Sapharan High City, capital of Lanostre
Tatiana Leviatan
Something felt as though it had shattered in Tatiana during the battle and the massacre that followed. Even as they made their way back into the streets of Lanostre, her stomach felt like it was twisting in knots. Looking around, she felt as though the world around her was a foreign abstraction of what wasโ
maybe it was. In her mind, echoic replays of the devastation that had taken place just kept looping through her thoughts. Tatiana could hardly focus on what she and her fellow members of Phoenix Warband were generally being herded to do. That much was obvious by the sheer catatonia that wracked her as she traveled. She hardly spoke a word, even to Galahad and Astraea. For the time being, Tatiana focused solely on processing the sights unfolding before her.
Varyans, Lanostrans, soldiers, and civilians all crowded chaotically about their path. No one had any information, but all of the populace thirsted for it. Some sought a sign that things would be okay. Others frantically scurried about the streets in hopes to get word of surviving comrades. Some were met with the opposite of their hopes, laying splayed on the stones with tears in their eyes and voices broken from incessant yelling directed skyward as if some celestial God or Goddess would come to their aid. Tatiana knew better. She grieved, for she knew there was very little up above with a benevolent hand in Humanity's affairs. No one would help them. Not anymore. There were no Godsโ only Demons.
Even beneath the heavens, Tatiana knew there were only demons. She had seen them today as they slaughtered man in ethereal explosions without regard for life and death. She had seen them only hours before in the aftermath of Leviatan Manor. She had even seen them in a man she would have previously called her comrade.
Was he responsible? For any of it? For all of it? Tatiana was unsure. She was unsure about a number of thingsโ almost everything in recent times. She did maintain certainty on one thing, however: she was only moments away from being tried by the high clerics as a demon herself. Even that was not her greatest worry at the time, though. For throughout the traumatic battering of the day's events, Tatiana had watched her grasp on reality crumbling.
Were the clerics going to be right in their verdict? Had she really had something to do with the fall of the Leviatan family? Who was to blame for the loss of Tatiana's last connections to her bloodline if not for herself? The distant Dara? Could he have really influenced Lanostre so acutely from his enshrouded position? Or perhaps it could have been someone much closer to herโ a bearer of the Leviatan name. Even the clerics themselves began to grow ever more suspicious on the warband's short journey.
When Elisheva and Cillian had finally dropped beyond the group of lifelong comrades, Tatiana's gaze finally rose from the broken stones in the pavement below them. Her eyes rested heavily upon Galahad, as if she wanted to bring herself to conversationโ to put up the facade of steeling herself above all else, but as she opened her mouth, few words fell from her lips. Instead, she offered only one bit of rhetoric, coming from her as a wavering whisper. "What have we done, Galahad?"
Tatiana was nigh silent in the chambers of the high clerics. Their pseudo-interrogation of the Phoenix Warband dragged on, but still Tatiana would hold her tongue, allowing her two cohorts to answer whatever questions weren't directed at her. In that endeavor, Tatiana divulged as little information as possible. It was appearing as if her mind was fogged by the battle, she was too ill in the mind during the scenario to remember anything. Of course, this was how it appeared, but deep in her subconscious Tatiana was still playing over and over the moment where the demonic entities spoke in tongues she could understand. It was like a visionโ a hallucination, but in the same vein it was based entirely in reality. These thoughts started to overtake Tatiana during the meeting. She seemed to zone out, wracked with thoughts of what could have possibly happened to her and whether it was real or fake.
By the time she knew it, the high clerics were getting around to adjourning the congregation. An unspoken offer was extended to the inquisitors to take their leave, and Tatiana was the first to step from her position towards the door. After momentary farewells, the rest of those present seemed to follow suit in their conclusion of the report. Tatiana would have thought herself completely fine in the moment had one of the central high clerics not spoken up.
"Inquisitor Leviatanโ if you could stay behind a moment, we have some questions for you about recent transpiring events."
