Twins - Lilith and Draven

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chaos667
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2018 5:24 pm

Twins - Lilith and Draven

Post by chaos667 » Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:40 pm

23th Flamerule 178 AR - “Always”

Snow, it was always snowing. Lilith gave one final look outside the narrow window snorting. Tucked up in the only bed in the room, with a heavy bear pelt covering her to the torso, enlightened by only the faint light of the candle put on the wardrobe, she started to write down a few words on her diary, confessing her intimate thoughts with quill and pen on a silent paper that would have conserved them in time.

“... And here we are, on this rock, frozen and icy even at the end of Flamerule, to seek more information about him. I don't honestly know if we will find what we are looking for, but, surely it's a start considering the only few informations that slipped from mother's lips”

Her gaze fell on her brother, sleeping close to her, as they did since they were kids, forced to share the same room and bed in that filthy place in the slums of Athkatla.
She almost instictively passed her fingers through his hair, smiling faintly as he started to snort a bit in his sleep, unwillingly turning around from the candlelight and turning on the other side.
If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't be there. Born together, raised together, survived together. Never separated, neither from destiny nor from their choices. She remembered the sentence of a famous poet describing twins like two halves of one soul, walking around the world with four legs.

“Always sentimental. Typical” The cold mocking voice interrupted her thoughts as a shivering breeze coming inside from the cracks of the wodden floor.
She was there, sitting on the chair in front of their bed. Almost impassive, shrouded in the shadows she loved so much.
One of her boots was sitting on the edge of the chair, in a quite unconventional posture, with the left arm resting on the lifted knee. She looked at Lilith with her usual detached gaze: vertical-pupil eyes staring unblinking at her from the darkness.
The young arcanist had to admit to herself that, despite she hated her with all herself, the unwanted guest had some style, with that posture typical of a feline predator studying the victim and ready to attack.
But not her, she wouldn't have attacked Lilith. After all how could she have? She was only in her head.

The guest then stood up in all her alluring figure, wearing the usual black leather armor, which perfectly fitted her shiloutte, with the arms slightly opened towards the exterior, ready to summon her twin daggers in her hands from the mechanism hidden in the bracers. Lilith always remeained with a strange bittersweet taste in her mouth as she looked her in the face: they were so similar, yet so different. It's like staring in a mirror and hating what you see in it.

“You came quite far, in an enviroment we surely don't like. And for what? To search for your father?” the guest chuckled with a mocking tone.

“If we have to... we have somehow to fix your mistake” Lilith replied dryly.

“Mistake. You used the right word.” The dark-armored figure looked to Draven as well. He was still sleeping in peace, like if she wasn't there at all.

“Yes, you two were the worst mistake of my life. I should have put out of your mysery long ago. And for that I must apologize.”

“Well, I surely put a remedy to your mistake...” Lilith faintly smirked to woman before her.

“Yes, and what did you obtain? That now I'm part of you”

“You. Don't. Exist! You are in my head” Lilith replied almost growling with a sinister tone.

“Reality is what we make it to be. And I will be with you forever....”

Lilith then squeezed her eyes a few times. “You are not here. You are not here. Fuera!”

When she opened her eyes again, the woman wasn't there anymore. The room was still the cold empty hole she rented the same day. Her brother was still sleeping peacefully close to her.

She then put away her diary in a pocket of the coat. Licking her fingertips she grasped the candle fire to extinguish it and tucked herself under the heavy bear pelt to find some warmth in that frozen inferno before falling into a nightmarish sleep.

The last sound she heard before falling into oblivion was the woman's voice “Always.”

Drakan (retired adventurer)
Naerus (retired adventurer)
Lilith Valeryan
Lorian Eur'vail


chaos667
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2018 5:24 pm

Re: Twins - Lilith and Draven

Post by chaos667 » Sun Feb 19, 2023 7:53 am

8th Eleasias 178 AR - “Blood”

She was always surprised how the biting cold managed to harm her hands and visage like a thousand pins thrown against her skin.
They weren't made for such climate. And to think it was summer... or so the calendar said.

Lilith crouched slightly on the chair, shrouded in her yeti fur cloak, waiting for the alchemical compound in the small flask to reach the boiling point. When the transparent liquid started simmer, she removed it from the small flame, starting to drop it into the sample of preserved blood she kept in a vial.
She moved the vial in circle, starting to mix it slowly, before putting it into the small centrifuge, activated by the movement of her hand. The process was quite long and required at least half a turn of a hourglass. Finally the mixture was ready.

“Still trying to correct that blood unbalance?” a voice from not even a meter behind her made Lilith jump. For a moment her heart stopped. She required a good ten seconds of pure panic to recover herself from the scare, breathing heavily.

“Mother! What are you still doing here??” she almost yelled at the dark-haired woman.

“I'm inside you, I've always been here. Don't you remember the word I told you last night before you fell asleep? Always” she hissed, then making one of her fake smiles. She was extremely good at pretending, never knowing when she was telling the truth or lying.
The mocking smile remained impressed on that young face, so similar to Lilith's, like sisters.

Mother's sinuous dark figure sat on the small chair, as thin as air, smooth as silk, without making any noise. “Let me guess. You're using purified human blood to compensate the presence of my blood inside you? Not a bad idea at all” she made a quite satisfied expression “but not a permanent one”.

Lilith hissed back as her eyes started to glow of a sinister red light “Yes, not a permanent one. But surely enough to shut you up for two days at least... why do you torment me, demon?”

