Fynne
12-10-2005, 04:14 AM
Henri stood atop the plateau, cloaked hood drawn to shield him from the rain. It was only a drizzle now, he realized, and made no move to lower it. Another crack of lightning arced across the sky in the distance, bringing a flash of illumination to the dark, colorless terrain. He was not hiding from the rain, he discovered, as an illuminating storm of introspection crackled through the dark, fogged terrain of his mind.
He was hiding his face from his friends.
He was not such a monster, yet, that he would welcome recognition for the deeds he had committed to bring him down this darkened path, nor for the terrible deed that he had come here to do. The wind ripped swiftly past him, stinging his face with cold rain before ripping his hood away, flattening it back to his shoulders and baring him to its merciless chill. Henri spun about, another flash of lightning crawled across the sky, a twin to the sudden suspicion working its way through his mind. His suspicions were correct; illuminated atop the plateau with him was a robed figure – perhaps merely another silhouette to anyone else, but the sudden stinging icy wind revealed the man to Henri: the name and blizzard belonged to Sabastion Gale.
---
It was a week earlier that he truly had begun to fall. As the cursed druid Celebras fell beneath his blades, Henri knelt to inspect the wounded body. A set of claws, sharpened wickedly and oozing with poison, beckoned to him from the corpse. The adventurer beside him, Pathos, knelt and rapped his knuckles on Henri’s aging sword.
“Take them,” he urged, “it’ll make a fine improvement.”
He knew not the curse which he wrought by those words. And so, the trusted sword of serenity that had faithfully held Henri’s temper in check was laid to rest beside the fallen druid. Henri was nothing if not pragmatic.
---
“I killed just shy of two-hundred, yesterday,” Henri remarked, hoping through dizzy thoughts that his slaughter would please the warlock. Still – a part of him had not yet given itself over to her thrall, and with a smug, defiant smirk, he added, “But I did not give into my rage.”
She was pleased, at first, and wore a satisfied smirk on her cruel, seductive face. Two-hundred? This pet of hers, this Henri Fynne, was coming along nicely… again. When first she had enslaved him, it had been harder work than some demons! For three months, she had broken his will, and tempted him to lose himself to his rage. The rage, at least, had been easy; he was such an angry boy – angry at the militia for casting him aside, angry at Jilliane for abandoning their Love, and so deliciously angry at this seductive mistress and her enthralling magics. Yes, he had come along quite nicely, the first time. After three, grueling months, her training had given birth to Fynne, the blood pirate. He had looked so dashing, standing shirtless with runes of demon magic carved into his skin with her blood – tearing whole ships’ crews limb from limb with his blades, bathing his golden hair in their blood, and returning always to kneel obediently before her. What a marvelous swashbuckler she had trained him to be. But that smirk drained from her pale face, and she stopped her slow jaunt through the forest, turning to fix Fynne with an increasingly infuriated glare.
The point was not lost on him.
“I like the feel of these claws,” he quickly recovered, seeking words that would appease his mistress, “it’s as though I’m ripping the guts from their bodies with my own hands.”
A smirk tickled her mouth – he had such a way with words, sometimes, but that insolent comment could not be allowed to pass.
“Why did you not give into your rage, my pet?” she cooed sweetly, though her burning eyes held no sweetness in them. Henri’s mind reeled, and pockets of light burst in at the edge of his vision; he felt suddenly dizzy, and dropped to one knee to steady himself.
The warlock’s smirk grew as Fynne knelt before her. How swiftly he fell, indeed. She had lost him, before, when a storm tore their ship apart. Between his escape from her presence, and her succubus’ betrayal which had cost her the loss of her Demon master’s favor, her pet had secured his freedom. She had found him again, in the midst of a bustling crowd in Ironforge. He had been most busy, she noticed; he was clad in fine armor with a pair of blades hanging at his waist – perhaps he thought himself a swordsman, or a duelist now? She caught his attention – she was good at that; after all, she knew what the young boys liked – especially Henri Fynne. For eighteen months aboard that ship she had discovered, and had taught him, everything that he liked, and having caught his attention, she led him away until at last they were alone in an alleyway in Stormwind. A prick of her finger, just a drop of blood, was enough to send him to his knees, babbling and repeating her commands. How swiftly he fell, the second time.