The words struck her like a wave of electricity jolting across Tatiana's body. No matter what queries the clerics were going to have, she wasn't going to enjoy the meeting. The more she thought about it, the more her thought process would morph the concept of a final interrogation with the clerics into something that was less of a meeting and more of a showdown. Her eyes narrowed and she paused in her stride. Before her companions may have had a chance to pass on words of reassurance or protest the high clerics, Tatiana spoke up herself. Strangely enough, it seemed it was at this point that her voice reverberated with the most confidence Tatiana had since the meeting began:
"Just leave this to me... I'll meet you at the edge of the city when we are prepared to make haste towards Cero." With that, Tatiana swiveled back towards the panel of high clerics all lined in offset positions on an elevated level in front of her. Something about the whole situation made Tatiana feel like she was facing a court of judges in something more akin to war than questioning. She prepared herself to recall her cloudy memories as best she could only hoping that she remembered a truth that was accurate rather than losing herself to a quaking mental state. Even then, she meditated on dangerously troubling scenarios whether possible or impossible.
What might they do if her testimony was refuted? Before she had the chance to get to lost in her own thoughts, though, one of the high clerics spoke up:
"Inquisitor Leviatan, I'm sure by this point you're likely aware of why we called you here. The news was given to you earlier in the day before the ordeal at the glacier, yes?"
"My father is dead..." Tatiana's voice, despite its harsh topic, felt empty. She knew that they wanted to hear that much, and she had no intention of letting it perturb her.
"And as you may know, he was killed in a most gruesome,
demonic fashion. Only hours after your arrival in Lanostre with your fellow inquisitors." The statements through Tatiana off. Not necessarily because she wasn't expecting the cleric's words, but moreso that she just wasn't ready to unearth feelings that had been so frozen earlier.
"Iโ... I wasn't there when it happened. I just saw the body." Tatiana felt almost like she was choking her sentences forth. She felt her fist tighten, and if she hadn't consciously forced herself to stop, the hateful energy that brings her companions may have arose as blackened auras around her.
"So you've been there within your short visit to Lanostre? And you didn't report your findings to any superiors..." As the words fell from the cleric's mouth, Tatiana's tired and strained eyes couldn't tell if he was smiling or if she was just twisting his appearance in her mind.
It was all falling apart... All looking so desolate."I didn't do anything! I would never! You should be looking for an actual killer!" Tatiana's sentences came automatically, fired off one after another without a second thought. Her voice grew loud to echo from the walls of the massive chamber. She was just where the clerics had expected her to be.
If only she could have controlled herself a moment longer..."You
are a killer, Miss Leviatan. Not only that, but you carry one of nature's greatest killers alongside you at all times." One could sense anger even in the cleric's voice at this point. Another one of the cohorts soon broke in before Tatiana could get more words in. She was too busy fumbling over her own thoughts in anger at her judge's words. Something within her broke downโ a wall, a barrier. Something that prevented thoughts of the idea the cleric had brought up. It was something built into her at the Seminary. She was a child taught to wield her gift without regard for what she was doing.
She was... A pawn in the games of the Inquisition?"Inquisitor Leviatan, the high clerics intend to keep you for further questioning. You'll be held for an indiscriminate number of days in Lanostre before a further verdict is determined." The shocking revelation made Tatiana cut in right after:
You can't do this. I have orders! My colleagues are waiting for me..." Her words were futile in the clerical
verdict. The word resonated in Tatiana's mind for a long while. She got no less loud as she was seized as peacefully as the clerics of Lanostre could manage to move her from the grand hall. A familiar sense of
desolation was overtaking Tatiana, but some underlying feeling still prevailed. Something deep inside her was rising up to fight back against the world's odds stacked against her. Something was present that let hope remain:
Defiance.
