Heart of Darkness [Kalinda]

[Mikhail Vashael]

Darkening. The First of Kalendryas in the Season of Winter, Era XIV Post Fractum

Naked chested, the steam above drew down over the man known as Mikhail Vashael like a cleansing annulment. He sat head down staring at the reflection of a face that could belong to someone else. Watching one pupil dialate more then the other, sheets of taunt skin lead to the hanging pages of wrinkles and time. It was a simple vantage point... a self reflection meaning nothing but the enjoyment of water over the skin. A simple vantage point.

Blinking, the man turned his gaze, acknowledging a new presence entering the spa. The tiled bath walls of the House of Hidden Dreams made for a wonderful solace.. dark creatures bestowed torrents of temperate water to rock the giant to sleep. It was worth the money, the coin, the gold... It felt worth it.

Vashael looked at the pink skin of his palms beneath the dark abyss. Nothing waited. Sweat and condensation continued to roll down the man's face as he peered into the blackness beyond. The Vysstichi courtesan had been trying to teach him her customs and history, but the wine and lovemaking had cured all thought. Nothing could cure a man from himself...

Tilting his head back and arms over the rim of the bath Vashael closed his eyes. It was a tactic as much as a form of relaxation. A sign of complete vulnerability was the perfect ruse to draw an attacker into false confidence.. or perhaps it was simply a desire for more wine. The veins on his muscular arms tensed with the subtle shift of weight sending a splash of water against the fat of his tattooed belly. More wine.. He took a slender sip.

[Kalinda]

Some said that the House of Hidden Dreams was a first class brothel, some said it was more, a place where one’s darkest desires would come true, where nothing was forbidden, where even the gods themselves would be tempted. The owner who was only known by the name of Lady of Angels was a mystery, a woman of almost supernatural beauty, more than a mere human being, of that they were all sure. Those that worked for her were all perfect, men and women alike, trained in the arts of pleasure and maybe more.

The vysstichi courtesan had tried to please him, she had been a perfect ebony goddess who possessed just the right amount of violence and gentleness, who knew how to cause pleasure and pain in equal amounts. She had spoken of her underground home, of the Matrons, of the fact that men were little more than slaves there. She seemed to enoy that, telling men who little they were worth in her homeland, although those insults were always followed by a kiss and lovemaking.

A new presence? No, it was just her again, dressed in an almost transparent gown that came down to her ankles, that covered her entire body and yet revealed everything. Her hair was unbound and framed her face. „Would my lord like a glass of wine? Bath oils or maybe a massage?“ She came closer and let her hands, slender hands with long, sharp nails run across his face. „In Har’oloth where I used to live, they kill the men they love and places such as this do not exist unless it is to honor Haya.“

[Mikhail Vashael]

Gripping the dark skinned perfection between his teeth, Vashael playfully teased the elven forefinger before letting her feed him a newly poured cup of heavy wine. She had provided adequate service and the Vagaran now bore bruises to prove it. It wasn't unsporting, just a little rough.. perhaps not enough. The glass emptied and Mikhail could feel the woman's tenderizing touch return.

"Love?.." The man's feature rose and twisted in light darkhearted amusement.

"It's a good thing I'm near done paying for your love or I might take that ounce of lore to heart. No bath oil, just keep to my lap..."

The words were forceful but wept a tired undercurrent and playful pulling tow. Vashael raised the dress to feel the naked back of his companion against his stomach. Again.. it was the simple pleasures that kept him here. No intoxicants besides the obvious.. just wanton excess until he couldn't even think. The man closed his eyes once more, enjoying the fresh aroma and scents that flooded every available sense.

"Gods, if you had a cigar nearby.. can't say that wouldn't tempt me.. but your not moving anywhere until I'm done soaking in the ambrosia of your delicate poison..." He played with the back of the girl's hair aimlessly while in thought.
"Har’oloth... i've heard the word. A flower closed to the sun is usually best left closed.." Vashael opened one eye.

"Doesn't that ring with drear expiration.."

A wide smirk cleft his left cheek with the immediacy of hunger as each breath wandered nearer.
"Anyone worth soliciting? Cousins, sisters.. mother. The way you handle love, can't want but to get familiar. Damned with prejudice you'd keep a man beaming in his six by twenty if not too busy washing the stain off... " Vashael let Vysstichi nails dig deeper into his skin as he heard the echo of another empty glass finding fixture.

[Kalinda]

The vysstichi’s skin was soft, like velvet, smooth ebony. She smelled of exotic spices, of something strange and mysterious. Her touch spoke of the underground world she had come from, that bizarre society where women ruled the world and were merciless killers, where love and death were one and the same, where the night lasted a lifetime. She was poisonous, she was one of them who was just pretending to be a courtesan, serving men, but her touch was so addictive that her poison seemed to be a small price to pay.

