38 Everan & Valadae

_Everan & Valadae_

The stuffing was ripped from his bed, scattered across the room; the wooden table splintered and broken. He had managed to dirty his white clothes, covering it in mysterious stains and what looked to be his own blood. He would have scars on his hand now, left over from punching the window the other day. Not that it mattered since they blended in with all his others; the man was covered in them. Scars were part of his culture. Just another thing that set his people apart from the fae, who looked down on scars and other bodily defects.

Paintings were destroyed and goblets bent and crushed. The pages were ripped from all the books in the room. He ripped the shelves that had been nailed firmly into the walls. What used to be an elegant guest room was now a wasteland of mess and garbage. And he would do it again and again. The boy had even knocked the remaining glass from the window and slightly bent the bars that prohibited him from escaping.

Not that he tried to escape, even he wasn't dumb enough to try to leave through a window fifty meters off the ground. No, he would escape another way, another time. But with his attitude it would be hard- he could hardly make himself act low enough to gain their trust. The thought of being buddy buddy with these knife ears made him sick. Everan held a hatred for these people and the things they had done. Their claim of this continent had ended a thousand seasons ago, the wilds had been taken over without a fight from the wild people. For as violent as his people were, it was a peaceful transition due to the incompetence of the failing empire of the time.

The wilds were wild once more and these people had a way of life that none were too keen on leaving, especially not for an empire that would not treat them fairly. The wilds may have been a violent dangerous way to live, most did not live to old age but at least these people were free to live fairly- if you worked yourself to the bone you would become strong enough to protect yourself. It was their way of life- but the empire would completely crush this. The fae did not care much for strength, rather they aimed for the aesthetics of their own bodies and homes. The people of the wilds, while they could learn to be clean and pristine, and learn to dress themselves and their homes in fair colors, could never change their own tanned skin and dark hair. They would always be targets of discrimination within the empire even if they were to abandon their ways of life.

This is what Valadae did not understand, or at least did not let herself see. Perhaps her people could enlighten them and increase the seasons in which they would live but in the end these people would not be free, and they would not be happy. It would be an unfair hell on earth for them. The transition from one lifestyle to the other would create many problems and no doubt many wild people would die. The dirty knife ears did not like violence- it was a punishable offence. In the end, neither of the two were compatible. The wilds and the fae empire were best to stay separate. This war was started by the fae, and now he feared that his father would go farther to end it- the man was not a tolerant neighbor after being poked at with petty battle after petty battle.

It was now that Everan realized one side of this war was going to be wiped out. He felt unknown emotions swirl in his gut. Perhaps it was fear, though nothing quite scared him so he did not know for sure. 

A knock at the door pricked his senses and he turned to it quick as the princess herself stepped into the room, glancing around at the mess with curiosity. "You really are an animal aren't you? I was hoping to tame you sooner..." she hummed you herself.

"Tame? You'd best give up now, I'm afraid I'm a lost cause." he huffed out.

She turned a curious eye to him and smiled. "Is that so? In that case you are as good as dead. The royal court wants your head, you know. My influence only goes so far for so long..."

"So that's it then? I am saved only to die days later?" he scoffed at her now, crossing his arms.

"Not if you bend the knee," she offered him. He merely gave her a blank look of defiance. She sighed in response before speaking once more. "They wanted me to find my father's trusted advisor- a soothsayer, a seer. She sees things others do not, glimpses of the future. She saw you, and that is why I saved you. You are important. But they wanted to hear this information from her mouth."

"And did they believe her?" He asked her now.

"I could not find her. She is not so easily tracked down in such a short amount of time. They wanted her today and since I'm too late they want you gone instead."

He scoffed with a mocking grin that didn't hide his irritation. "How convenient for them,"

"I can't let you die, you're too important. I need you to bend the knee, please," she ushered him.

He felt his veins run hot yet he kept his head on him. "No," he told her shortly.

"Please it is the only way, do you want to die?"

"Of course I do not, but I do not fear it," he growled to her.

"Then please," she begged.

"No!" He snapped to her. "I will not, I will die and they will have my head, or I will find a way to kill anyone in my way and escape," he growled.

"Escape to where? Your father? He disowned you, we heard word of it today,"

Everan froze. He already knew this was the outcome but her words hurt more than he thought they would. His father was a hard and ruthless man but they had been close... was it really this easy for the man to let go?

"I cannot let you die-"

"Because I'm important. How? Because I can end this war? How would I do that? Why would I help your people? I hate you and your kind," he spat at her. "Your people started this war, and my people are going to end it and bring the peace back to this land."