In the snowstorm weather high up on the mountain, Tatiana was corralled by an escort of Lanostran warriors as she was guided towards the bridge to the monolithic gates of Polarpike, a Lanostran prison of awe-striking magnitude. Being ingrained in such a war-like culture, the Lanostran populace had notoriety for a prison of such epic proportions, and Tatiana was only a short walk across the precariously picturesque high bridge that offered a walkway between two mountain peaks from seeing its rarely described inner workings. The sun was just nearly falling over the horizon, leaving its final rays gleaming off of the Black Glacier in all its mightiness. As she was goaded onwards, Tatiana found herself overlooking the battlefield she had found herself immersed in only hours beforehand. She wondered if it was still littered with corpses or if the snow had since covered the remains of their fallen foes and allies alike. She wondered what her colleagues were thinking at that time.
Were they pondering themselves as killers? No. They were probably readying themselves to depart, waiting expectantly for Tatiana to join them. With such a fate as her current predicament it wasn't looking likely that she would. Tatiana felt pained at the thought of abandoning her missionโ abandoning her friends.
No. It wasn't just pain. She couldn't do it. She had come so farโ too far to just give up her inquisitor's life. She didn't have it in her to repent for clouded memories. She didn't have the time to ponder who or who may not be a killer. She was not a judge. Tatiana was a phoenix, and like the phoenix, she would rise. Rise up from the desolation around her in a blaze of ethereal glory and reform herself in an evolved shape. The pheonix was insurmountable. No fell verdict would perturb it. Nothing would stop itโ killer or not.Tatiana felt the energy well up inside her as she was prodded to step onto the start of the high level bridge. For a moment, she paused in her stride, glancing around to the five or so men that escorted her towards her destination. Along the side of the bridge, a number of patrols made the journey to and from Polarpike. To them, this bridge was something entirely differentโ a daily trek back and forth, futile in most senses. To Tatiana, it was something more: a death sentence. Not in the traditional sense, but providing a death of who she was. As she crossed that threshold, stepping the first step towards desolate death, her senses became overpowered by her own will as her own dark ethereal energy coursed through her. She felt that death wash over her, and in turn allowed the rebirth and resurrection breath life into her.
A reactionary life of fighting repetitive unfortunate circumstances no longer defined the phoenix. No longer would she take to being under the command of those who watched idle by. In her moment of rebirth, the Phoenix saw another flash realization. Perhaps it wasn't her vision that was skewed by the demonic and vile lifestyle she had been forced into. Perhaps it was she who saw the truth. Even in that realization, the Phoenix knew that in this desolate world that she was not making the decisions. She saw truth but didn't hold the power to invoke it. No more..."No more..."
Tatiana's hand ripped forward as she turned around to face her own psychopomps. Flashes of the Red Seminary's martial teachings flooded her brain and without even thinking, her hand surged to ensnare itself around the throat of one of her escorts. He made a motion with his sword, but Tatiana caught the blade with the forearm of her offhand, causing a surge of red to paint Polarpike Bridge as a gash ripped open where steel met flesh. She was unperturbed. She was the Phoenix: an avatar of her warband.
Torrents of black smog-like energy coarsed through her arm and throughout the air around her tightening palm. It would have obscured her surroundings had the Lanostran mountain wind not been so powerful. As her other escorts began to draw their weapons, Tatiana felt a sheer cacophonous cry evoke itself from her lungs as the demonic energy flowed through her like a conduit. Her voice cracked and echoed across the mountain summits that surrounded her, but even then it was soon replaced by something even more terrifying to the present company. In the culmination of the deluge of her ethereal energy, the damned and baleful roar of the Terviclops, scoured Tatiana's surroundings, echoing so far as to reverberate with the very base of the mountains and their surroundings:
the Black Glacier...All at once, the blackened pooling energy exploded into its newfound fleshy form, falling from just high enough above the crowd to cause a rumbling in the secure stones of the bridge. In one moment, the escort Tatiana had seized had wounded her and threatened another advance. The next, he slumped downwards, his skull bisected by the lumbering spear of the Terviclops in such perfection to avoid even glancing Tatiana's extended arm. Yells of the guards tore through the wind-lashed surroundings around Tatiana. It took less than seconds for bells of warning to awaken reinforcements both at Polarpike and from behind her towards the clerical complex. Tatiana cast her mutilated arm outwards as a silent guide, and in a swift movement the Terviclops swung his spear widely to slam into another of the escorts to cast him over the bridge and send him tumbling towards the mountain's base. Tatiana took the opportunity to shoot backwards towards the clerical complex a few paces to put Terviclops between her and the rest of the escorting clerics.
