Gruesome.
The first words Saphira thought of, as the crack of bone still lingered in the silence.
Sq--
Quelling the protests of the rodent, still hanging from Riven's palm.
Woooh!
The wind swayed, pulling the limp body with it, mimicking its motions.
Crack.
The sound replayed.
Replayed in Riven's mind, as the feel of fur brushed his fingers.
Rough.
Rugged.
Impure.
The feel wasn't any different.
It was just like the scavenger; a starving wolf, digging into the snow for roots.
Tap. Tap.
He had killed for food then; the words of "sorry", replaying in his mind as the blood leaked onto the uncharted snow.
Again.
The silence sat a moment longer, as Saphira stared; no words echoing out of those parted lips.
Woooooh!
Riven turned; "We need fire."
A harsh truth.
Eating a rat raw?
They'd been battling enough death signs.
Cough! Cough!
The smell had set in.
The smell of death.
Luckily his hands had been wrapped with pieces of fur; a parting memory from his first hunt.
Tap.
Saphira raised her head, fingers trembling as she stepped forward.
Fwah!
Crackle.
A spark flickered into being, a thin thread of flame swaying in her palm.
It looked pitiful against the swallowing dark.
Her voice came out hushed, broken at edges.
"...It won't last long. Not here."
Wooooh!
The cold of the church pressed in, the damp air eager to smother their thread of hope.
Riven's eyes slid to the royal garms, draped over the wooden seat over her shoulder; a shred of her old life.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He walked over, holding the rat away from his face, with a fully extended arm to the side.
The steps echoed in the hollow church, each more deliberate as his brows scrunched.
Tap.
He stopped before the wooden seat where the clothes lay draped; silken, crested, clearly carrying the weight of royalty.
Wooooh!
He grabbed the set, no words spoken. The fabric sagged in his grip, soft in a place so cold, whilst his other grip held the rat outstretched, far away.
It seemed obvious.
Tap. Tap.
They needed something to burn, a fuel. Simple fires, although magical, wouldn't survive forever in this place; the fleeting flame that had struck the stalker was evidence of this.
Crackle...
It could live....but it couldn't survive.
...Like most things.
Woooooh!
He brought it to her.
'...Wait'
A thought surfaced in Saphira's mind as her eyes fixed on it, wide.
She wasn't going to voice a protest...
Crackle.
She couldn't.
...But she thought about it.
Staring at those golden phoenix's plastered on those clothes....
Like most people, they'd have something they valued.
Woooh!
A present from a family member.
An artifact you spent hours slaving for.
Her hands hovered, as the flame flickered above it.
For her?
It wasn't the clothes.
If it was, she wouldn't have taken them off.
Creak.
It was the meaning.
Those phoenix's were her bloodline, they were her weight of expectation....
They were her mother's hand resting on her shoulder.
Crackle. Crackle.
And she was about to burn them.
'To think....I'd be burning my roots. My blood....." her eyes shifted, landing on the creature swaying in Riven's palm.
'For a rat.'
Her fingers twitched.
Fwsh.
The flame kissed silk, running along its skin.
Doof!
Smoke coiled upward, as the golden phoenixes, slowly turned black.
Feather by feather, its visage was consumed.
Crackle...
Riven lowered the bundle to the floor, stepping back as the blaze spread, climbing in intensity.
His face was still, as the blaze shone his grey eyes. Deeper inside those faint glimmers, lay a light of understanding.
He knew that it cost her something.
The hesitation.
The shakes.
They were both losing; whether if it was a-lot, or a little.
Piece by piece.
Crackle. Crackle.
The blaze climbed higher, smoke rolling toward the rafters.
There wasn't a-lot of time to waste.
Riven crouched, drawing Mael's Fang from his free hand.
Creak.
Its edge caught the firelight, small glimmers danced along the steel, as faint blood splatters still lingered alongside.
His hands shook slightly.
Just the cold.
Wooooh!
The blade meant for men, for wolves, for battle, now was meant for a rat.
Saphira watched, hands clutching her stomach....
Something more than hunger.
He pressed the point into its limp bottom, forcing the steel through.
Inch by inch...
Until it burst through deeper...
Skrrchhh!
Wet.
A sound so morbid, but he'd heard few times before...
That didn't make it any better.
Riven's jaw tightened. He didn't look away, but he couldn't breathe...
'...still too much.'
The rodents head lolled, glassy-eyed, as blood catered the tip of the blade.
Drip. Drip.
Familiar drips met the frozen floor, a small back drop for the crackles of flame.
Saphira's hand clutched her stomach tighter, as it threatened to expel what little she had left.
Crackle!
He drove the blade further; its outline clear as it clashed with its ribs.
Skrrchhh!Skrrchhh!
Its insides had been cleaved in a single thrust, as the blade jutted out its mouth.
The head sagged to the side.
Horrid.
Woooooh!
The wind agreed, or was it just enjoying the scene?
His memento had been made a skewer once more.
Drip. Drip.
Riven's grip tightened slightly, as he drew a breath.
"Haaaaaa....."
Slow, heavy; the kind that seemed drawn before the inevitable. His shoulders rose, then fell.
Across him, Saphira sank into a wooden seat:
Creak.
Her hands folded into her lap, as she stared at the wall.
What was she thinking?
Crackle. Crackle.
