Ignorance

[DjalliDhey]

Djalli felt pain.

It wasn't a normal pain.. not a burn, or a cut, something that she could easilly heal. No, she continued to heal herself with every waking moment, until her mana ran low and she was forced to succumb to the pain again, but for a few seconds, a few fleeting moments, she was able to clear her mind of the pain and reach out for something. Anything.

"Don't focus on sorrow. You've had enough. Focus on escape."

She heard Shadowspeak's voice in her head, through the intense mysery. The emotions given to her by Niethan were worse than physical pain. They gave her a perpetual state of loneliness, only anchored by the weight in her heart, which she never understood. Something was holding her to unlife. Despite her desire for death.. she wanted to live.

"I'm so sorry.." She kept thinking. "I'm so sorry I didn't understand.. I'm so sorry I didn't know.. I'm so sorry I hurt so many people.."

The stone formation that held her in place had dug itself into her cervix again. It suspended her, and while she only weighed ninety pounds, having all of her weight on the fragile organ was agony.

"..I'm so sorry, Shadowspeak," she said to his mind. "I love you, too."

[Shadowspeak]

Don't forget me

How could he? There was nothing else on his mind. He couldn't focus on the attack against the Gronn earlier, not the Elves that he was speaking to now, nor the small kitten that brushed against his leg. The thought was eating him alive about what he would have to do. Thoughts ran through his head. Evil thoughts. Thoughts of what he might have to do, and thoughts about those things going wrong. He was at a loss of what to do.

But I must do something.

All in just a few days he had his heart taken from him, a friend now turned to an enemy, and had his apprentice turn on him. His insides ached with both anger and pain. But mostly anger. This emotion which he felt so often now fueled his mind.

They will know. They will know.

He sank into the shadows of the Apothecarium, out of sight of the others, the only thing marking his place was his impression of an even dark. His horns scrapped the wall as he lifted his head to the sky. But there was no sky. Just a cold, dark roof to the Undercity.

I'll find you. I have to.

[Redemptio]

The lost apprentices lays on the floor of the Sanctuary hall...alone. Pain racks her body, What she had taken from Niethan from that spell she will never know. All she knows is she is in pain. Uncontrollable pain. She can't speak other then to scream, her mind unfocused, only white hot.

The spell may have cured Niethan but in by doing so, everything that was placed on the troll is now on this small still form. Every cut, every bruise, curse and hex. But the spell is two fold. She can not heal or be healed for if she tries or others try, pain seizes her. The same pain that grips her now. That forces the blood from her body and on to the floor. The same blood that she lays in unconscious on the Sanctuary floor. The pain the Shadowspeak and put on her.

He waited, after everything had settled, Niethan at home, Sulajin gone. Her protectors no place to be seen he stepped from the shadows. Her apprenticeship revoked. He sprang. She knew he was there, she was his apprentice of course she knew he was there. But she could do nothing against his power. She was Holy and he was Shadow. He could destroy her with just a flick of a thought. Even if she had a chance now with her body weak by the spell, she would still be like a lamb led to slaughter.

She had information he wanted. Were was Shadowspeak's dearest priestling, Djalli? Where was Sulajin, or Niethan keeping her? If she did not know she could find out. But would she tell him...Never. But he had is tactics, He was her master, well former master but that does not change what he knew about the girl. She would not run, no, she had no point to run. Pain she did not fear, death she did not fear, suffering she did not fear, shadowspeak she did not fear. What she feared was his wrath on others. On the people that saw her as "friend" and the ones she called "friend"

Did he know this, Oh yes he knew this. And knew it well. He knew what healing her when in this state would bring on her, pain and suffering. Did the girl care. No. She would not run, had no place or anyone to run to. She was alone, weak, tired, and wanted to get what Shadowspeak was going to do to her over with. However long she had to wait for it to be done.

Words spoken, threats given and the spell cased. A spell that was to be used for good to heal and protect, now used to give nothing but pain. Only words spoken was that of shadowspeak, giving his threat for more to come. And the girl unconscious on the floor of Sanctuary Guild Hall in a puddle of her own blood, cries. But she does not cry for the pain that is eating her body or the life giving blood that now flows from her. She cries cause someplace in a dark area in the cosmoses is a young priest much like her self in love. And that no matter how much her morals tell her to get her out. She can't, she was kind yes, but she believed in Karmic come back, and this, from what she had heard, was but a little of what she had to endure for the crimes she had committed.