Her upperhand didn't last forever, though. Another roar pierced the sky as it was cast out to the
very horizon when three missiles fired from balistae found their target center mass in the back of the Terviclops. In a moment of distinct humanity, the lumbering creature turned its decaying body towards Tatiana as black blood spilled from its already necrotic form. Their was pain in his eyesโ a pain only a seer of truth could witness. Tatiana glanced back towards the approaching brigade of soldiers with fervor in their eyes. Any chance to slay a demon was taken by the Lanostran laymen. Tatiana was surrounded on the chokepoint bridge. Something overcame her that moment: a killer's own humanity.
"Terviclops..." That was all she managed to order towards her companion as Tatiana waved a hand across the bridge, any remaining wisps of dark energy flittering towards the demon to metabolize him back into whatever shadows from whence he came. Tatiana couldn't let her friend be taken by the clouded thoughts of the blind. A final demonic cry screeched forth from Terviclops' twisted lungs. This one was different, though. Not a cry for mercy, not a cry of battle rage, but something different. Soft, but unrecognizable to the summoner's ears. He deserved a fate far better, but in doing so, the inquisitor left herself alone in facing the approaching vanguard all looking to oppress her phoenix fate. The advancing forces began to back the lone girl into a pinned position at the bridge's edge. Tatiana looked over the edge. At this point in bridge's closest position to its origin mountain, the drop was no more than twenty-five feet, but what awaited after one impacted the snow was nothing more than a deathly tumble down the sheer cliff-face. She glanced back to the
desolate army encroaching on her position. With hands slightly raised, it appeared that she had conceded, but still she saw the bloodthirst on some of the faces of the R'heon around her. One militant seized the inquisitor's wrist. A thousand bloodcurdling cries pierced the air:
"She's a demon!"
"Take her to Polarpike!"
"Lock her away!"
"Traitor!"
And a thousand cries more pierced the air thereafter. Tatiana paid each one no heed. Nor did the rest of the gathering mob. Instead, all were focused on one particular baleful cry previously unrecognized by Tatiana's ears until only moments beforehand. It started as a loud rumbling, but there was a softness to its tone. Tatiana could have sworn her mind was playing tricks on her againโ that Terviclops was calling to her from somewhere deep in her mind, but there was one subtle difference. Accompanying the vile call was a faint buzzing growing ever louder as it caught the attention of the crowd.
It's presence was made known as a struggling deformed black mass fluttered from beneath the bridge on bent and broken wings, barely able to carry itself in the winds. With it, the creature hoisted a massive stone greatsword chipped nearly in half but still matching the size of its body at least. In its surprise appearance, no sword could react fast enough to stop its eldritch form from launching itself upwards and sending its massive weapon crashing down into the crowd. As the demon landed, it seemed to meet Tatiana's gaze, and finally she recognized the creature. It was one of the locust-like winged seraphs that she had spilled blood with. She remembered that specific gaze. It was the face of the creature that she and Terviclops had bested until Tatiana gave the order to move on without killing the injured and fallen creature. It was the demon she had shown mercy. In that moment, Tatiana knew she was a summoner. She knew that Mother Indira's teachings in her art were sound and present in her mind, for she knew exactly what to do.
In the mass confusion that came in the bridge-shaking impact, the crowd struck out against the demon, but it was quick to begin picking itself up on its fragmented wings. Tatiana wasted no time. As her hands began swirling with black energy once again culminating around her forearms, she sent a stiff palm towards the diaphragm of the man that had seized her wrist. He let go near instantaneously. The panic throughout the riotous crowd singled out no man. Without another thought, Tatiana took a quick breath and launched her frame backwards as she threw herself from the bridge.