"You call your way of life peace? The mortality rate of your people is unnecessarily immense! There is so much crime and poverty that could be prevented- so much enlightenment that we could offer-"

"Enlightenment?" He hissed. "What? Your fake god? The beast gods are gods for a reason, if you think they're made up you'd be sorely mistaken."

"Perhaps they are real, but they are rather demons-"

He growled at her and ripped off wood from the bed frame so he could throw it in her direction. Valadae flinched as it brushed passed her. She felt her heart pick up it's pace. "Demons? You insult me. Do not speak to me as if your kind aren't demons placed upon this earth to torment and degrade those that do not fit your strict beauty standards. You are all sick in the head obsessing over purity and fairness. Even you are an abomination in their eyes. Your hair is black at the ends, I cannot imagine they treat you so nicely for it."

Valadae swallowed and looked at the ground from his jab. The back at the ends of her hair did indeed make her a target for hardship. "That is my burden to bear."

"So it is your fault?" He pushed.

"I- no-"

"Then why do they care so much?" He pressed on. "I bet there is talk of not letting you take the throne- perhaps your sister instead since you are defective." He hissed at her.

Tears pricked her eyes now. "I am the way I am because of fate. Fate does not explain itself, yet we have to live in its confines."

Everan snorted. "Fate's confines. I make my own fate, I am confined by nothing but this room and your people. I don't quite think I'll be dying today."

"How can you say that?" She sniffed, rubbing a tear from her eye. It wasn't so often she got emotional like this. "We are not so easy to escape from as you may think we are,"

"Then help me. You seem to not want me dead either."

"I cannot do that unless you bend the knee!" She pressed, growing frantic.

"Not to your people!" He hissed at her. "I'll be damned if I helped your kind. You are the demons here, obsessing over a silly aesthetic," He growled. "I would rather die than allow countless wild people to join your ranks only to suffer until the end of time for something as unbelievably daft as the way that they look. What is enlightenment and extended life if they will only live a poor life? That is no life and you know it. Your people cannot hide their nasty greed and it shows. You may think this empire pure but it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen with my own eyes." He told her with clenched teeth. He was a weathered soldier- not just a former prince to his own people. Everan had seen many things in battle but something always stuck out into life. Everyone was selfish, everyone was greedy, everyone thought they were in the right. It was a disgusting world out there and the biggest disgust of them all were these damned knife ear demons.

Valadae stared at him for a long time, her light blue eyes shining with unshed tears. He glared her down with angry golden eyes, smoldering with heat she was still not accustomed to seeing. "You should know just how wrong your people are since you yourself aren't perfect in their eyes. You know how hard it is just to look a little how you are, imagine how much worse it is for your people without fair hair or skin, and then imagine how it would be for the wild people. Life wouldn't get better, it would get worse. We would be second class citizens, we would be poor and suffer injustices our entire lives without any way to fight back," He hissed at her. "Eventually we would all die off and leave behind what it is that your empire is truly after. The domination of this continent. You left that part out in your many speeches to me. Do not tell me you merely did not think this far, you knife eared wench," He was steaming with anger now, his nose flaring and his fists clenched.

Finally, the princess seemed fearful for once. Her cool demeanor was gone and for a moment, Everan allowed himself to feel a sense of accomplishment in that but it soon faded when she spoke up to his words.

"You are right. I had considered your words but I... I just did not want to believe them. Even now it does not seem real but I suppose that just means I am not as grown as I once thought I was..." She looked down at her hands. "I... I am not as greedy as them, in honesty I do not care for reclaiming our former glory as an empire. I do not want to hurt others, truly," She told him, looking up to meet his smoldering honey yellow eyes. 

"You seemed so willing to overlook it. I do not believe some small speech would so easily change your mind." He said suspiciously.

"I do not want you to die, Everan. I do not want anyone to die. I want to fix things and I need you to help me do that. If you bend the knee I will make sure, with your help that this war ends." She told him in earnest.

"You are a child, dear princess. That is not your promise to make." Everan would not be so easily fooled.

"What else can I do?" She begged him once more. "You cannot die!"

He gave her a dead stare, his anger fading once more, somehow something clicked inside his head. "I am going to die. It is unavoidable."

"But it does not have to be today!"

"Indeed, if I can manage to escape."

Now it was time for the princesses fists to curl into balls of their own, her fear and sadness was becoming anger, but the tiny girl was not a fearsome creature to behold. She was too weak.