“Demon??” mother laughed. “Wait another two hourglasses and then stare in the mirror, daughter. And then you'll see the demon you so desperately try to flee from. I'm not tormenting you at all. You are doing this to yourself, for, in the end, you loved me, in your wicked and twisted way. And you can't accept what you have done.”

Lilith fell silent as she took the vial in her hand.

Mother looked at it with her yellow eyes, with a smirk on her face, then continued “You think I'm here to torment you. No, my daughter, I'm proud of you. How ironic.. you hated me so much you became exactly what you despise the most”

Without hesitation, she swallowed the vial content in one sip. As always her body started to be shaken by tremors and convulsions for a minute. Normally Draven was there, holding her still, but those exceptional circumstances and mother had to vanished at once. No, she couldn't have waited for him, or things would have become much, much worse.
That was the endless cycle of torture she had to endure every couple of days when the illness first manifested.
To heal herself she did unspeakable things. To heal her, her twin made the final sacrifice to be able, at least, to give her temporary relief.

She fell unconscious, shrouded in a vortex of confused lights and images for a moment. When she regained consciousness, mother was gone.
And she wouldn't have returned for a couple of days.

Last edited by chaos667 on Tue Aug 15, 2023 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Drakan (retired adventurer)
Naerus (retired adventurer)
Lilith Valeryan
Lorian Eur'vail


chaos667
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2018 5:24 pm

Re: Twins - Lilith and Draven

Post by chaos667 » Tue Aug 15, 2023 6:38 pm

19h Eleint  178 AR - “Family”

Lilith was never a good cook. She always preferred raw food, as she was used to when she and Draven were children and they had to survive how they could.
But for Fèach she might do an exception.

She served him the piece of roasted meat of elk. The thigh of the huge animal was so big that he almost vanished behind it. She wouldn't have imagined how so much meat would fit in such a small stomach, but she learnt to be extremely surprised by her Feàch's skills. He was eating like if he hasn't in a whole month, taking small pieces of the roast and eating them with the satisfied smile of one grateful for more than exquisite meal.

And to think she has been sort of mother for him only for a week.
The hin took his small knife and started to cut a small limb of the huge thigh, devouring it with a satisfied expression, but surely not with the manners of a lord.

“I could throw up....” as always, mother appeared sitting on a chair, to ruin the joyous moment.

The time seemed to freeze. Everything was still. Both Draven and Fèach blocked in a frame of life, like a dream she suddenly realized it was just an illusion.

“Mother... you always show up at the most possible unfit moment”

“Bah.. look at you, daughter. Seriously? Taking a hin as a member of your family?”

“He cares about me more than you can possible understand, mother” she replied promptly with a angst-filled voice.

“Yes, he does. But the fact you can't have a family doesn't mean you have to create a parody of it. You all seem actors playing a part on a stage. Is this what you want, daughter? You're just afraid to be alone...”

Lilith smirked “Listen who talks about family. We were just thorn in your side that needed to be eliminated. That is what you said last time we met and that's your concept of family: just an utilitaristic one. We were there to do your biddings ever since we finally tracked you down. You don't understand what I am doing, because you lack the only skill required to do so: to be able to feel love. Family is much more, but you'll never be able to undderstand it”

Mother narrowed her yellow eyes, standing in utter silence.

“You feel no love. No affection. No mercy. You are empty, mother. You are... nothing. The only thing you were good at is take things away from people. Well... no more now.
Begone you demon”

That said, mother slipped away, almost not moving her legs, like if she was hovering back into the darkness she came from.

Lilith blinked and encountered Fèach's satisfied smile. She passed a hand on his hair, showing how much she cared for him, even if she knew the truth.
They were indeed pretending, but it was a dream she didn't want to wake from.

Drakan (retired adventurer)
Naerus (retired adventurer)
Lilith Valeryan
Lorian Eur'vail


chaos667
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2018 5:24 pm

Re: Twins - Lilith and Draven

Post by chaos667 » Tue Aug 15, 2023 7:00 pm

2nd Marpenoth 178 AR - “The call”

The dungeons smelled of rotten corpses and stagnant humidity. When Lilith stepped it, her higher sense of smell almost made her faint at the terrible reek she could feel.
She leaned against the wall, trying to endure. It wasn't hard for her: she had already learnt to withstand the smell of so many people, even of the slums of Athkatla.
With ease she took care of some of the cultists and of their infamous mane servants, when she was sure to have heard a soft laught coming from behind her. “Who is there?”
The persistent laugher kept echoing in the halls.. or was it only her imagination? She shook her head trying to forget about it and focus on the task at hand: wipe away the cultists hiding beneath Skaljard.
She was surprised such a group could floruish just under the noses of the militia, in the basement of the trade post, one of the town main centers of activity.

Lilith didn't take long to finally reach their leader, with that ridiculous hat. The battle was short and brutal. The demon easily fell under the power of her spells. She saw the foul blood spreading on the ground. Immediately she felt that insatiable thirst to assimilate more blood to empower her magic. Normally she took only pure human one, also considering what happened the last time she tasted one from another race. But this was totally different, she never tasted an outsider's one.
“Why not?” She thought.

She took some with her fingertip and licked it, feeling its bitter sulphurous taste, pulsing with power.
“We like you” the same voice that laughed before started to echo again in her mind. Then stopped for a very long second.

“Both of you” it added before vanishing in the atonishing silence of the dead cave.

Drakan (retired adventurer)
Naerus (retired adventurer)
Lilith Valeryan
Lorian Eur'vail


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