Blaire Harrowgate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blairewhich) wrote2018-04-27 05:30 pm
blairewhich) wrote2018-04-27 05:30 pm
{Memories of Fire: At The Tree of Knowledge}
~
Blaire Harrowgate, 'Memories of Fire.'
As you touch the faintly-glowing fruit and the magic of the World Tree washes over you again, you suddenly find yourself in a grand hall. It’s ancient, you can tell that much immediately, all smooth grey stone, with huge open windows that let the blazing sunlight and the sharp wind in. The walls are lined with rich tapestries of battle scenes and heavy-looking banners of a coat of arms, a royal purple shield adorned with a lion, dragon, and ram’s head, festooned about with green and yellow ribbons, with a mailed fist clutching a double-bladed dagger punching upwards: the coat of arms of House Deneith. The floor is bare, not even a runner leading up to the plain wooden chair placed on an only slightly-raised dais.
And you are small, cold and shivering in the open air, ragged clothing little protection from the elements. The burns on your hands, on your wrists and arms, are tender and sting as you clutch at your elbows and huddle in on yourself, an ill-fated attempt to quell your body’s shaking. Your eyes are darting everywhere, taking note of all the armor-clad, strong-looking people walking about, their bearing bold and self-assured and unafraid, and a small spark of longing almost-envy ignites in your chest.
It’s been so long since you felt safe, so long since you felt bold or unafraid...though at least you no longer feel truly weak, or powerless. There’s a new sort of energy in you now, you can feel it simmering in your blood, sense it humming in your fingertips, and your mouth goes dry, your heart beats a little faster, and maybe your soul itself even gives a dark little thrill as you remember how it felt. How the rush of flames from your hands had swallowed up your captors, the people who’d bought and abused and taken what little innocence you had left, who’d finished what Lyra had started and broken you completely, until you had no tears left to cry, no capacity for any more feelings or emotion in the empty, scoured-bare walls of your heart. And so when they’d screamed and begged and cried, you hadn’t felt a thing except fierce, bone-weary satisfaction as they’d twisted and writhed in pain, then collapsed on the floor and stopped moving completely, but even then you hadn’t stopped, not until they were mere piles of unrecognizable ash. The entire room was on fire by then, and you could hear your new patron’s pleased laughter ringing in your ears, a cackling whisper telling you to flee, and yet you didn’t run immediately. You’d stood there in the middle of that inferno for almost too long, drinking in the fact that you’d been the one to do this. That you had freed yourself. Perhaps you’d merely exchanged one master for another; perhaps the price you’d offered hadn’t been wise; perhaps you’d regret it one day.
But you didn’t regret it then. And that was all that had mattered.
You don’t regret it now, either, even as you feel another shudder wrack its way through your brittle, too-thin body. You’re not entirely sure why you’re here, why your patron had thought bringing you to this place was a wise move, but you follow him down the grand hall nonetheless, pale green eyes darting this way and that as you try to take in everything, keep an eye on everyone at once.
“Ah...Lord Aramuth d’Deneith. How grand to see you. You’re looking well.”
The man seated in the chair gives a low noise of annoyance as your patron (in one of his many disguises, of course) gives a sweeping bow followed by a dazzling smile.
“...What do you want this time, you charlatan?”
“Why, nothing, of course! In fact, this time I’m here to give you something...” He gestures grandly towards you, and you suddenly find yourself walking forward, compelled to do so by your patron’s will, not your own. You try to resist, but you might as well have tried to break an iron chain with your bare hands; it’s equally useless.
Lord Aramuth gives a scoff so disgusted that that’s nearly a sneer. “We do not deal in children here. Take your ill-gotten--and ill-used, by the look of him--goods elsewhere.”
A smile curls along your patron’s mouth--the form he’s taken is a too-handsome golden-haired human male, lean-limbed and thin and dangerous as a drawn blade--and his long blonde eyelashes nearly brush his cheeks as his eyelids lower over his coal-black eyes in a sly expression. “Oh...but I think you’ll change your mind...if you take a closer look.”
