-chilling from his monumental pain given voice. That woman destroyed him. Utterly. Made her watch -in a way, she more couldn't take her eyes off it. Then killed her like a footnote in a diary.
Just how long had it been since she'd destroyed that woman? Came back from death better than ever, hunted her across the entire planet, 'erased from existence' was the only description suitable enough.
Hell, she of all people had issues with keeping track of time, considering how useless it was when it was impossible to die, that she'd suffered a thousand deaths only to step forth from the the ashes like it hadn't happened.
Yet it was always frustrating to remember that; yet she would never throw away the one gift, the last trace of him: that simple silver ring.
Her moment in the past subsided, and Perish blinked a few times as the world came back into view around her, revealing only an empty castle in ruins with herself on the cold throne.
She'd long gotten over the depression of being unable to die, gone beyond madness, now quite nonchalant to anything the world could possibly throw at her; now, she simply did whatever pleased her, whatever kept her interest.
And right now, what pleased her was seeing the true extent of the abilities she'd earned in her undeath, which meant collecting blood in inordinate quantities. Of course that carried inherent issues that most sources of blood kind of needed said blood, and similar sources of blood grew upset when she tried harvesting.
She stood up from her throne and took powerful yet casually elegant strides along the tattered carpet to the stairs, her strange black robe sweeping with each step, and up onto the ruined balcony. Perish slightly leaned on the remnants of the railing and pushed aside some rogue locks of her brilliant white hair from her deep red eyes, her paler than marble skin reflecting the light quite spectacularly.
Blood Empress, they called her; a rather amusing moniker if anything, as she didn't particularly consider herself an Empress even though she'd been assembling something similar to an empire.
From her balcony she could see most of the land she'd effectively conquered, though it was more just an enormous prison.
In the streets, things almost looked normal from all the houses and people going about their business, but the people were pale and sorrowful, dragging their feet and staring mostly at the ground as they went about like drones. Enforcers of obsidian and constructions of bone were evenly spaced across the entire region, animated by scores of spirits each, their faceless visage a thing of nightmares.
On perhaps a positive there was no crime, no bickering or fighting all for fear of the Enforcers coming down on them in droves with lethal force -as long as they all went about their day harmlessly and gave blood, their lives were peaceful.
Though there were always that curious group that attempted to adapt and submit, that treated Perish like some deity and followed her zealously like a cult, regardless of the sorrow her reign brought.
They sought her favor and followed any careless demands from her with religious fervor, even going so far as to attempt to keep the non-religious in line -Perish didn't entirely care what they did, as long as they all contributed to the blood lake she had built beneath her castle.
Her greatest personal achievement to date was that very lake, an absolutely humongous cavern dug out of the ground beneath the castle by the labors of a legion of skeletons and slaves, building small rivers in aqueducts just under the surface about her domain for easy addition.
It was a center of tremendous power for her, as the entire basin was coated in dark necrotic symbols keeping the blood fresh and ready, she could only imagine the sheer chaos she could wreck with the amount she'd gathered already. But fortunately chaos didn't interest her -it was the power itself; she wanted to know its limits, and what would happen if pushed.
She had no idea when this project would be finished but nor did it really matter to one such as her, all she had to do was keep building.
One of her more zealous peons approached and dropped to his knees before speaking.
“Mistress! Word from the south! They build an army, they want to end your glorious reign!” the peon said, twitching and shaking yet almost furious at the words he was uttering.
Perish slowly took in a breath, and then let out an elongated sigh, her posture slumping a little and her expression growing slightly tired.
“I suppose it was only a matter of time. I'll go deal with it,” Perish said tiredly moving away from the balcony, the peon scampering across the floor to maintain a certain respectful distance all the while managing to remain on his knees.
“M-Mistress, w-we...”
“No,” Perish tiredly cut off, “You're no use to me dead. I'll go discourage them, it's not like I can lose, right?”
“Y-yes Mistress, you're absolutely correct,” the peon stuttered, still scampering about to keep the distance as Perish wandered down the steps.
* * *
Such an eerie field, so peaceful and gentle; green rolling hills with barely any trees in sight, the wind caressing the long grass in waves and tousling the loose strands of Perish's hair as she stood alone on her side of the field.
On the other side was a veritable army, probably not the full force due to Perish's interruption, but still, the difference in numbers was more than ridiculous.
“I admire your courage, monster,” a valiant man's voice from across the field, standing at the front in sturdy armour with a pair of swords in his hands, “Or is it arrogance?”
The great 'Blood Empress' merely sighed, examining a black gloved hand and flexing her digits a few times as though bored.
“You assume it has to be one or the other,” Perish said conversationally, finally looking up at the army, “I have nothing left to fear and no pride to inflate. It's just a shame you probably won't survive learning that lesson.”
“Arrogance then,” the man said bluntly, raising a sword and holding its hilt before his face, bowing his head forward for a moment before thrusting the blade high, signaling hundreds of archers to load their arrows, and with a slash forward they all fired simultaneously in one giant storm.
Perish barely moved an eyelid as she raised a hand upward in a lackluster gesture, and dozens of large plates of obsidian rip out of the ground and form a basic overlapping barrier between her and the arrows. The synchronized volley met a very anti-climactic end bouncing off the obsidian, but the army had broken into a charge now.
With another flick of the wrist, Perish threw the obsidian shields aside and waved her other hand forward with a sweeping gesture parallel to the ground, rumblings under the ground immediately began and grew into extraordinary intensity in the space of the gesture -until with but a simple flick of her hand at the end caused a small army of undead hellhounds to exploded out of the ground in droves, crashing dramatically into the charging army.