With eyes shut tight, she awaited impact, and soon found it in the layers of thick snow that pillowed her crashing down. Tatiana managed only one simple roll before she was sent skidding down the sheer cliff. In that moment, she could have sworn that terror would overtake her, but her mind remained clear as she tried to slow her fall. It was as if all the trainingโ all the mindless sessions of mental torment with Indira and the harsh physical punishment of the Seminary had been training her for this specific moment. As she fell faster and faster, a torrent of black ether particles scattered behind her in trails from her hands. She cast her gaze skywards and saw the demon soaring down back below the bridge. It wasn't after the crowd of Lanostran R'heon. It was after her.
Tatiana threw a fist up towards the buzzing demon's shape as she was obscured by the loose snow thrown around her. Throwing herself onto a hip for just a moment, she sent the culmination of her ethereal energy towards the creature as if blasting him with its force. As Tatiana connected with her target, she let her arm fall back down and began to freely tumble without much control. Her ether seemed to leach into the demon, and what followed was the greatest and most strenuous battle that Tatiana had ever faced. It wasn't physical in nature, but instead the communing minds of hu-
killer and demon both vying for control on a mental plain, and on top of that, Tatiana was lost in an uncontrollable spiral as she closed her eyes, diverting all of her focus to her mind.
HateControl
AgonySubordination
SlaughterResonance
Desolation...Symbiosis...
Just as Tatiana found herself grounded back in reality, she was thrown from the mountain's incline into a sheer drop, but in a short free fall, she found herself slammed into by the demon's massive form, a deformed arm securely wrapped around her they flew towards the Glacier glinting in the distance. During the journey, Tatiana found herself fading in and out of consciousness, but as she flew over the mass grave she had called a battlefield only hours before, she was shaken back to reality.
"Northwards... Towards the gates."
Before she knew it, Tatiana was spiraling towards the ground in the arms of her newfound companion. As precarious as it looked, only a second later Tatiana was planted firmly on the ground in front of the road that led to the gate. In her ultimate fatigue, Tatiana had no focus to pay respect to her savior. In a shared silent moment, the two creatures met eyes and Tatiana cast the creature into her ethereal mists. In a swift estimation of the sun's location, Tatiana had presumed that Galahad and Astraea would have already been rallying at the gate waiting for Tatiana's arrival, and she knew that if the Lanostran clerics were to send someone to them before their departure this would only get messier than it was. The broken inquisitor hurried towards the road only to scare the wits out of a man travelling by ramahk with her disheveled appearance, abrupt and unannounced arrival. Tatiana felt her eyes grow as cold as the rest of her freezing form. Without hesitation, she fumbled for a weapon, coming only upon the mutilated horn of the Terviclops that had been severed at the Glacier. She held it as though it were a wicked blade. Allowing the demonic energy that was nearly drained within her to well up in her opposite hand.
"Get off now... Do not test me." Tatiana could have sworn there was something wrong with her voice as she spoke. There was a hint of demented
desolation in her words. She caught it herself, but it was too late. Warped by fear, the stable hand dared not deny the inquisitors request and in only a few short minutes, she was set to leave. A softness then came over her as she realized what she had done. Tatiana spoke a few final words before departing with as much haste as she could. "Iโ I'm sorry. Find it at the gates in an hour's time."
When Tatiana rode up to the gate to find her colleagues, she wasted no time in calling for their departure. She must have looked like she had seen another battle just as bad as the one they'd participated in before, but she would not explain herself. A parasite of fear and hurt and desolation melted away from her upon meeting her old friends.
"Galahad..."
"We must make haste. I apologize for my tardiness, but I was requested to be present for some business at the Glacier. I've word from our clerical friends to move off at a speed..." As Tatiana finished her short speech, she found herself doing her best to obscure her wounds beneath her now red inquisitor's coat. She had made it. Sending a glance back towards Lanostre, she couldn't help but feel it was her last. A phoenix had seemed to awaken within her, and the Lanostran within her was dead. The Leviatan family was dead.
Tatiana Leviatan was dead.
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