Reaching out with the intricate cane in his hand, he tips your chin up, forcing you to raise your head, and your eyes meet the stranger’s for the first time--and you can’t help but stiffen a bit, because you’ve never met anyone with quite the same shade of delicate green eyes as your own...until this very moment. The man in the chair seems equally taken aback, but his surprise just shifts back into annoyance again, this time tinged with anger.
“So. You’re here to saddle me with the remnants of a mistake long past, are you.”
You patron gives a rich, rolling laugh, letting the tip of his cane drop back to the floor with a pointed, echoing clack, leaning forward onto it casually. “Not at all, not at all! I’m here to leave you with a promising warrior...and perhaps a much-needed potential scion.”
The grizzled man turns a skeptical look down at you, and it feels as though you’re being sized up for sale, like a simple beast of burden, and the feeling is not unfamiliar, nor any more pleasant this time around.
“Feh. Skinny runt like that will never make any sort of worthwhile warrior.”
“And yet, as few scions as your house has these days, can you really afford to turn him away?” Your patron gives a careless-looking shrug that’s actually full of overt mockery as he adds, “Besides...I thought House Deneith was first and foremost when it came to training up true warriors. Should I take him to, oh, say...House Cannith? Or perhaps the Medani could make something of his untapped potential-”
“No,” Lord Aramuth barks out, the word tellingly sharp enough that your patron has to smother a gratified smile. “I’ll take him off your hands. Still don’t think a ragged little scripling like that will amount to anything, though, no matter how we train him.”
“So long as you give him the chance, I’m certain that...what was your name again, child?”
You swallow hard, vocal cords tight from disuse, throat raw and mouth scalded and lips cracked, all from speaking the fiery incantation to summon and bind yourself to your patron less than half a day ago. The Infernal tongue had burned yours, but the pain had been worth it, and pain was such a common occurrence, such a regular thing to you now that you’d scarcely flinched at this new form of it, even as tears had prickled at the corners of your watering eyes.
“...Blaire,” you rasp out, and your patron gives an amused chuckle.
“Blaire d’Deneith,” he says musingly, as if tasting the name. “Does have a certain ring to it-”
“He might carry our blood, weak and diluted as it may be, but he does not carry our name. He has no right to it.” You don’t understand the reason for the tightly-held fury you hear in Lord Aramuth’s voice, but you recognize the ring of hatred now, oh, all too well.
“Well then...another surname, perhaps, to hold him in good stead until the time he’s earned that right.” Your patron taps a thoughtful finger to his chin, then smiles again. “Harrowgate. Blaire Harrowgate.”
Harrowgate. It means nothing to you, but it will do. You have no other family, and thus no family name any more. To you, one surname is as good as another.
“Blaire Harrowgate,” you murmur, dipping your head in the slightest of bows, though your eyes never leave those of the man in front of you...who you suddenly realize looks perhaps just slightly familiar, quite a bit like your mother’s mother, which might very well make him-
“Your name is of no matter to me,” Lord Aramuth--your grand-uncle, you know now--growls, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. Still, he turns his head and beckons with that same hand for a servant, giving curt instructions that you be fed, bathed, clothed, and given a place in the trainee barracks. “Lessons will begin tomorrow,” he says, the words a harsh pronouncement. “You had best not prove to be a disappointment.”
As he glares down at you, you wonder if your own eyes have ever looked quite so cold and hard, like chips of icy jade. Even so, you can’t find it in yourself to be afraid of him; after everything you’ve been through in the last few months, you think that there is probably precious little out there in all the wide reaches of the galaxy that could genuinely frighten you now. Particularly since you’ve made a deal with one of the darkest things out there...which means that any other, lesser monsters had best think twice before raising claw or maw towards you.
“Perish the thought.”
The tone of that voice is quiet and understated, and yet so brazen that you’d believed it was your patron speaking, but after half a second, you realize the words had come from your own mouth. After another half second of shock, you feel your blistered lips pull sideways in the faintest of crooked smirks. After all, there is nothing here in this place of worn stone and cold air and light that is worthy of your fear.
