001 ✶ video

[scarletcast]

[ username reads: wanda ]

​​​​[ Having had time to recover from the fight, Wanda looks no worse for wear. She's outside in the abandoned village, out of the glare of sunlight, moving her fingers slowly. Thin red wisps of hex energy weave around her fingers. A small rock, part of a doorframe, and a water bottle are moving in a slow, lazy circle like they're being turned on an invisible Ferris wheel. ]

​​​​[ She's quiet at first, concentrating. Then, she pulls the water bottle into one hand. The other two objects keep circling. ]

What is this called, where you are from?

​​​​[ Her mouth curves in dry amusement. ]

Is it magic?

Comments

[respired]

[ He nods. ]

Most of these people fit that description. If they are not human, they still look it. You will have no shortage of companions.

[ Maybe he sounds a little bitter. ]

[scarletcast]

[ Wanda eyes him. Quietly, ]

Are you lonely, Koltira Deathweaver?

[respired]

I am alone.

[ There's nobody here like him. That's just plain fact. Not elf, not undead. ]

[scarletcast]

[ It's a subtle difference. Loneliness is a standard package, it rends, or it eats away like slow-acting poison. Anyone can manage being alone if they know how. ]

What happened to you?

[respired]

[ Bluntly. ]

I died. As did nearly all of my people.

[ He lifts his hand, and the same icy power as before swirls around his fingers. ]

Many of them are at rest, buried beneath the old ruins of my homeland. But some of us were not allowed such peace.

[scarletcast]

[ It's best he's blunt. Wanda wouldn't flinch from brusqueness, nor from the cold he lives in. ]

[ It is a curse to be alone, through no fault of his. ]

And there is no way to end your — undeath?

[ This is mercy to her — if he's suffering, end it swiftly. ]

[respired]

If there were, I would have taken it.

[ Not even death itself--true death--offers respite. The afterlife for someone like him is no respite, but instead a formless, agonizing existence even worse than what he endures now. Something he'd like to avoid, however much he might deserve it. ]