i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high
He’s not sure how long he’s been falling. Time is only given meaning when there is something to count time by, and here there is only darkness and the air as it rushes past him. Neither is he entirely sure when he loses consciousness, or if he has been unconscious the entire time, but when he awakens, it is not in the void.
He blinks awake to the muted sunlight filtering through trees and a girlish voice whisper-shouting right in his ear. “Daddy!!” she squeals, scrambling backwards with a giggle as Reave heaves himself into a sternal position with a start. The sharp blue of his gaze jumps to a small, dark, still childish face looming over him with a wide grin on her face. He can already see the bone that juts disconcertingly through her ebony skin, blue eyes sparkling with a familiar light.
Frown creasing his features, Reave stares at her for a moment before asking, “Who are you?” Her shrill giggle and plaintive response of “Daddyyyyyy, you knoooww who I am!” tells him he should know, but he has never had children. Nor does he truly desire them.
As Reave’s frown only deepens, the girl flounces off with a pout.
Climbing to his feet, Reave takes a steadying look around him. Closing his eyes, he reaches for his sight - any of them - only to find them gone. Gone! For a moment, he can only stand there, dumbfounded. He has his armor still, why not his sight? Another desperate search finds nothing again, and Reave is forced to shove his welling panic back down. He has never before been without his gifts, and now, when he needs them most, they are simply gone.
It doesn’t take long for his usual ferocious determination to swell and replace the rising tide of desperation. Stepping down the path the girl had taken, Reave follows it until he reaches the familiar cliffs of Nerine and finds himself in the most pastoral scene he has ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Elliana with two children clamoring at her feet. A boy, the very image of him when he’d been young, and a girl as black as shadow with a moon on her shoulder. The same girl who had claimed him as father.
Something wrenches inside his chest as understanding fills him. Eyes filling with dawning horror, he lifts them to meet Elliana’s gaze. It does not take his abilities to see the matching dread in hers. And then she is rushing towards him, trying as desperately as he to determine what is happening. Reave can only shake his head and step back, suddenly alarmed at the thought of touching her. It had never bothered him before, but now, with two children who are so clearly theirs - the idyllic picture of a family he had never sought - he finds himself uncomfortable with even the thought.
But he shouldn’t have moved. She had rushed towards him with such despairing alacrity that she doesn’t seem to notice the cliff before she tumbles over the side. “Elliana!” Her name is ripped from his throat as he tries to correct his mistake - tries to reach her in time - but he is too late.
When he reaches the edge and looks down, it is to find her lying broken on the rocks below, blood leaching into the sand and dribbling across stone. Blood had never bothered him before, but it had never been her blood.
The shouts of the children behind him fall on deaf ears. Neither does he notice when they race to his side to peer down at their mother’s shattered form. The cries of alarm mutate into sobs of despair as they crush themselves against his side. He’s not certain how long he stares at her, but a strange numbness is creeping through his chest when he finally pulls himself away. A good father would comfort his children. A good man would grieve the woman who had clearly been their mother. He is neither.
Instead he tries to flee, ignoring the confused calls of the children.
But he is trapped. Every time he tries to make his way through the trees to the south, he finds himself right back here, the forlorn little faces of his son and daughter peering mournfully at him. Following the cliffs or the beach only offers the same result.
He is trapped.
Only then does he finally begin to understand how fortunate Elliana had been to find death so quickly. The days pass and the children overcome their despondency. They do not seem to notice his withdrawn stare or brusque answers. There is a moment (only a heartbeat of time) where he nearly finds humor when he learns their names. Reave Jr and Liana. Someone somewhere has a cruel imagination.
It might have been weeks or perhaps only days when he too considers following Elliana over the cliff, but the children’s shrill cries of alarm any time he dares even approach the precipice as they hastily insert their small bodies between him and danger prevent him from seeking that solace. But even in his boredom and despair, Reave isn’t certain he could truly take his own life.
It is only when he notices his armor has begun growing again that he knows true fear. It grows far faster than it ever has (or perhaps time has simply lost all meaning when each day is as monotonous as the last), but what should have taken years to grow is already beginning to hamper his movements. By the time it has begun to overlap enough that he can hardly move, the children have grown. He sees them less and less until they stop coming altogether.
At first he had barely noticed, but now, as the armor begins to lock into place, his breath grows as short as the days grow long and tedious. It’s only then that he notices the children are no longer there to break the monotony. Only then that he knows the true depths of his nightmare. When the day finally comes he can no longer draw enough breath to sustain himself, he knows his first hint of joy in ages. Death has never looked so sweet.
reave
Traits to scramble:
Empathic Echoes (non-genetic), Immortality (carried - he also has active, genetic immortality, but I'd like to leave that one alone), Telepathic Bond (carried)
For his 0-space trait, I'd like to give him carvings on his armor
Permission for Samm for Reave/Elliana's joint nightmare