BeginningS

The Looking Glass and The S

Ever filled with mischief, and a general urge to disobey, Vastiel crept the tombs, leading to the inside of the castle. The few guards appearing to roam in some form of idiocy, making his goal too easy, and yet, praising this to his high level of skill he would hide with his back pressed to the crevices of the tomb walls, await their passing, and slide by with the right timing. A boastful grin played him, when here he stood, the single door remaining the instrument of his intrusion, but the joy quickly fled him, and his face filled with grimace, to the flood of a piercingly intense alabaster haze, causing Vastiel to lift his hands at eye level, in some attempt to shield himself, then he peer at the dark figure standing toward him in the center of this white, hot, stinging glow.

"Rae!?" Vastiel questioned, once he could barely make out her face from the light. "What are you doing here?" Then he felt a sharp skull splitting pain, it's depth as though he was vibrating apart from the inside, and he collapse to one knee. "The perfect weapon, is often that which delivers itself." Vastiel turn his head to Cylus who approach from his right side, and to his own dismay he attempted to lung from bended knee to swipe at the man, but the floor beneath him grew deeply cavernous, burying him to the knee, and the light itself seemed as though it were the barbed vine, ensnaring his limbs to prevent him from attacking. And once reeled by this trap, Vastiel was lifted from the ground, and raised to be held as stone above the throne. And Cylus show his jagged layers of teeth, before he approach, and sink the sharp points of each tooth into Vastiel's flesh. The bite causing Rae to cringe uncontrollably, and the light itself to give a momentary dampening.

Tristan open his eyes, bellowing, and scraping at the left side of his skull, feeling as though this side were dipped in a bath of acid, the pain so intense that for a moment he couldn't bring himself to concentrate, and then as it dull to the lightest sensation of a stinging ache behind his eye, he peer through the haze of echoes as though he were staring at an image of sound, and attempting to focus, he could begin to make out the broken picture of people running beside him, and infront of him. "Run, it's coming!" The words barely clear, echoed from every direction, and repeated. "What?" Tristan questioned. "What's coming?" But then the image fell apart again, and he was unable to see the people themselves, only the hallway that surround him, a long stretch, without entrance or exit. And when he turned, curious to the fear of those he had seen running away, there was only the mirror at the end of the hall.

He approach the mirror, and staring into it he could see the strange making of a puzzle, in his initial glance.

H P E E K M L
R E D R A H C
Y C A V I R P
D O O F N F K
O R T T A H W
R L I E X I K
A S N E V O J

He stare at the letters, but then peering through them, watched as a titian gold ember etched it's Z through his iris and pupil, and as he focus on it, the Z turned backwards to an interestingly shaped S, and the letters of the puzzle pieced together.

H |PEEK| M L
|REDRAH| C
|YCAVIRP|
|DOOF| N F K
|RO| |O| |TAHW|
R L |S||T| X I K
A |I| N E V E J

"What is harder to keep food or privacy?" Tristan muttered, following the puzzle. Then the dark haze flooded from the edges of the glass, and he felt briefly as though he were choking from the inside. But, when the feeling subsided, there he was, seeing Rae manipulating the light, and forcing weakness upon Vastiel, while Cylus prepared to make him lunch. His urge drove him, nearly to the edge of attacking Cylus, but then he could begin to hear the low hum that had caused Vastiel his pain, and he edged himself away, taking a deeper look at the situation while for the moment, all things seemed frozen, and his eyes turned from Vastiel. "Food," then he peer at Rae who appear almost doll like. "Or privacy." And with that, he charged toward Rae instead, passing the growing intensity of the light as it sizzle the upper most layer of his flesh, and he raise his arms beneath her own which were extended in her act of manipulation before jolting her off the floor over his shoulder, then whisping away with her, causing the light to bend away from Vastiel and unravel from around him as it follow behind the scintillant blast.

And Vastiel released a hungered roar, staring down at the disfigured Cylus still trying to gnaw into his flesh, and his hands grasp at the side of Cylus' head, compressing, until he brought him to tears, and lower him to his knees at Vastiel's feet, then he reel his fist back, and prepare to crush his skull when he could hear the explosions outside, and look up to see the consistant bursts of flare like embers, before they were followed with several more blasts, and he drew his breath in deeply before tossing Cylus aside, and charging out the door, to stand beside Tristan who held the collapsed Rae in his arms, and they witness the queen's last ditch effort, where what small fractured light remained was soon snuffed out by the darkness, and the bursts Vastiel had witnessed from inside, were those falling, like they themselves had, and behind them the monsters.