She let out a soft sigh as he played with her hair and leaned closer to him, a woman whose only purpose in this world seemed to be to please him.

„What do you know of Har’oloth?“ She spoke in barely more than a whisper, and her voice was honey sweet, but there was a certain shimmer in her eyes. „What have you heard?“

„Sisters?“ She arched an eyebrow and smiled. „There are a few. Three older than me, two younger and one that I killed. All as beautiful as I am. Do you want to visit them? I’m certain that they would be most delighted to see you.“

[Mikhail Vashael]

Lapping up the water, Vashael touched the girl then quietly swam to the center of the pool, letting the steam and vapour rise up from his frame. He heard lingering splashes of laughter behind then turned to look upward into an absence of gaping dragons, demons, a stone whirlwind of mocking faces all staring down at him from their chiselled precipice. The ring of arrogant surety seemed to elude his stature and motion.

As the clouded air covered their court, Vashael turned and smiled beneath the near absence of light, the moist whites of his eyes opening larger then the Vagaran was used to.

"This is cordial.."

His voice echoed across the chamber as he took bath salts from the outstretched hand of a feral granite demoness. The waters once again lapped in mute appreciation as the courtesan seemed to come to him, attempting to soothe his silence with her plied and able touch. Oblivious, Mikhail's features hung forbidden while drops of condensation poured down his face and over empty sockets.

"I heard..." Another glass was pressed to his lips.

"I have heard a person's worth is not measured by his title or appearance..." Blinking, a side to the man's face seemed to crease in it's weight as if by some inner compulsion a particular word tarried to find release. "But by the virtue and scale of truer merits." He chose his syllables carefully. "Strength, Power... Guile. The ability to overcome obstacle and survive.. .. That is what I have heard."

Sinking his body to the shoulders under the comfort of warmth, the human looked hard and chiselled through the severe oppression of his absently violent gaze.
"As for your sisters, well they'd have to crawl on hands and knees to get my omission and I'd doubt any fatale of such stature would sullen ebony fingers on the weathered frame of an old surface dweller.." His features placated in mock pleasure as the man blinked into his reflection. The next sentence spoken from Mikhail's lips intonated distance of an old lover or to a lost friend, both pupils never leaving the pool below.

"Challenge me.. Give me some way to something that Man has rarely seen..." He looked up at the woman levied by the tax of age and wrinkle. Vashael swallowed, breathing out water quietly, tredding far into it's depths toward her. "I want to see the Telath from eyes as dark and wonderously unholy such as yours."

[Kalinda]

„Strength matters where I come from“, she agreed. She turned around and let her hands run across his body. “Strength, power, guile. We don’t care about appearances, but it is not a kind world. It is cruel and dangerous, and only the best survive. Friendship, family, love, they matter little. My people’s only aim is to improve themselves, to become more powerful than they are.” The courtesan laughed as if it was but a joke, as if the underdark wasn’t really such a dark and dismal place as she had claimed it was, as if she just wanted to scare him.

“I could make them …” she suggested as the conversation turned to her sisters. “They cast me out. It would please me to see them at the mercy of a surface dweller. I could give them to you, all of them. Little Anessa who was always so proud to be a priestess, Liarin who killed one husband after the other, Alyse who worshipped Haya with her maid rather the way it should be done. Do you want them? You only have to say yes, and I will deliver them to you …”

She smiled. As he mentioned a challenge, she looked at him questioningly. “I can take you to Har’oloth. I can show you a world that you have never seen before. I could take you to the Temple of Carnal Love as well, the only place where people such as you walk about freely. I could worship Haya with you here, the way we do it in our temples where only the goddess witnesses us. I’m but a servant to you. You shouldn’t ask me for something. You should command.”

[Mikhail Vashael]

As the woman spoke, Vashael's thumb lingered over her voicebox. When the words reached their appex he pushed her beneath the water and held the kneck without expression. Just kept holding the enamored courtesan there, watching tiny bubbles of air escape like hope. Killing never came to him, even as the life drained in elation it was a simple effect. Order and Control. Releasing the Vysstichi, he then stood above.

"It would please me for you to know your stead."

The Butcher shirked off the grip discusted but facinated and turned his back to the woman.. driving deep into the steam and salt. What she offered arroused him.. but he wanted incentive greater then curiosity. He wanted to strip everything from her will at the temple, make her so dependent on his needs that nothing would steal her away but life.

"Tell me your true name. The name that commands you."