With the rat firmly impaled, and the silence setting in too long, he moved.
Lowering the rat, he laid the blade across the fire, pinning it against the foot a seat.
Hiss!
The sound struck as fat burned against the flaming silk; smoke lifting, bitter and sharp.
It was done.
The crackles filled the church, as the wind seemed to be secondary for once.
Tap. Tap.
Riven walked over, sitting on a seat next to her.
A silence ran heavy between them.
Crackle. Crackle.
Riven dragged a hand down his face, covering his eyes, before pausing at his cheek, letting it fall.
Hiss...
Sounds filled the space where words should have been.
"How's your shoulder?"
Sudden.
He blinked as the question pulled him back from his mind.
Turning his head, he saw her hesitant expression:
"...It's fine," he muttered, gaze falling down to the floor.
Liar.
A faint throb lingered where the stalker's claws had torn.
Slightly numb due to the frost, but it still stung.
Crackle! Crackle!
There was another silence that followed, tender this time.
Woooh!
"I didn't know you could heal."
Riven broke it, as his eyes lifted back up to her.
Her red eyes shone, caught off guard. He continued before she could answer.
"That light back there... if you hadn't done that to my leg. I wouldn't have been able to move."
Saphira's fingers tightened faintly in her lap. She gave a small shake of her head.
"...That was nothing," she said, voice steady but softer than before.
Crackle!
Riven studied her, the flames shining him from behind.
It didn't feel like nothing. It didn't feel fine. But he didn't press.
Another beat of silence followed.
Hiss...
His hand rubbed the back of his neck, as Saphira looked around the hall.
"Hey," she called, causing him to turn.
"Can I ask you something?"
He wore a question of his own across his face.
"...Sure."
The words floated, bordering on wariness, and genuine curiosity.
Crackle! Crackle!
"...How do you...fight?"
Woooh!
She drew a small breath, clarifying.
"I mean, without a medium. You're...a Silent. So how?"
Crackle! Crackle!
The fire cracked between them.
Riven's eyes narrowed as hers met his. A small tug at his lips formed.
"What even is a Silent?" he asked back, almost testing in his voice as the narrow only grew.
He'd been called it so much, it'd been almost adopted into him.
But what was it, truly?
Woooooh!
Saphira blinked.
For a moment, she looked as if ready to answer, a certainty that had been bred into her since birth, flashing momentarily.
But it faltered.
Her gaze ran to her hands, lips parting....then shutting.
Crackle!
"...I don't know," she admitted softly.
"They say you're... born without resonance. Without a path. Beyond that...."
She looked back at him, lips pressed.
"Even I don't know...."
Woooooh!
The fire popped under the winds push.
There was nothing but the smell of smoke, burned meat and the hiss of fat.
"...Back then." Saphira whispered, breaking the pause.
"When I was taken, what happened?"
An important question.
One she had wondered ever since she had woken.
'...How did I end up here?'
Riven's gaze looked at her eyes, then turned to the flames behind him.
His lips parted, then pressed shut again.
Crackle!
Slowly, he exhaled, eyes shadowed.
"Haa..."
"I saw a light take you," he said at last. "A portal. So I followed before it closed."
Crackle!
'...It had to have been.'
Riven's gaze stayed on fire, but his voice drifted farther away.
"We ended up here." he paused, staring at the walls all around.
"I followed their trail. Their lamps. The prints of boots carrying you."
The words came clipped. A shortened version of the tribulation he'd gone through.
Woooooh!
Saphira watched, fingers clutching each-other as he continued.
"They led you to a castle. It wasn't ruin. It was waiting...."
Crackle! Crackle!
"I waited outside. Listening. Watching...."
The scene flashed through his mind, as if he was reliving it:
Peeking through the cracks in the walls, as the crackles of the fire ran through his ears.
Crackle.
"There was a hole in the wall....so I climbed in. Quiet." he paused, a hand pulling to his face.
"They were plotting something. Waiting for someone....."a representative"."
Saphira's brows knit faintly. Her lips parted as though wanting to ask more.
Instead she only shifted in her seat, eyes dropping.
Crackle.
Riven's jaw clenched.
It was coming.
The memory rose unbidden:
A rough hand reaching for her. Her body limp, head lolling under blankets.
The pull of wind.
Woooh!
The flash of firelight below as he crouched in the celing.
Creak.
The creaks of his steps as he got closer.
Tap. Tap.
Fingers stretching, slow.
Deliberate.
"...To think I have a Princess in front of me....defenceless."
Those words.
It was alive.
Whispering through the room as if he was back.
Crackle!
His knuckles tightened on his knee.
He didn't say it aloud. Couldn't. The words would stain the air, making what was already haunting.....more real.
Woooooh!
Saphira turned, his sudden silence confusing her.
He blinked, loosening his grip on his knee.
"...I managed to sneak in," he said finally, voice low.
"Grabbed you before they noticed. And then I escaped."
Simple. Neat.
Words stripped of the blood, the gurgling, the dread he felt climbing at his spine, alarming his instincts.
That was an eternal weight.
A memory he'd forever hold just like that notebook.
He couldn't say it out loud.
Wooooooh!
Crackle!
The fire hissed, the rat roasting slowly above it.
Neither spoke after that.
The silence itself an answer.
Heavy and alive.