"Face it little mouse, you have lost your little wager." His eyes flicked up to behind her before he stepped forward a couple paces. She tried to step away from him but their eyes met as he took her by the arm, not quite knowing what he was doing.

"What are you doing-" She was cut off as he yanked her to the side just as blades slashed into the area she had just been. "Unhand me!" She hissed at Everan just before catching sight at what he had just saved her from.

All dressed in black, their face covered, was an assassin. They wasted no time in going for the kill once more only to have Everan shove her out of the way and to the ground. He lunged at the stranger, ducking from the sweep of the daggers in each of their hands. He recognized these daggers- as they were his own. This assassin had been at the battle that Everan had last lost. He growled as he swung his own fist at the intruder only to miss. A blade came to close for comfort only to slice his cheek just barely. He did not flinch at the pain and took this opening to bring his own arm up and push away the bladed arm and use his other to grasp the bottom of the blade and pull in the direction of the assailant's little finger- the weakest finger. And with this he was able to pull the blade free in the blink of an eye making this an equal fight.

Well, not quite. The attacker was dressed in heavier clothes, likely dyed black leather which would make injuring him harder but Everan was familiar with these blades. "Wrong choice to use a man's own weapon against him," He muttered with an animalistic excitement. The intruder did not respond but instead made a move at him with the dagger only to use that as a diversion to take a punch at Everan, which he managed to block just in time. The two carried on like this in a flurry of slashes and blows.

Vanadae's heart was beating out of her chest. The first thing that came to her mind when she could think correctly was why. Why would this wild boy protect her like he had when he had so easily wished her dead before? Why would he continue to fight for her now? Then it dawned on her. Where were the guards she left at the door? Her eyes trained in on the fight before her only to notice through the blur of slashing blades and bodies that there was blood on them. The assassin had killed her guards and snuck into the room without so much as a single sound. Who was this?

"I swear to the gods if you don't get off your arse and run I will put a dagger in you myself, princess!" Everan hissed at her.

That shocked the girl into motion as she pushed herself off the ground, the beads in her hair clicking together softly as she did so. She made to move far around the conflict but jumped back when the intruder made a move to come in her direction.

"Eyes on me, you thieving bastard," He hissed at the intruder.

The attacker growled, and spoke to him in his own language, which Valadae was only vaguely familiar, but she understood nonetheless. "You are not only a disgraceful capture but you are also a traitor now!"

They started growling and talking too fast to each other in their language for the girl to follow. She found herself frozen, watching the two meet blades and dodge slashes and blows. Everan went low for a sweeping kick but the other was ahead of him and moved back in time.

"Get out of here you idiot!" He yelled at her, sending her a hard glare. Her eyes widened yet more and she turned to scramble out of the room, running to the door and into the hallway as fast as she could. The assassin's first priority must not have been Everan because he soon managed to make Everan stumble back enough to have the time to sprint out of the room and after the fair skinned girl. Everan wasted no time in following after them.

He stepped right over the two dead guards on the ground and ran quickly, his legs missing this action. He tackled the man right in the middle of the hallway, smacking the man's head right against the marble floor. Valadae stopped and turned around to watch from a distance as Everan knocked the dagger across the hallway and pinned the man on his belly to the ground. He forcefully ripped the mask from the man's face to expose his tan skin and darker hair. An assassin from the wilds of course.

"Tell me how many of you are here and maybe I won't kill you," He growled to the man in his naitive tongue.

"Never, I do not give information to traitors, just kill me if you must!"

Everan growled at him and brought his dagger up to the man's throat pressing it up hard against it, drawing small beads of blood. "You ought to reconsider, I will gut you like swine. Just who are you after? The girl right? Figured you be after me." He growled out.

The man struggled under his grasp, unwilling to speak, Everan growled out loudly and drew his dagger up, bringing it down onto the man's hand and pinning it to the marble floor. Though he did not penetrate the tile completely, the force of his blow would leave a hefty crack. The man under him tried to scream out in pain but Everan covered his mouth, cutting the loudness in half. "Tell me how many of you there are!"

The man let out soft cries, his voice shaking. "One other after the sister- we are here for the girl primarily, but we want both girls- you are just the second objective. Please! Please spare me!"

Everan covered the man's mouth once more and withdrew his dagger from the muffled man, his agony obvious. "Forgive me, for I know it is only orders you act upon." He mumbled to him before slitting the man's throat.