She wanted to help the priestling, teach her, be her friend. But for right now all the priest could do is weep for the pain that was going to fall upon the people around her, the people she knew, the people she loved and called "friend" but most of all for the one that casted the spell, that put the priest in pain. He was the one feeling the pain, his apprentice now feared him and his loved one is gone, un-found, and the one he must hurt was the one that looked up to him most, his apprentice.


dark is the Hall when the girl regains consciousness. The only light is that of the dieing embers in the hearth. The girl picks her self up, slips on the blood, curses and then stands again. Stumbling to the kitchen she takes every towel she can fine and cleans up the blood. "Thank god for hard wood floors" she thinks to herself. She tosses the towels into the fire, then sings to it the fire roars into life consuming the blood and to fabric. The priest proceeds to clean herself. Fresh tears flowing from her, moving is painful, but thinking about the pain she had brought upon shadowspeak, Niethan, Sulajin, and any others that may come across her was more then she could bare. She sits in her chair, and sleep takes her. One tear falls, only one tear is shed for herself, as she whispers a prayer "May I live to see just one more day, to spend it with my friends, i wish not to reunite with my sister." The fire dies. And all is quiet in Sanctuary Guild Hall.

[DjalliDhey]

Immesurable pain.

Her heart ached with the loss that Niethan had felt. Until now, Djalli was numb to emotion. She remembered her life as a distant dream, but even then the world was closed to her. A daughter on her father's ship, never loved by either parent, a dark spot in their perfect family. Her sister, the prodigy. Her sister, rosy cheeked and sweet. Her sister, who survived.. taken by the Horde, never to be seen again. Djalli, left behind.

Impaled in Sulajin's home, she finally allowed herself to remember. Never before had the images of being Scourge flooded Djalli's brain; it was something her body forced her to forget. Now, with the flood of emotions and physical pain, she remembered..

On her father's ship, the sailor's were crying out, her father shouting orders. The zombies came, and with them the plague. Bound and gagged by a cruel looking creature with simply a skull for a head, he forced bread down her throat and made her swallow. She remembered the pain of death, and with it, the numbness of life. Awakening, her eyes glowing, she was one of them. She walked off of the ship, allong the floor of the ocean, and when finally she came to shore... Djalli killed. Ravaged. Murdured. Her hands turned claws ripped the skin from bodies, the eyes from faces. She ripped children from the arms of their mothers, lovers from kisses that were never to be felt. Djalli, part of the Scourge, felt white fire build in her that smote her enemies to dust. Like pure light, erupting from her body. She continued, numb.

Then, the awakening. The feeling of control. How had she awoken from the control? The Dark Lady, a beacon of hope. She freed Djalli, she freed the others, and now Djalli walked free. A slave to the Scourge no longer... but what was left? She shrugged and joined forces. Infection, the Grim.. neither offered respite for her boredom. So this was undeath. This was "life", the pointless monotony of simply being.

Then, Shadowspeak. He had lived far better, he had loved once and had her torn from him. He had felt emotion. What was it like, to feel?

Now she knew. Now it hurt. Djalli cried out in pain, but also with regret and thankfulness. She knew pain, now.

[Sulajin]

Sulajin would tend to her, once a day. Once a day he'd enter into her chamber bearing food. Water. The bread was dry, molding in patches, but it would do. She would survive. He would keep her here. And she would suffer. The priest he had heard refered to as Djalli would never move from that spot.

When he came he pressed the food to her mouth, ready should she refuse. "Choo goin ta eat, mon. Eida by ya own decision o' by fo'ce. I don' have any problems wit' breakin choo jaw an' fo'cin it down ya t'roat." He gestured to a simple wooden rod with that. "So choo goin ta eat, an' ya goin ta live. Don' worry eida, dose ropes goin ta hold. I make sho choo won' slip an' impale yaself. Won' dat be fun?"

And he waited. Waited for her to eat, or to refuse so she could be fed and then he would leave her.

[DjalliDhey]

And so she ate.

The sustinence kept her body from decomposing further. It kept her alive, or whatever it was that the undead called their existence. Djalli did not complain, nor did she whimper. There was enough pain in her to make both the feeling between her legs and the dull ache of her heart a thoroughly soothing numbness.

As she ate, she did not look at Sulajin. He was a troll, a creature she once thought beneath her. Now she pitied him.. because in all of his torture of her, through everything he did, he was mortal. He would die, someday. She would not, and that tiny sliver of reality brought Djalli something she'd never felt before; hope.

"Shadowspeak.." She thought quietly. "I will see you, again."

[Niethan]

The longer his thoughts dwelled on the priest, the monstrous whore, the more he thought of regret.

