Death, Where is Thy Sting?

[Aeryeris]

The Beast

1154 DR, Somewhere in Westgate

I am sated. The vitae makes the mockery of life that is unlife feel like the real thing, for a moment at least.

I emerge from the vault into a narrow and dark hallway, moss grows on the moist walls and a rat scurries away to safety; smart animal. I look at the shattered mirror on the wall, and in the fractured reflection I can see the place where I stand, yet I cannot see myself.

I look past into the vault behind me; a bloody mess with gore all over the walls and floor. In the middle of the vault, a limp figure hands from their wrists, which are held up by steel cuffs attached to a hard point in the ceiling. I remember how it had squirmed, begged, pleaded. The desire for life, the fight to maintain it, and then nothing. Did it die or merely pass out? Do I care? I feel… strong. I let out a brief laugh; a wicked cackle of glee, before I glide into the hallway, silent as the night.

[Aeryeris]

Peace

The Years 1385 and 1386, Somewhere in a small hole in the ground

“Who am I?” It is a question that has pondered us for so long now. There are moments I feel a mere observer in my own body. Such moments horrify me, and then the horror is crushed brutally by the other, the beast. I am not allowed fear, I am not allowed doubt. But this time, this time it is different. I have the thoughts, and nothing crushes them. Am I free?
I drop it all. The people who have come to rely on me, who have been brought to heel with blood and sword; The riches gained, the power attained, I cast it all away. And I return to the sacred earth to which my soul is tethered. To sleep.

My mind wanders far and wide, free finally of the Beast’s whispers. Free to think like I have not done in years, centuries even. My shriveled soul yearns for nourishment of a kind it has not known in ages. And so I dream of vast planes of ice, realms of eternal fire, the deepest depths of the Lower Planes, and even the calm serenity of the forbidden sea of Celestia, which I shall never cross. My dreams take me to deserts of glass, and forests of trees beyond knowledge.
My mind tests many doors and finds just as many locked. Until after what seems like a true eternity, one cracks open. And beyond, something I thought never to find. I examine it, prod at it with thought, and conclude that it must be ‘hope’. I accept the offer.

“How long has it been?” I open my eyes, and despite the eternal darkness of my surroundings, I see the details of the lid above me. I push it open with one hand, and a cloud of dust rises slowly ceilingward on hidden air currents. “How long since the caretaker last visited? It cannot have been so long, right?” I shake my head and rise from the coffin. It matters little anyway, for an ageless creature such as I. And there is much more important work to do than to ponder on the passing of time.
I move through the chamber, and I push open a weathered wooden door, beyond which are the books… The harvest. I begin at first page of the first book of the first shelf. I start to read.

I close the final book, and I take a blank vellum. Thereupon I begin to write.
“Rise from dark depths, and from perilous thoughts, claim eternity.”
“Oblivion beholds us, and we shall deny her.”