It had been a month since that night. The night that Thaulka had warned him in the cover of darkness of a dangerous elf searching for him. He was walking to meet Barnabas when he finally met that elf.
He'd been walking for a few minutes when he noticed a man in a cloak stalking him. His footsteps were incredibly light. In fact even walking over loose gravel the stranger was indiscreenable except for the ever so faint smell of vinyl resin and blood.
He guessed that the man was either injured or doing Nursara work.
He could only guess that it was latter as the stranger kept up with him as he sped up and wound through the alleys of downtown Reavador.
He turned a corner and held his breath while the stranger caught up. His scenes were on high alert his body was ready to obey him swiftly. He intended to grab the stranger by knife point when they swung around the corner, but after an impossible amount of time he chuckled.
"You knew I was waiting for you so you took the long way around the alley." He turned to the stranger who'd stopped six feet away behind him.
"I am impressed, not many people would realize I was tracking them." The voice was a husky whisper of femininity.
He pulled another blade as the woman pulled back her hood revealing sparkling, long spiky black hair, tan and black scaled skin, red eyes, and vampire teeth that pressed into plump ruby lips. Charming he thought, bemused.
"I take it your the blood elf that's been looking for me." He shifted his feet into a fighting stance that was indiscreenable.
She laughed and it sounded like haughty bells.
"I recognize your defensive movements, but I'm sorry to say it would do you no good."
"Lucky for you," Her sharp teeth glinted gently,
"I harbor no Ill intent."
His eyes narrowed at her suspiciously inspecting her.
She shrugged off her cloak to reveal a small curving body dressed in one leg black and one leg red fishnet leggings with a small black dress. Scandalous and yet they matched her aura perfectly.
She spread out her cloak on the crates in the alley and sat one leg crossed over her knee.
A small satchel hung on her hip. The bandages must be in there.
"I've been hired to assist you."
"By whom?"
She looked at him with cold glittering eyes.
"My name is Sarumah Haram."
"That's not what I asked you."
"Ah, a stickler for the details I see. Names are an important thing. Don't you think?"
She asked suddenly standing and donning her cloak in one smooth motion. She struttered past him and flicked up her hood as she went.
"I'll meet you at the little cabin you own in the woods.Tonight at Eight sharp."
Her lips curled into a mysterious grin.
"Don't be late."
She spoke as she rounded the corner and when he turned to shout after her he looked at an empty street.
***
"I would like you to use the magic balm I gave you for those hideous scars on your back."
Boren's lip curled in disgust his eyes cold and judgmental.
She looked up in suprise, and told the truth.
"My father could afford the balm when I was younger, but he would not allow me to use it. I have grown use to them."
She did not add that they reminded her of another Scar, and that to remove them now would stain a memory she held close to her heart.
"Well then get use to them being gone. It's in that bottle there. Beneath the window."
His hand motioned impatiently and he grinned as she flinched. Her gaze met his steadily as she agreed to his wishes.
"Very well."
She knew better than to fight him now. It had only been a few days since their wedding night and he had already beaten her more times than she would count.
She felt that she'd locked herself in the cage with a bear and threw the key threw slated bars.
Everyday she imagined what it would have been to live with Scar on the run.
She should have left with him she thought as she plucked the cream from the table. It was somthing she thought of often, and she smiled bitterly to know she had given him up for Boren.
Hopefully he could find someone whom could fit into his life like a piece of a puzzle, and not threaten his health. Even if it meant her life would be miserable she could still smile knowing he had a chance at happiness.
She felt bad for the servant girl who passed her in the hall. She had spilt a cup earleir and was scheduled for a 'correctional night'.
It was a practice of Boren's that Nadine had tried to put an end to, but fearing for her life if she fought him, and seeing the woman be punished afterward anyway she had stopped. She would die before he changed. Already she had spent more time unconscious on her bedroom floor then she cared to think about.
She just had to accept her new reality she thought.
She put the balm into the bathroom cupboard on the way to her own chambers. She would use it later. She went to her closet and stripped in front of the mirror. Trying to catch a glimpse of the scars on her back she tripped and fell. A violet coverall fell off the hanger and onto her head. She smirked as she pulled it through her hands until she held the sleeve in her hand. She stared at the blood droplets and knew she'd made the right choice.
A smell wafted through the room from the kitchen's. She straightened herself for the meal.
***
Scar was at the cabin by seven. He didn't like that the stranger knew where he lived and he didn't like that he didn't know who had hired her.
Thaulka had warned him that she was dangerous. Perhaps she was indeed aiming to assinate him. He walked through the cabin.
This was the first time he'd been back since Nadine. He couldn't bear to be in this space. Within an hour he had he pulled the bolts out of the floor and mixed some resin from the side shed.
