"Well, that's solved," he mutters, leaping free of another burst of ice and running after him. He doesn't feel the need to change - he's not so destructive - but he needs to keep an eye on Avery. When the beast's instincts wear off - and they will - he'll be mostly useless, so one of them has to be sensible.
(He wonders when he started thinking about Avery like this. A pair, rather than two apart who happened to live in the same place.
He's not sure if he hates him any more. That feels like a betrayal, almost.)
Screams echo in the freezing streets--of townspeople unlucky enough to get in the beast's way, of guards and soldiers who dared to raise a weapon in defense of their lives and the lives of others. White snow turns red only to fade back to white, covered by the roaring blizzard as quickly as it can be stained.
Avery doesn't stop until he breaches the gates, carrying bodies along with it, souls ripped out and devoured to aid in closing the wound inflicted upon him in the throne room.
Indistinct, inhuman, and on edge, the beast continues to stalk through the forest outside the city walls, yellow eyes shining bright as they dart about, searching for any more threats to his well-being.
It's all he can do to keep up, to avoid being slowed down by the soon-to-be-dead or the rolling snow or Avery's own trail of collateral damage. He leaps like a deer, his light weight meaning he can run over and ahead of the avalanche.
(Despite himself, he drags more than a few townspeople - adults and children alike - out of harm's way, his radiant warmth shielding them from being flash-frozen instantly. He harries them to run, to get as far away as possible, and exerts more power than strictly necessary to keep the snow from rolling over them until they have a fighting chance. And, well, hopefully they'll never whiten his reputation by saying the old, evil wizard did it. If they live.)
Avery is easy to find, at least, once he's done following his personal little whim. The ominous shadow with glowing eyes stalking among the trees isn't exactly hard to miss, and even if it was, Ekkehardt doubts he could miss him anyway. His power senses when Avery is near, tugs towards him when he's far.
"If you savage me, I'll be very displeased," he informs the beast, crossing his arms and staring it - him - down.
The beast growls down at Ekkehardt without malice, then cranes his head this way and that to observe the area. Seeing nothing there that would pose a threat and acknowledging Ekkehardt's presence as some form of safety (a fact that Avery, were he in any state to notice it, would react to with absolute mortification), the beast gives way to the man cocooned within, shadows peeling away and dissipating into the air of an artificial winter, leaving Avery collapsed on his hands and knees, struggling to keep his eyes open.
"I want to go," he murmurs after a moment.
(Go home, he thinks, but he doesn't know where that is anymore.)
The sudden sting of pity jabs him in a heart he thought (he denied) that he no longer possessed. Rather than speak and betray his own emotions by the waver of his voice, he kneels to pick him up.
"Worry about that later. Go to sleep," he says, simply, his voice almost unbearably gentle; a remnant of a man he thought had died long ago. He can only hope that Avery will be too addled, or too embarrassed, to mention this later.
Where to go? Well, there's only one place for him now; the place he'd spent so long languishing in, the one Avery had departed in anger. It's the only place that he's reasonably sure they'll be safe from detection - he'd made it so, painstakingly.
So he goes back to the place he's always called home, since his lord died. (Whether it's Avery's home is yet to be decided.)
Avery hardly leaves his room at all, though he's more than capable of getting out of bed after two days of recovery. He sleeps and gets up to eat, but otherwise locks himself away to live in his own thoughts.
"You were right," he finally says to Ekkehardt one day. "It is weakness. Humanity, love... It's all pointless."
He doesn't attempt to coax Avery out of his room in those early days. As long as he's not starving himself out of grief or something similarly lovelorn, it's good enough for now.
"Coming around to the idea at last, are you?" He sounds more curious than mocking.
"It only makes sense," he says with a nod. "I should have seen what was going on over the years. How possessive she was of me, the way you and your master would always somehow know she had some relic you needed on her or how she 'magically' seemed to come into possession of one...
Those adventures were the only time I ever really got to leave the city, you know. She'd always get so upset whenever I thought about taking a vacation. Not unless she got to go too."