If she came to him again he would take her again.. then prepare for the journey. They would embark down into the depths of a trap, his lust the bait.

[Kalinda]

The woman shivered lightly as his thumb lingered over her voicebox, as if she knew what was coming. But unlike one of the women outside the House of Hidden Dreams, she did not struggle as he pushed her beneath the water. She did not hit him, did not kick him, did not try to hurt him, as if she considered it all part of some bizarre kind of game. She’d seen worse, done worse with other men who had come to her. Murder had never happened here … things that outsiders would condemn, dark, despicable things, but never murder … this was a house of pleasure, and only the most twisted of souls considered murder pleasure …

“Names mean nothing …” she told him as he finally allowed her to breathe again. Her crimson eyes were wide, a sign that it had affected her slightly after all, in whatever way. “We give people a name so that we have a way of remembering them, because our mind longs to put them into categories, but in the end names do not hold any power. They do not define us. They are interchangeable. Our deeds matter. Call me Shadow if you like, your dark mistress that comes to you in the middle of the night … call me Darkness …”

She came to him again, almost eagerly, as if she craved nothing more than his touch, to be one with him. How much of it was real and how much pretense? She was a vysstichi, came from a race of traitors, murderers, backstabbers … she sold herself at the House of Hidden Dreams … who knew what she was thinking and why she wanted to take him to Har’oloth?

As they prepared for the journey, she put on a dress of black and crimson, a top that was made of leather strips and left little to the imagination and a long skirt. Sh smiled at him. “My sisters are awaiting you eagerly”, she whispered into his ears. “They long for your touch. Har’oloth is waiting for you …”

[Mikhail Vashael]

The echoes of excitement mocked every watching face. It was a grizzled numbing reward .. endless in wave and burgeoned crest .. This succubus of vortex driven inward beyond sanity and verge of focus - culminating like a black hole without parallel nor opposition.

He watched her tip in time, testing the limits of such grace to the barriers of their limitation.. letting feminine fingers lean next to a masculine heart, imagining it beating alone or cut on a plate. The altar of Haya proudly bearing victory unto the hunger of mere mortality. Giving the courtesan what she wanted in anticipation. Vain flattery is all he could see. Endlessly numb inside it did not wager merit.. ceaseless in silence he flattered her still.

--

Focused the man rubbed down his frame, dressing with taciturn relaxation. Obsidian pinstriped slacks and hollow silk were neglected in favor of "work clothes". Trespassing through caverns of black health meant that regardless to predisposition this was a time for fit leather. Hard, dark and pliable. Originally of elven design, the cut segments of skin were lean and taunt over a heavy frame calcinated through yahren of abuse. A dangerous compliment to the bodice of dear "Darkness" herself, but as the thick gloves snapped on and his boots strapped and buckled their proprietor looked plausibly sincere in his hidden quest then ever before. Vashael's touch leaned into the back of the elf just over the slope of lower curves without so much as a hint of malice.. words even and gentle.

"Forward dear Bianca, Chase, Nora or Dane.. Victoria, Nasha, soft Shadow or lingering bride Darkness beseem .. for from your eyes i will wield delivery and between your cuisse culminates Direct reprieve." His gaze caught the Vysstichi in it's net majestically if not twinged with such subtle acumen .. As if this humble Vagaran knew the arch of self interest intrinsically, yet as an actor simply played his part with love lines dabbled and memorized. A finger reached the spine bone between both shoulders working softly. "Embracing this citadel and it's prizes.. Should I now long for greater Affection." The woman failed to notice that the weight of his touch had left.. sensing only the imprint of muscle deep beyond white sheets still pressing in. There was something she couldn't offer him.. not yet. Truth. But Mikhail would find it inside of her.. one way, or the opposite.

[Kalinda]

Truth, could anything like truth be found inside a vysstichi or somewhere close? They were liars, all of them, traitors, thieves, murderers, only after one thing, only seeking to improve their position in this world, not caring about family, friends, honor. The courtesan for all her beauty and all the things she had done to him, was just the same, a wolf, pretending to be a sheep, an innocent creature that couldn’t help the way she was.

“You shall get it”, she whispered to him, gently, as if those words had a hidden meaning, a hidden promise. “You shall have everything you want and more. This citadel and its prizes shall be yours, but we must go now. There are no prizes to be found in the House of Hidden Dreams, apart from me.” She let her hands run across her body, that revealing leather top to make him realize just what kind of prize she was. “But then you already have me. I want to show you the darkness, the depths of Har’oloth, if you dare.”

She made her way to the door, leaned against the wall, arms crossed and smiled at him, as if she liked what she was seeing very much.