“I…duel and slice and fence with my sword…” he remarked from his knees, his words flowing incoherently in the face of Alyiane’s focused power, “…and I can gut, and tear, and rip…with my claw.” He stared pleadingly up at her, expecting her to recognize the symbolism of his words. She did, of course – with one hand, he would remain the swashbuckler Henri, and with the other, he would become the blood pirate Fynne, but too she recognized the symbols beneath his words: he was bargaining, and that she would not allow.
“You are a killer, Fynne,” she replied icily and even, “you are my killer, no matter what instrument you use.”
---
Lightning flashed across the sky, bathing the plateau in pale white light once more. Henri was standing directly before Sabastion now; he had swiftly covered the ground between them in the blink of an eye – or rather, the absence of a lightning strike. Before he could bring his blade, or vicious claw, to bear, Sabastion drove his hand into the air in a mighty arc, chilling the drizzling rain into thick sheets of ice in an azure ring that exploded into ripples away from him.
Damn the man, cursed Henri silently, his rage beginning to lick at his mind – a fitting flame to help turn these icy magics. Though his feet were frozen solid, his arms held no such chains, and he plunged his sword and claw into empty air before him. They met no flesh, for in the darkness Sabastion had blinked away. Over the crackle of thunder, Henri heard quiet incantations, words of arcana not meant for his ears, and with another flash of lightning, his world turned to white.
---
“Do you think I can sheep someone forever?” Sabastion remarked, leisurely swirling his ale about.
“It’s possible, I’m sure – but you couldn’t do it with just anyone,” Henri replied, taking a seat at his friend’s side.
“What do you mean?” remarked the mage, letting his drink rest on the table a moment.
“That warrior spirit. It gets in the way. People just build a tolerance to magic – it’s that warrior spirit.”
“Then I’d have to find someone who’s not a warrior? A rogue, or perhaps a priest?” Sabastion smirked, sizing up his friend in jest.
“No – we’ve all got that spirit in us. Sometimes we draw it from within, sometimes we grab ahold of an insignia, and draw it forth from our loyalty to a cause – and sometimes,” Henri grinned, “we just get plain tired of that damned magical intrusion!”
“So why do you say it’s possible, then?” inquired Sabastion, intrigued by his friend’s insight to the intricacies of magic.
“I suppose you’d have to find someone so utterly lacking in that spirit, that their will was crushed, and even their body wouldn’t put up a resistance to your spells.” They both burst into laughter, and drank to that. Perhaps some day Sabastion would unravel the secret to a permanent polymorph.
---
Henri blinked a few times – he was not so cold anymore, but he was hungry. He trotted around, looking for a pile of delicious grass. Rain pattered down on his woolen coat, but he did not seem to mind. Taking a mouthful of grass, he eyed the tall, robed man who seemed to be watching him. There was something suspicious, dangerous, about him, dancing at the edge of his mind. Thinking on it, Henri violently tugged another mouthful of grass from the ground; he was a very spirited man. Man! He was a spirited man, not a sheep! Realization dawned on him, and in a cloud of magical smoke, he sprung towards Sabastion once more, blade and claw striking at him from once-more human arms. His poisoned claw grazed the mage’s flesh, locking his muscles with its venomous touch – but again, in another flash of lightning, Sabastion vanished away with the blink of an eye. Henri spat the taste of grass from his mouth, glancing around the plateau, waiting for a lightning strike to reveal his foe. The taste was not unlike thistle tea, and it invigorated him. The last thought flickering through his head before his world exploded into white once more, was a curiosity of how goldthorn tea would have tasted, instead.
---
“You hold him down, and I’ll kill the warlock.”
So much was Sabastion’s plan to Jilliane; after all – Fynne would tear him to pieces if he tried without finding some way to subdue him. He had told him as much. But he had not counted on Fynne lurking beneath the bridge, listening to their plotting. At no small expense, Fynne had procured an odorless, tasteless poison, and brewed it alongside goldthorn into Jilliane’s tea. He had come to her, he professed, to show her that he had defeated the warlock’s spells, that their True Love had conquered her demon magic. She drank the poison willingly, unknowingly, and when at last her body had gone slack and helpless in the deepest of sleeps, Fynne carried her to her bed, and laid her comfortably to rest. Proceeding swiftly to the mailbox, he deposted an account of his actions to the mage.