He hangs his head and shuts his eyes. "No one said anything. No one stopped it, or her, or me... No one lifting a hand when I was locked away, coming after me with chains and cages when I wasn't something that could be controlled anymore... All this time I've been nothing but a pawn in some greater game I never knew I was playing."
His voice goes darker by the word, trembling with cold fury. "The only people who bothered with me, who saved my life, are you and--" he taps his chest, "--my little friend here."
Face in shadows save for his golden eyes, he bares his teeth. "Parasites," he hisses. "They're nothing but weak, worthless little parasites, feeding off of others in some useless attempt to pretend they're something more than they are!"
"My, my. Now who sounds like a villain?" It's a jab without any bite to it. The bitterness is familiar enough that he won't even try to refute it. "But I won't argue against it. Love is a powerful cage, even if those who receive it from you don't deserve it."
Avery narrows his eyes. "Maybe I am a villain," he replies, words clipped and dripping with bitterness. "I sure as hell wasn't ever a hero, was I? So sorry if that screws up how glamorous your death was."
Ekkehardt has done nothing wrong. Even Avery doesn't know why he said it. Maybe it's just because everything hurts so much right now. It seems unfair that others don't feel it too.
He laughs, the sound harsh. "If you think that was glamorous, you know very little about death. I thought you'd know better, as experienced with getting yourself into treacherous situations as you are."
He leans forward, his eyes glittering. "But you're foolish as ever, it seems."
"You were wrong," he replies, after a long moment of silence. "About who - and what - I was thinking of when I told you it was a terrible idea to go after her."
His shoulders hike up a little, almost defensively. "There's something you didn't know."
That manages to pierce through the self-loathing, if only a little. It still stings, of course (yet another thing he was wrong about in the end, and yes, it was one of the worst ideas he's ever had), but his curiosity manages to get the best of him.
"It was the reason I received this blessing." His voice is sharp and bitter, and despite his best efforts, still pained. "I did it for love, of course. Someone I wanted to protect, going so far as to exchange our places, to spare him the pain..."
He shrugs. "And, well, look at how I've turned out. There's a lesson in that, don't you think?"
Avery stares at Ekkehardt for a long moment, and then his shoulders drop as he laughs without an ounce of humor. To think the two of them would have something in common... He's not sure if it makes him feel better, but it sure is something.
What a hell of a pair they were.
"Yes... I guess there is. Being the good guy only gets you screwed in the end. At least the villains get to have fun."
"I suppose that's one thing you could take away from it, yes." He sits, finding he's looking for something to lean on.
"At least we won't be disturbed here. After the last time we had a large amount of unwelcome visitors, I took precautions. It'll be hard to even recognise this place exists, much less intrude upon it."
"It's almost a shame, really. I wouldn't have minded tearing a few of those visitors apart. Something, something, dinner and a show." He shrugs and wears a faint smile, amused at his own lack of wit.
"But then again, I suppose I can't blame you for getting tired of saving me so often. The act of being a 'hero's' hero must be too ironic to bear."
"I just don't want them to get any ideas and try anything more high-powered," he grumbles, sinking into his chair a little. "Not everything revolves around you. I'd like to keep this place intact and not swarming with would-be saviors - surely that's worth the inconvenience."
He finds he doesn't mind making sure Avery is safe, though he wishes it was less often, on the whole.
"Saviors..." he practically spits out the word. "Ugh. I'll give you a point there." Reluctantly, but a point nonetheless. If someone walks up to him and tells him he needed saving from Ekkehardt of all people, he thinks he'd be sick to his stomach.
"We are going to need to let one or two in from time to time though. I might be able to get by on the souls of... I don't know, squirrels or something, but the thought of it just sounds pathetic."
Ekkehardt waves a hand as if to say I've thought of that. "I've protected the ruins, not the forest around it," he replies. "So your hunting grounds are free game for unwary travelers to wander into. And if you want a vacation, you can always go further afield."
"Do as you like," Ekkehardt says, straightening up, leaning on the table he's seated at. "Though it occurs to me that we haven't exactly explored the full range of your powers, so there's yet more to learn about how you work. Perhaps, in time, you can add your own little touches to this forest."
