A Return to Darkness

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Voices of the Wheel
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Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:40 pm

A Return to Darkness

Post by Voices of the Wheel » Fri May 12, 2023 10:47 am

Shaidar Haran hisses, 'I hope you serve me well, Lisennet, and you should fear failure because I am not kind or forgiving.'

----

Standing at the repulsive well of blood, Lisennet takes in the stench of the Keep. At one time, she would have gagged at the smell. Now she takes pleasure in it - pleasure in the noise, the harsh language spoken, the force with which things are being done, the brutality. She grabs an arm from the cookpot and sinks her teeth into the cooked human flesh. Her body responds with a shocking vigor and adrenaline rush at the taste - an awakening.

This place is incomparable to where she was brought up, the Saldaean Farmlands. Nor does it bear any resemblance to Tar Valon, let alone the White Tower where she had spent hundreds of years scheming in the dark, being obedient, keeping up appearances.

She thinks back to the people who thought of her as a 'friend': Aes Sedai, Warders, Accepted, and others from different places. She remembers Guards of the Queen of Andor, Shienaran Lancers, and even one Child of the Light. Ah, that lovely Child - in another life, they could have been lovers, maybe. All betrayed in the end. Interesting how things could change.

And the people she used to call friends, the friends of the Dark...so simple it had seemed at first. She had learned nothing is ever simple. The Great Lord gives, the Great Lord takes. There is always a price. Most of her friends just ceased to be, it seemed. Vanished, perhaps in a dungeon. And the few that had not vanished, had changed.

Betrayal had become second nature to all. This is one of the gifts. Her once lovely Warder, Faiz, also got gifted. Private lessons from Ilsae were the drop, no doubt still scheming on how to bring her down. No matter now. And Chrissy, her example. Her mentor. Doing her bidding had been as dangerous as ignoring it. That too had to end.

There could be no trust. In the dark, Lisennet had found herself. She had to fall deep to be remade. Each kill, and each death, brought her closer to here - the stench of the Keep. To be accepted here, one needs to lose all humanity, lose hope, filling the void with hatred and ambition.

Was it all worth it, she wonders for a second.

'Hell yes,' she whispers to herself as she throws the limb back into the pot and mounts her shadow stallion. She lets out a primal scream and bellows, 'I have come home'.