Blood pooled out under him as he choked, filling the clean pristine hallway in a wash of dark red. Hardened honey yellow eyes looked up at a horrified princess Valadae. "You... you killed him!" She said in horror.

"He was going to kill you and I," Everan told her cooly, getting up and stepping around the pool of blood. "We must hurry, There is one other and he is after your sister. Where is she?" He asked her quickly.

"She is likely in her quarters not far from here!" Valadae said, and the two went off quickly in search of the other girls room. By the time they got there, screaming could be heard. Everan busted easily through the locked door, breaking it off its hinges so that it slammed hard into the marble floor. He felt shaky all of the sudden, his blood feeling as though it was boiling. In fact the blood on his cheek from the cut felt as though it was steaming. He paid this no mind as he looked on at the scene before himself.

Another intruder dressed head to toe in black stood over a cowering girl. Her hair was long and white as snow, her dress to match. Unlike Valadae there were no beads in her hair, and even more different was how perfect she must have been in the eyes of these people with the ends of her hair being just as white. Though the pupils of her eyes were not white like He ripped the shelves that had been nailed firmly into the walls. Valadae's, instead they were the normal black.

The second assassin turned back to look at Everan and Valadae who was right behind him, peering out at the frightening scene before them. The man brought his hand up and peeled off his blank black mask to reveal his tanned skin and dirty blond, unbrushed hair. Everan immediately growled in recognition. "Ezeik," he muttered the name out with a newfound aggression he had not had for the man until now.

"Traitor," The man growled back in their language.

"Back away and I will not kill you, friend."

    "I am no friend to a traitor such as you!" the man hissed back in disdain. He yanked the petrified girl at his feet up and held her tightly in front of himself, pressing his own dagger to her neck. "I was sent here for a mission, and I plan on completing it in the name of the wild!"

"No please! Please spare my sister!" Valadae yelled out now, looking at her weeping sister.

"I am afraid I cannot only kill her, but I must next kill you too," Ezeik said to Valadae without any true sympathy.

Everan growled loudly now, "Let her go before I rip you limb from limb," He growled.

"What? You their new dog? You just obey orders from lowly knife ears now? You are truly dead in the eyes of your people- your father." Ezeik said grimly as he slit the throat of the young girl he held in front of himself before carelessly letting her fall to the ground and choke on her own blood. Valadae let out a screaming sob just as Everan lunged forward and swung his dagger down at the man.

Again he went into a fury of dodges and slashes, punches and kicks. But it was harder this time. He personally knew Ezeik. They were childhood friends. Sparring partners in the past too. They both were familiar with the way each other fought. Unlike in the past, each was fighting to kill this time- this was no mere spar.

With a growl Everan swung his blade this way and that, moved his feet just like he had been taught. He brought his free hand into a punch and landed a hit on his old friend only to receive his own right in the face. He stumbled back and caught Ezeik's eyes on Valadae. Everan brought another swing at his friend but misses, receiving a blow to the ribs now. He grunted and used this closeness to take a stab at his foe, only to get the blade knocked from him. Quickly, he brought his legs to the others and knocked the man down, taking his own self down with him.

Unfortunately he cracked his head down on the marble floor in the process and heard his ears ring as he was momentarily stunned. It wasn't long, but it was enough time for Ezeik to get a good grip on him and get a good punch into his face, smacking his head back into the marble. Everan growled through the daze, spitting out blood into the other's face, and printing the man's head down for a headbut. The pain was ringing through his nervous system, he felt like he was on fire. Through the blurriness of his eyes he could see Ezeik cringe at the steaming blood that had been spat onto him.

It was boiling.

Everan felt himself grow hotter, the skin on his hands toughening and his nails growing longer and harder. He growled out a deep animalistic growl that no human should have been able to make and flung the man off of him and into the bedpost, splintering the wood. The ruckus had attracted the attention of guards now, Everan could hear them approaching from far off, too far for him to normally know.

His eyes found Valadae who had gone to her sister's side, begging her to stay alive, pressing her hands to the girl's neck. "Eleise! Please Eleise!" she cried out.

"You cannot save her," Everan said now, his voice sounding un-like his own. "She is a kill belonging to the owl," A rumbling voice said from his throat. It was not his own voice. Next he knew his thoughts were not his own. Something was in his head. He gripped at his hair and temple shaking his head violently, growling.

"Everan help her! Everan!" Valadae's words were lost to him as his body moved without thinking, ripping her from the ground and fleeing down the hallway, away from the approaching guards.

After that, he zoned the rest out, and time escaped him.