He poured enough out to fill the holes in the hardwood and smoothed them out with a sandstone, once they'd dried. He was finishing up when the faint smell of blood tingled unpleasantly in his nostrils.
"Sarumah." He said dully before turning to face her.
He wiped stain off his hands with a cloth and then smoothed the sweat from his brow. He popped open a window as she spoke.
"I was hired so you could meet your mother." she said plainly, "now sit on the bed so I can get to work." He appraised her.
Cool air entered the room and he leaned up against the wall, muscled arms crossed.
"I think I'd prefer to stand."
Her eyes flashed like bright rubies with irratatation.
"With all do respect. What I do will make you fall flat on your face."
"Well then perhaps I'll sit. Besides a little woman like you could hardly dream of hurting me. Even in bed."
He smirked at her and she walked up to him wrapping a green latex tie on his arm.
"You underestimate me. The blood in your veins would swoon to my every whim if I wanted it to."
She pulled out a bucket from outside his cabin and turned it upside down to place a wooden bowl down. He recognized the bowl from his kitchen.
She pulled out a clear glass of dark liquid. The bowl was filled halfway. She grabbed his arm and fearlessly, he let her. If she was an elvish assassin and what she said was true there was no point in fighting the inevitable.
"So your an assassin?"
She smirked at him as she tied her own arm.
"I am not. Although in my younger years I dabbled in your trade. I killed at least a few hundred during the wars before I decided it just wasn't for me."
She smiled at him and there was pain in her eyes.
His stare grew sharp.
"If you were alive to see the wars that would make you..."
Her eyes sparkled bemused, and she hovered a neat hand above his wrist.
"At least seventy or eighty."
He whispered looking at her lovely figure, her young face. She didn't look a day over twenty, if that. Her fingers drew inward and outward a few times he felt a pinch like a needle.
The feeling was within his skin. It unsettled him.
Mirth entered her gaze and the sound of haughty bell like laughter floated in the small space between them.
An unexpected sting of pain made him wince as a needle size hole opened in his skin and a glint of hardened scarlet rose out of his skin like glass before liquidating again and flowing to Sarumah's hand.
"I am much, much older than that, and still in my youth." She said amused.
Her hands stopped and the scarlet string rolled and gathered until it became a small ball of buzzing liquid. Then they liquid separated and hovered. Seven perfectly sized droplets spun in front of his face. She let his hand drop and pulled a bandage from her satchel. She slicked it over his skin and pulled seven droplets from her own body. Her wound closed when she was done.
He imagined what she could do to an enemy when she had the ability to harden blood. A vivid image of a body skewed from the inside out in a millon different tiny needles or simple blood leaking from a mouth thats internal organs had all been squished to a pulp by their own blood. He shivered.
She looked at him pointedly.
"The more kinds of elven blood that run through your veins, the longer your life will span."
He didn't like the look in her eyes. Before he could say anything else his blood fell into the bowl the black water soaked into it and left a ball of swirling ebony the water in the bowl was clear.
"The creature that hired me said you'd never met your mother, but your blood is her blood and everything you need to know about her is in the orb you see in front of you. Because we do not have a link, like a strand of her hair, I will be the link to her."
She moved her own droplets until they hovered around the spinning orb in a ring.
"Close your eyes and hold your palm out."
He obeyed. All he'd ever wanted was to learn of his mother.
His hand touched the orb and his entire body tingled and went still. He waited for a long time but nothing else happened.
"What am I suppose to.."
He opened his eyes and he was in a palace. The people were all strange. They were all elves.
A small child ran past him and his heart pulled at him. *follow her* his mind whispered and he without a thought he was floating after the girl. She was running up to a female elf with sparkling ivory skin, a pinkish hue brushed between hues of shimmering blue. Her large doe eyes bright and sharp were framed with silvery blue tendrils of voluminous curls. A curved, graceful, and proud body complimented the utterly alien beauty of the elven race that graced her features.
She bent to the child, whom mirrored her own appearance in pastel and muted features, and gave her a small coin. The child's appearance began to ripple and change. Her hair became smooth and humanlike her skin smooth and porcelain.
"May we go now mommy."
Laughter like crystals clanging in a breeze
seemed to fill his soul as his body floated there unseen.
"Yes dear we may, just hold on a second I have to put on my necklace." The woman gently pushed away the chubby demanding grip on her dress pocket and drew out a small silver necklace. She smiled at the childs patience before clicking it into place. The young girl frowned thoughtfully as the women's skin and hair morphed and became humanlike and his heart rose into his throat. It was his mother.
"Momma? Why do we change the way we look to go outside."