The man at the forefront took to the fray with surprising ferocity and skill, ripping through her minions as casually as Perish had conjured them, his movements so abrupt and deadly, yet so quick to chain and roll into another chaotic combo. It was surprising to see such a fiery soul, so burning with passion to end her and the injustice she wrought, Perish actually found herself a little intrigued, wanting to know what this one's blood would do for her.
And just like that, another flashback; he had been a fiery soul too, doing so much damage to her minions like it was nothing... Perish found herself in the very same shoes of the one she had so vehemently destroyed in vengeance. It was not a pleasant feeling... she already knew she was more a monster than a person now, but she didn't want to be that kind of monster... she refused.
Her idly musings had taken up enough time for the heroic man to make a mad dash after a chain of kills, leaping the last few metres with both blades raised high, ready to reduce Perish to quarters.
With but a thought a black plume of smoke rushed from her hand and cleared as quick as it came, revealing a black sword of a truly twisted design, right on time to raise it up in a deflect and sidestep.
Perish's interest had been piqued, so she decided to fight this hero one on one for a little while at least, even though her swordsmanship probably paled in comparison. And it certainly did and clearly showed, as the hero recovered from his landing after missing Perish and immediately erupting into a chain of strikes at the necromancer.
She kind of carelessly got her blade to about half of his attacks, not even really bothering to try and keep up with the expert swordsman as she just sidestepped, retreated and wove, receiving more than a dozen neat slices in her body from the many she couldn't block or dodge. But all in all it seemed neither was gaining ground, as much as Perish effortlessly continued her mixture of parrying, lazy sidestepping and regenerating most of the countless wounds the hero scored, she wasn't really getting the chance to attack either.
It obviously grew boring pretty fast and Perish started employing her other hand, delivering sweeps of black magic that coated and dragged behind her hand, making it as formidable as a sword and twice as surprising, interrupting the hero quite frequently until he tried his own tactics and stomped Perish in the chest after an opening presented itself.
Perish staggered backwards to catch herself, sort of dropping her sword in surprise in the process but the weapon exploded into fragments and rapidly whirled around her, halting the hero when he attempted to push the assault. She recomposed herself and raised her left hand dramatically, a humongous shadowy spirit hand rose up from the ground behind her mimicking every movement of her arm -including when she slammed palm down and went to crush the hero.
He deftly dived and rolled out of the way, not missing a beat as he returned to his feat instantly shoulder-charged clean through the whirling shards of obsidian, making a grand crescent moon of a slice, dragging his blade from the ground straight up and through Perish.
The necromancer nearly fell over again from the blow, surprised and watching the small trail of blood following the hero's sword as it exited her body; but a smirk grew on her face before she'd even started recovering, and the blood was quickly shrouding in black energy before bursting into black and violet flames, engulfing the whole area for a moment and throwing the hero flying away.
The deft bastard landed on his feet in a rather impressive pose, already in his combat stance, set to fight -except he held his ground and looked at Perish with narrowed eyes. The pieces of her sword flew back together and back into her hand, even as that dramatic last one she'd received quickly reknitted and disappeared. The hero had his left blade reversed behind him up in the air, and it gave it a few precise flicks and just waited, throwing a quick glance back at the army.
Right on cue, Perish turned to follow his gaze and found another storm of arrows already halfway to her position -not really much time for another shield, and to be honest, Perish no longer cared.
The deadly rain battered down on her and pierced her in countless places until she was but a pincushion of a thousand wooden shafts, barely bleeding and not phased in the slightest.
“After all this time you still attempt to kill the unkillable,” Perish sighed, shaking her head with disappointment.
“Everything can die, we just haven't hit you hard enough,” the hero assured, whirling his swords back to the ready and charging forward.
But the Blood Empress was bored and a touch frustrated; she tapped into some of the power she'd been building, bring her hands up and clenching them tightly into fists, the light of the whole area seeming to red-shift and seconds later explode violently as grand spires of obsidian and red crystal burst from the ground all over the place, whole towers that mostly fragmented on the way up and showered the area in razor shards.
Suffice to say there wasn't many left standing after it had run its course. But the hero had stubbornly held on, covered in cuts and a variety of wounds now, still clutching a sword in his right hand and his stomach with his left, staggering toward Perish vainly. He seemed so similar to him...
Perish swept up her right hand, black energy flowed over it and a huge skeletal serpent burst forth from the blackness though boasting a full maw of teeth as opposed to a simple pair of fangs. And it crashed head first into the hero, catching him in its jaws and almost snapping shut -mere inches from properly piercing him with the teeth.
The serpent looked frozen in time, pinning the hero to one of the obsidian pillars, quite ready to bite him in half but Perish had stopped it. Said necromancer wandered up beside the pinned hero to examine him thoughtfully for a moment, almost a hint of longing in her eyes.
“What are you waiting for?” the hero said with heavy breaths, looking down at Perish with a snarl on his face, “You expect me to beg or something?”
“...Not waiting,” Perish assured, her eyes kind of distant, like she was staring through the hero, “Just thinking...”
It made no sense to the hero, it just made him angry -he twisted his body, stabbing himself a little on the serpent's teeth as he made a final thrust with his sword, sinking the blade squarely through Perish's heart and out the other side with the force of the blow.
Only mildly jarred, Perish just looked off to one side regretfully.
“... I miss that fire. A burning soul,” Perish remarked idly, turning away and walking from the battlefield, pulling the sword out and discarding it carelessly.
“You... just finish me off, monster!” the hero said, both incredulous and slightly despairing, slightly imploring, causing Perish to pause for a moment and look over her shoulder with a rather sobering expression. An expression of someone who knew far, far too much about loss.
“...Stoke that fire. Don't ever let it go out,” Perish said with a certain abruptness to it before continuing her path from the field.