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(He wonders when he started thinking about Avery like this. A pair, rather than two apart who happened to live in the same place.
He's not sure if he hates him any more. That feels like a betrayal, almost.)
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Avery doesn't stop until he breaches the gates, carrying bodies along with it, souls ripped out and devoured to aid in closing the wound inflicted upon him in the throne room.
Indistinct, inhuman, and on edge, the beast continues to stalk through the forest outside the city walls, yellow eyes shining bright as they dart about, searching for any more threats to his well-being.
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(Despite himself, he drags more than a few townspeople - adults and children alike - out of harm's way, his radiant warmth shielding them from being flash-frozen instantly. He harries them to run, to get as far away as possible, and exerts more power than strictly necessary to keep the snow from rolling over them until they have a fighting chance. And, well, hopefully they'll never whiten his reputation by saying the old, evil wizard did it. If they live.)
Avery is easy to find, at least, once he's done following his personal little whim. The ominous shadow with glowing eyes stalking among the trees isn't exactly hard to miss, and even if it was, Ekkehardt doubts he could miss him anyway. His power senses when Avery is near, tugs towards him when he's far.
"If you savage me, I'll be very displeased," he informs the beast, crossing his arms and staring it - him - down.
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"I want to go," he murmurs after a moment.
(Go home, he thinks, but he doesn't know where that is anymore.)
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"Worry about that later. Go to sleep," he says, simply, his voice almost unbearably gentle; a remnant of a man he thought had died long ago. He can only hope that Avery will be too addled, or too embarrassed, to mention this later.
Where to go? Well, there's only one place for him now; the place he'd spent so long languishing in, the one Avery had departed in anger. It's the only place that he's reasonably sure they'll be safe from detection - he'd made it so, painstakingly.
So he goes back to the place he's always called home, since his lord died. (Whether it's Avery's home is yet to be decided.)
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"You were right," he finally says to Ekkehardt one day. "It is weakness. Humanity, love... It's all pointless."
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"Coming around to the idea at last, are you?" He sounds more curious than mocking.
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Those adventures were the only time I ever really got to leave the city, you know. She'd always get so upset whenever I thought about taking a vacation. Not unless she got to go too."
He hangs his head and shuts his eyes. "No one said anything. No one stopped it, or her, or me... No one lifting a hand when I was locked away, coming after me with chains and cages when I wasn't something that could be controlled anymore... All this time I've been nothing but a pawn in some greater game I never knew I was playing."
His voice goes darker by the word, trembling with cold fury. "The only people who bothered with me, who saved my life, are you and--" he taps his chest, "--my little friend here."
Face in shadows save for his golden eyes, he bares his teeth. "Parasites," he hisses. "They're nothing but weak, worthless little parasites, feeding off of others in some useless attempt to pretend they're something more than they are!"
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Ekkehardt has done nothing wrong. Even Avery doesn't know why he said it. Maybe it's just because everything hurts so much right now. It seems unfair that others don't feel it too.
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He leans forward, his eyes glittering. "But you're foolish as ever, it seems."
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His shoulders hike up a little, almost defensively. "There's something you didn't know."
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"What do you mean? It wasn't him?
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He shrugs. "And, well, look at how I've turned out. There's a lesson in that, don't you think?"
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What a hell of a pair they were.
"Yes... I guess there is. Being the good guy only gets you screwed in the end. At least the villains get to have fun."
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"At least we won't be disturbed here. After the last time we had a large amount of unwelcome visitors, I took precautions. It'll be hard to even recognise this place exists, much less intrude upon it."
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"But then again, I suppose I can't blame you for getting tired of saving me so often. The act of being a 'hero's' hero must be too ironic to bear."
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He finds he doesn't mind making sure Avery is safe, though he wishes it was less often, on the whole.
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"We are going to need to let one or two in from time to time though. I might be able to get by on the souls of... I don't know, squirrels or something, but the thought of it just sounds pathetic."
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"Sometimes I forget you're the expert on this whole 'villainy' thing. Hope you don't mind me taking notes."
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