“I’ll show you nothing but my best, of course...Grand-Uncle Aramuth.”
Blaire Harrowgate, 'Memories of Fire.'
As you touch the faintly-glowing fruit and the magic of the World Tree washes over you again, you suddenly find yourself in a grand hall. It’s ancient, you can tell that much immediately, all smooth grey stone, with huge open windows that let the blazing sunlight and the sharp wind in. The walls are lined with rich tapestries of battle scenes and heavy-looking banners of a coat of arms, a royal purple shield adorned with a lion, dragon, and ram’s head, festooned about with green and yellow ribbons, with a mailed fist clutching a double-bladed dagger punching upwards: the coat of arms of House Deneith. The floor is bare, not even a runner leading up to the plain wooden chair placed on an only slightly-raised dais.
And you are small, cold and shivering in the open air, ragged clothing little protection from the elements. The burns on your hands, on your wrists and arms, are tender and sting as you clutch at your elbows and huddle in on yourself, an ill-fated attempt to quell your body’s shaking. Your eyes are darting everywhere, taking note of all the armor-clad, strong-looking people walking about, their bearing bold and self-assured and unafraid, and a small spark of longing almost-envy ignites in your chest.
It’s been so long since you felt safe, so long since you felt bold or unafraid...though at least you no longer feel truly weak, or powerless. There’s a new sort of energy in you now, you can feel it simmering in your blood, sense it humming in your fingertips, and your mouth goes dry, your heart beats a little faster, and maybe your soul itself even gives a dark little thrill as you remember how it felt. How the rush of flames from your hands had swallowed up your captors, the people who’d bought and abused and taken what little innocence you had left, who’d finished what Lyra had started and broken you completely, until you had no tears left to cry, no capacity for any more feelings or emotion in the empty, scoured-bare walls of your heart. And so when they’d screamed and begged and cried, you hadn’t felt a thing except fierce, bone-weary satisfaction as they’d twisted and writhed in pain, then collapsed on the floor and stopped moving completely, but even then you hadn’t stopped, not until they were mere piles of unrecognizable ash. The entire room was on fire by then, and you could hear your new patron’s pleased laughter ringing in your ears, a cackling whisper telling you to flee, and yet you didn’t run immediately. You’d stood there in the middle of that inferno for almost too long, drinking in the fact that you’d been the one to do this. That you had freed yourself. Perhaps you’d merely exchanged one master for another; perhaps the price you’d offered hadn’t been wise; perhaps you’d regret it one day.
But you didn’t regret it then. And that was all that had mattered.
You don’t regret it now, either, even as you feel another shudder wrack its way through your brittle, too-thin body. You’re not entirely sure why you’re here, why your patron had thought bringing you to this place was a wise move, but you follow him down the grand hall nonetheless, pale green eyes darting this way and that as you try to take in everything, keep an eye on everyone at once.
“Ah...Lord Aramuth d’Deneith. How grand to see you. You’re looking well.”
The man seated in the chair gives a low noise of annoyance as your patron (in one of his many disguises, of course) gives a sweeping bow followed by a dazzling smile.
“...What do you want this time, you charlatan?”
“Why, nothing, of course! In fact, this time I’m here to give you something...” He gestures grandly towards you, and you suddenly find yourself walking forward, compelled to do so by your patron’s will, not your own. You try to resist, but you might as well have tried to break an iron chain with your bare hands; it’s equally useless.
Lord Aramuth gives a scoff so disgusted that that’s nearly a sneer. “We do not deal in children here. Take your ill-gotten--and ill-used, by the look of him--goods elsewhere.”
A smile curls along your patron’s mouth--the form he’s taken is a too-handsome golden-haired human male, lean-limbed and thin and dangerous as a drawn blade--and his long blonde eyelashes nearly brush his cheeks as his eyelids lower over his coal-black eyes in a sly expression. “Oh...but I think you’ll change your mind...if you take a closer look.”