His essence floated closer. Yes, that was the necklace in the portrait he kept on his wall. His heart sank as she turned toward him to pick up the small child who's hair was a perfect match to her own. Her eyes were Deep Green and her face had a long scar from chin to ear. It could not be his mother.
"Its dangerous out in the world right now. These keep us safe." She said dangling her silver chain.
Just as his dissapointment flared the little girl spun the coin in her hand and he understood.
The woman was his grandmother. The child in her arms his infant mother. He moved as they headed out the door. A wave of black pushed him from the door and he spun into darkness. He blinked and he was in a field. A young woman ran through the field long black hair flying behind her ice blue eyes. Carefree and eyes sparkling with pure unbridled joy.
He was suddenly aware of his outside body, if only briefly he felt tears roll down his cheeks, then he was pulled back into the essence of his inner self on the field. Watching his mother as she ran carefree into the arms of a young man with spiked black hair and sharp pearly white teeth. His eyes glimmered with love and kindness as he beheld her.
The man clenched her tightly and flashed a sweet smile as she reached him and his vision flashed again.
The visions began to spin quickly.
It showed her heavy with child humming as she dusted a porch railing. The same man came up behind her and hugged her a twinkle in his eyes. It spun to her carrying that child in a blanket sewn with a crescent moon against deep blue. Her and the man were in battle gear and the baby was left with a group of elves, tears in their eyes as they parted.
It spun again.
The man lay there dying, crimson ran into a stream as his mother wailed.
His mother battling by herself in many different battles. They flashed one after the other until at last she came back to the little village for her baby. It was a little boy with jet black hair that stuck up in hard spikes and his eyes were deep green. His heart sped up as the vision changed again. The women standing over another man with hard grey eyes, a sword pointed at his chest. Her eyes were daggers.
The vision flashed again and again of her and the man. Her with eyes that gradually softened until they twinkled once more. Her and the man were a cute little family with the little green eyed boy the man reuniting with another boy the same age and her coaxing the second boy close until he smiled.
The little boys became young men and she smiled proudly as they left the little palace they lived in. Her belly became round again.
It showed her with a different infant. She rocked it and sung sweetly.
The infant became sick.
The woman and the man looked desperate as they brought the baby to person after person each shook their head regretfully. Each flashed rapidly one into the next until the last.
A man appeared before them with a vile his face twisting into an evil smirk. Scar's heart hammered in his chest as he recognized the cruel face and narrowed eyes. It was his own father Snakeeyes Sylvador.
He presented the vile and ran a finger down his mother's face grinning madly.
His mother and the man with with the hooded grey gaze looked at him shocked. The eyes of the man flashed in angry as he stepped between them. His voice was low and threatening.
"She belongs with me."
Snakeyes smiled and stepped back into the shadows. "Her. For the cure. That's the deal."
They took the baby back home, but it began to get sicker and sicker.
It was dying.
His mother handed the bundle over to the man and stood proudly heading out the door. The man with grey eyes held the baby stiffly, agony blazing in his eyes as he watched her leave.
He watched his mother walk into Snakeeyes Sylvador manor and his hands grabbed her face. She shook him off pridefully, but a moment later her skin turned chalk white and she submitted to his presence. He pressed her against him and smelled the curve of her neck. His eyes flashed dangerously.
"You are mine." He whispered.
Her body spun as the past began to fade. It grew farther away but not before he saw the man with grey eyes ripple until his body became scaled, horns curled from his head majestically. His eyes feral and cold as he knelt to Snakeyes Sylvador to plead for his mother. His body faded farther but, not before he saw the man and his mother both die by Snakeeyes Sylvador's tricks. He weilded a strange dark magic.
With his mothers dying breath she whispered a spell that he could not hear and tucked the coin into his blanket. The infants skin turned humananly pink and ivory. With the man's dying breath, the man who Scar knew deep down could only be his father, he cursed Snakeeyes. His voice thundered so that even though Scar felt millions of miles away , could hear him.
"Bare this staff so that you may never kill my heir. For doing so will bring about your own demise. You may never be free from it's power no matter how far it strays from your body, and in breaking it you will find your mortal body broken identically."
His body was thrown back and his eyes popped open to find the woman with the vampire teeth staring at him thoughtfully.
He held out the coin and tried to drop it. His body would not release it. He ground his teeth with the effort to no avail. A soft lilting voice filled the quiet room, her lips titling in a smirk.
"Would you like me to remove the enchantment on the coin?"
He looked at her his answer in his eyes as he reached his hand out and his fingers opened to reveal the coin in the center of his open palm.
She touched the coin and spoke softly. "Release."
He dropped the coin for the first time in twenty eight years and watched as his skin began to ripple and change.