And that's what she was, wasn't she? Regrets.

Niethan regretted every day what her influence had wrought, in hurting Vilmah. He regretted the uncomfortible change of stance in his dance with Sulajin, going from twofold devotion/misery to dependable to now untouchable (he regretted not his love for the mage, but rather that it was taken from him the moment he had it; and as soon as the thought occured Witness stole it away and tucked it deep inside a small dark box). He pined for how things were, when Vilmah was at last learning how to trust and Sulajin's face was not distant, and when there weren't so many needles in thier once-familiar silences.

(And needles there had been, and caltrops and jagged metal shards, from all the hurt and fright and lonliness. Had been, for like a wizard behind the curtain Witness had learned to digest steel)

But there was more to it, now. Time had moved on, and things had finally settled. He'd conducted Vilmah and Nojinbu's wedding without regret. Kromag he was (with much complaint) erasing his hatred for. And Niethan had finally found that one small piece of Sulajin that Khiskiva did not have, could not have because she could not understand it. The one piece he'd told her that was his, and that it was all he truly wanted; his friendship. (In the box was the Desert Flower's reply, words spitting malice like a cobra; even through the box, the venom still sometimes burned) Niethan knew how to be Sulajin's friend, but Khiskiva knew only how to be his wife. And that small coveted solace was enough.

And now there were two children of his, unplanned and more surely worth the pain than anything else Niethan had ever found. He didn't regret them.

And now here was the unwitting instigator, impaled on Sulajin's spite and less than fifty yards from where Niethan's children lay sleeping. He'd wanted her dead in all the worst ways only three days ago. Now he just wanted her to understand. Now he wanted to stop regretting her.

Even after all the pain that she had begun, when it came down to it Niethan could not regret his children. And by consequence, he could not hate Djalli. But she needed to understand.

Niethan stood in front of her, eyeing her torture and then turning away. Her corset reminded Niethan of Shadra, weaver of fate who brought both life and misery. And like any pious aman'i, he knew how to worship both.

He asked, "What have you learned?"

[DjalliDhey]

"..that there is value, in all."

Djalli spoke the words coarsly. They had been turning, in and out of her head. These creatures were people, and she envied the emotions that they felt. How could they be less, if they had felt so much more?

"I was envious of your love.." she continued. "..but I was also envious of your pain. When you feel neither, when you can have neither.. all you can do is.. watch."

The undead struggled to remain still. Her hair stuck to the dead skin of her face.

"I am sorry.. for the pain I caused. I did not understand the value."

[Niethan]

Value was a broad statement. Was she still learning? He ignored the plastered hair and aching eyes; physical pain was meaningless, at the end.

"What else?"

[DjalliDhey]

What else?

"That.. there is more to life or unlife than the will to live. That pain is a mysery, but with it can come great joy.. that joy is not something that can be found in the mysery of others.. that emotions are worth more than.. power."

Physical pain aside, Djalli's mind swam. What had she learned?

"I-I can't love without feeling regret.. I can't.. feel love for someone, without also feeling the pain of having hurt you so.. having hurt those children, those families.. I was the cause of so much pain, and despite how much I wish that I could feel this love, it is overshadowed by too much sin.."

She closed her eyeless sockets.

"..I am undeserving of love, but I am most deserving of pain."

[Niethan]

Closer. Maybe the elder Shadowhunter of his childhood had been right, about pain smoothing the the path to enlightenment. But still, she was learning.

Niethan shook his head, turning to leave. "That is incorrect. I will leave you to your meditations, and come back later to ask you again."

[DjalliDhey]

She hung her head in defeat. Djalli watched Niethan leave, and felt the hopelessness of his resolve. Wether she answered him correctly or not, she understood, depended on him entirely. There was little more to think on, than her regrets. The priestess had such little will to live, and the only thing anchering her down into the world was the clear voice of someone on the outside.

Someone who loved her.

"..that all creatures are worthy of love," she said to herself.

[Redemptio]

*the priest sleep in the Hall, her mind searches for the Pristling.*


Where are you, hon?


She calls out, then waits.

[Niethan]

Niethan stayed outside the door to her purgatory, leaning up against the wall in thought. He almost wished he hadn't heard her; wished she'd never find something worth learning in her pain. But she had.

Ignorance was bliss, but now that he knew he couldn't sit and pretend all was well. No, now he had to do something about it. The thought made him taste bile.

Witness was already comiling a list of consequences for releasing her. It was impressively large, and Niethan saw many that he did not wish to pay.