Reaching out with the intricate cane in his hand, he tips your chin up, forcing you to raise your head, and your eyes meet the stranger’s for the first time--and you can’t help but stiffen a bit, because you’ve never met anyone with quite the same shade of delicate green eyes as your own...until this very moment. The man in the chair seems equally taken aback, but his surprise just shifts back into annoyance again, this time tinged with anger.
“So. You’re here to saddle me with the remnants of a mistake long past, are you.”
You patron gives a rich, rolling laugh, letting the tip of his cane drop back to the floor with a pointed, echoing clack, leaning forward onto it casually. “Not at all, not at all! I’m here to leave you with a promising warrior...and perhaps a much-needed potential scion.”
The grizzled man turns a skeptical look down at you, and it feels as though you’re being sized up for sale, like a simple beast of burden, and the feeling is not unfamiliar, nor any more pleasant this time around.
“Feh. Skinny runt like that will never make any sort of worthwhile warrior.”
“And yet, as few scions as your house has these days, can you really afford to turn him away?” Your patron gives a careless-looking shrug that’s actually full of overt mockery as he adds, “Besides...I thought House Deneith was first and foremost when it came to training up true warriors. Should I take him to, oh, say...House Cannith? Or perhaps the Medani could make something of his untapped potential-”
“No,” Lord Aramuth barks out, the word tellingly sharp enough that your patron has to smother a gratified smile. “I’ll take him off your hands. Still don’t think a ragged little scripling like that will amount to anything, though, no matter how we train him.”
“So long as you give him the chance, I’m certain that...what was your name again, child?”
You swallow hard, vocal cords tight from disuse, throat raw and mouth scalded and lips cracked, all from speaking the fiery incantation to summon and bind yourself to your patron less than half a day ago. The Infernal tongue had burned yours, but the pain had been worth it, and pain was such a common occurrence, such a regular thing to you now that you’d scarcely flinched at this new form of it, even as tears had prickled at the corners of your watering eyes.
“...Blaire,” you rasp out, and your patron gives an amused chuckle.
“Blaire d’Deneith,” he says musingly, as if tasting the name. “Does have a certain ring to it-”
“He might carry our blood, weak and diluted as it may be, but he does not carry our name. He has no right to it.” You don’t understand the reason for the tightly-held fury you hear in Lord Aramuth’s voice, but you recognize the ring of hatred now, oh, all too well.
“Well then...another surname, perhaps, to hold him in good stead until the time he’s earned that right.” Your patron taps a thoughtful finger to his chin, then smiles again. “Harrowgate. Blaire Harrowgate.”
Harrowgate. It means nothing to you, but it will do. You have no other family, and thus no family name any more. To you, one surname is as good as another.
“Blaire Harrowgate,” you murmur, dipping your head in the slightest of bows, though your eyes never leave those of the man in front of you...who you suddenly realize looks perhaps just slightly familiar, quite a bit like your mother’s mother, which might very well make him-
“Your name is of no matter to me,” Lord Aramuth--your grand-uncle, you know now--growls, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. Still, he turns his head and beckons with that same hand for a servant, giving curt instructions that you be fed, bathed, clothed, and given a place in the trainee barracks. “Lessons will begin tomorrow,” he says, the words a harsh pronouncement. “You had best not prove to be a disappointment.”
As he glares down at you, you wonder if your own eyes have ever looked quite so cold and hard, like chips of icy jade. Even so, you can’t find it in yourself to be afraid of him; after everything you’ve been through in the last few months, you think that there is probably precious little out there in all the wide reaches of the galaxy that could genuinely frighten you now. Particularly since you’ve made a deal with one of the darkest things out there...which means that any other, lesser monsters had best think twice before raising claw or maw towards you.
“Perish the thought.”
The tone of that voice is quiet and understated, and yet so brazen that you’d believed it was your patron speaking, but after half a second, you realize the words had come from your own mouth. After another half second of shock, you feel your blistered lips pull sideways in the faintest of crooked smirks. After all, there is nothing here in this place of worn stone and cold air and light that is worthy of your fear.
“I’ll show you nothing but my best, of course...Grand-Uncle Aramuth.”