The Shattering
--~[x]~--
The staff shattered in his hand and he felt his link snap like Elastan pulled too tight. Callandor- or more accurately, its sundered remains, embedded themselves in his arm like broken glass, shredding through fabrics of blue and white. Aeralaanys had all of a moment to lift his hand, a hand older than the Regalian Empire, look upon the gushing blood and tattered skin, before the limb fell utterly numb. He screamed as he hit the mud-and-blood beneath his feet, a wail of agony as much as one of loss. His companion in battle, the Yanar Joasaie, collapsed at his side, speaking. He could hear the sound of her voice, of approaching medics and cheering soldiers, yet he couldn't listen, not through the sound of his own mind near-breaking in his skull.
You broke it, came his fractured ego, you broke the last link any of us had to the Empress. His conscience piped up, announcing that the Paladin is at fault; vile Dread magics broke the staff, not us. All the while, he could not ignore the silent screaming of his physical form. The shards of Callandor burned, white hot needles of pure pain buried in his arm. He could not bear to look as the remains of the Crucible wept Exist essence into his very flesh, bleaching skin, muscle, sinew a flawless white, swallowing whatever function the limb had left. You deserve this. He felt his body lift, and after that, his legs shift, taking steps that were not fully his own; he wasn't in control, but nor was he fully aware of that. How could he be? While his mind reeled and crashed against thoughts and concepts, half-baked conclusions and ramshackle solutions, his body dutifully carried him onwards under Joasaie's arm.
The cheering came muffled through his ears. Were the Est'alorn ever this jovial? He could not remember. He became ever more aware of each nick and cut and bruise on his body. The back of his skull throbbed. He'd fallen too hard, he deduced, presumably hit something on the way down, another lump to add to the collection of other unsightly swellings and marks on his body. This wasn't how he expected to win the battle. Sacrifices occur, willing or no.
He 'sacrificed' our arm for unwashed Uame to occupy one of our own cities. We traded one breed of barbarian for another.
For the Est'alorn inside, occupying force be damned. They are alive and they are happy, and they will not be corrupted by the Void.
So they can further abuse them, plot to kick them out of their own city should odds prove too dangerous?
Aeralaanys opted to stop listening to his internal dialogue. His headache was growing too overpowering.
Without those voices, however, came the terror. His heart pounded in his chest. His breathing came so quickly as to almost be worthless in even bothering to breathe, leaving his head in a state of deeply peculiar ache and simultaneous lightness. The staff was broken. It was gone, it was shattered, taken apart, more a part of his arm now than a part of itself. He couldn't bring himself to look at it- no, it was impossible to. Instead, he simply imagined it.
He had seldom made a poorer decision.
Medics were now allowed to tend to him, swarming his useless limb like flies on the face of a sick dog. He couldn't see it if he tried, but the image still pervaded his mind- his arm, the arm he had used and taken for granted for longer than the Regalian Empire had existed nearly ten times over, shredded and torn, ripped apart by the very artefact he had called his own for decades. He could see muscle and bone underneath shifting masses of bloody flesh. Sleep came soon after- the concoctions supplied by Merkar'sarh's medics, he assumed, but blissful rest was no longer attainable.
The memory looped in his dreams. Joasaie immobilised the Paladin. He raised Callandor. The Paladin's blood streamed from his hands to his chest, shooting out and shattering the staff. The memory started again. Roots grabbing, staff rising, blood shattering it. Again- roots, staff, blood, pain. Roots, staff, blood, pain. Staff, blood, pain. Staff, pain, pain, pain. Aeralaanys woke up the barracks, screaming. An alchemist, a kindly woman whose face was but a blue-black silhouette in the moonlight, sent him back into a grateful, dreamless sleep. He hoped it would last longer than the last bout.
--~[x]~--