The Powers That Be must have delighted in making Niethan's life complicated. It was like paying homage to the Spider, bringing misery upon himself to bring life. He hoped Shadra would at least find the situation humorous, because he knew Sulajin would not.

It took Niethan exactly eight steps to reach Djalli's imprisonment and cut the ropes, one hand nearly encircling her waist to keep her from being torn apart by Sulajin's wrath.

[Sulajin]

((Technically speaking, the device in question can't kill. It will hurt to be cut loose, but she'd just fall off. Walk funny too, I imagine.))

[Redemptio]

*she starts to search for the priestling more franticly, something is about to happen to the poor girl...i know it. With her mind she calls.*


"Dear! Djalli! Hon! Say something!"

[DjalliDhey]

Djalli felt herself fall, Niethan's arm helping her down. She couldn't look at him in the eye, so great was the shame she felt at thatmoment. Redemptio's voice rang in her mind, allong with her own confusion.

...he let me go.

"..Niethan, I.."

There were no words in her mouth. Nothing to say. Her body froze as she thought about what to say, but nothing came. Nothing.. except more guilt.

"...I owe you my life."

[Redemptio]

*the priest mind grips on Djalli's fading one."

"I don't know if you remember who I am, Nor do i care, nor does it mater!" *she lessens the sharpness in her speech* "I am a believer in people changing, and of second chances. So here is your freedom girl. I am in dead bound to Sulajin, this fact is true, and to tell you the truth I am proud of this fact, and i as well have the privilege of calling both Sulejin and Niethan my friend. Bind yourself to me, become *she laughs at how ironic this concept is* my apprentice, i will teach you the ways of the light, I will protect you, i will let you..." *she pauses* " I will let you see Shadowspeak. But you have to promise me this! you will decease with what you have been doing! The torment of the living ones!! If i hear or see you have fallen from grace again I will be forced to hand you to Niethan and Sulejin.
What speak you!?"

[Niethan]

Niethan grunted, refusing to look at the.... person he was 'saving.' He made a careless gesture, not really wanting to think about what he was doing-- and wanting to think about the coming beating even less-- so he pulled on her arm and led her to his room, and the shortcut to elsewhere that it contained.

"You have to have a life before you can owe it."

[Shadowspeak]

Word had been spread. People had been called, contracts made, and few servants had been set out. All was in order, everything in his power to find her.

The Spider had uncovered little. He had been asking around the Undercity for sometime, but no true breakthrough. The most accomplished thing had been the large green Orc in Shattrath that Shadowspeak had talked to.

But he only gave little information. The situation was still dark. Until Jobolg returned his response, nothing looked to hope. He knew he would talk to Sulajin, and he knew he would be in Sulajins' favor.

Hope was fading, but he would not stop. Only the destruction of the world or the destruction of himself would stop him. But hope... so far awyay.

Until few words pierced his mind. Words that spoke salvation.

"...he set me free..."

[Redemptio]

*Redemptio grips Djalli's mind still* "Answer girl, i want this as much as i hope you do. I fear i may have read Shadowspeak wrong."

[DjalliDhey]

"..he set me free. I am going home."

Djalli rubbed a hand over her hearthstone, sending her her to the Undercity. She relished in the familiarity of her home, and called out immidiately with her mind.

"Thank you, Redemptio.. I am home, now."

[Redemptio]

"You may be free, but you are not safe. *sigh* and i guess i need you now."

*she does not let go of Djalli's mind*

[DjalliDhey]

"..need me?"

Djalli tried to hide her annoyance. She was home now, she had been freed from what could have been eternal torment at the hands of a sadistic troll, and all she wanted was to see Shadowspeak. To see his face and speak the words that were eating at her.. but Redemptio's voice in her head rang true.

"What do you need from me?"

[Redemptio]

*sigh* "I have spoken with Shadowspeak, Me and him have come to terms, spoken our wrong doings and forgiven each other. But there is something on both our minds that is heavy. You my dear. You are young still, and Shadowspeak is protective. But i can prevent, hopefully, pain coming to both of you and hopefully prevent you to from being separate again. Become my apprentice, I will teach you the ways of the light, i can protect you in ways Shadowspeak can not. The choice is yours, dear. I will leave you now, let you rest. I now live at the Sanctuary Guild Hall you can find me there when you are ready to give me your answer. Be happy, Be safe, Have what you need, know what you want."

The older priest lets got of the younger's mind, in her wake she tries to ease any pain that may have befallen the younger. She hopes that the priestling takes her up on her offer.