‘Sabastion,
my friend, by the time this letter finds
its way to your hands, my deed will be done.
Jilliane has taken to a sleep from which she
will never wake. Meet me in Desolace, and we
will duel for the antidote.
- Fynne the Shark’
Henri chewed on the blades of grass thoughtfully, stumbling about on his stubby hooved legs. His thoughts turned again to the thistle taste, which reminded him of goldthorn tea – and at last to what he had done to his beloved Jilliane! Once more, he sprung from the woolen form, and charged Sabastion, fury in his eyes, and seething through his blood. Sabastion wriggled his fingers; he needed time for the poison to release its hold on his crippled muscles. Once more, Fynne’s world exploded into white.
Something was wrong. Henri’s eyes darted to a pocket of grass on the ground, and an urge tempted him to eat it – such was his purpose in life. And yet – those words rang hollow in his thoughts.
“I am not this thing, that I have become – I am Henri Fynne!” his spirit rang, and he leapt upon Sabastion, knocking him to the ground. Something else was wrong – this duel, he realized, had no flair; it had no banter – what had they come to do? Duel, or kill each other like tactless thugs? Driving his blade between Sabastion’s ribs, and pinning his claws to either side of it, Fynne began to pry Sabastion’s chest open, but he was forgetting the banter!
Flowing from his liberating thoughts, he drew forth the words that had set him free, screaming down at Sabastion as he eviscerated him.
“I am not this thing, that I have become – I am Henri Fynne!”
Lightning crawled across the sky, and too through Henri’s mind, illuminating the events before it. It was not too late for Sabastion, he knew, and drew forth a potion smelling of Lotus; forcing the contents into Sabastion’s mouth, the strange liquid threw him into a dreamless sleep. When next Sabastion awoke, he laid atop a stormy plateau in Desolace, rain trickling down and stinging his bared, wounded chest, and he was alone.
---
His rage had been his downfall, when first had Henri met Alyiane. It was a seductive trick of warlock magics – through his rage he could ignore the sweet, enthralling enchantments that Alyiane and her succubus weaved into his mind, but relying on his rage only hastened his descent into her power. Through his rage, she had skillfully controlled him, binding his fury into demonic pacts until he was all but a demon himself.
“Fynne, her blood demon,” she had called him possessively and affectionately. With her, perhaps, they were the same. But a plan danced within Henri’s mind. When first Sabastion had come to try and break Alyiane’s spell over him, he had tempted his rage.
“Remember those talks of will, we had? And how it can defeat magic?” he taunted at Fynne, playing into Alyiane’s hand.
“Warlock magic is different!” spat Fynne, bristling with rage, “it is not so simple and weak as your spells, Sabastion!”
And then – something quite unexpected happened. Alyiane, the seductress, the warlock, the temptress of hate and fury, warned Sabastion not to enrage Fynne, and spoke soothing, enchanted words into her pet’s mind to sedate him. As Shari’lo Terro bore him through the stormy wastes back to Alyiane’s lair, these events were not lost on him.
---
“My pet, you are soaked with blood,” purred Alyiane as Fynne entered the room, closing the door behind him, “tell me, who did you kill this time?” His mind reeled, intoxicated suddenly by her presence. It staggered his senses and he murmered helplessly a lie he would have rather kept,
“No one; I have let Sabastion live, though I held his life in my hands.”
He raised his blood claw, letting a drop of Sabastion’s blood trickle down it’s razor length to fall from it pointedly. All of Alyiane’s seduction crawled to an icy stop, and coldly, she retorted, sending Henri’s mind spinning a different direction.
“Have you grown into such a coward so soon? I give you permission to a duel – your greatest fancy, and you cannot kill the man?!”
His rage seething to a sudden boil, Fynne spat back at her.
“Don’t dare mock my duels, Alyiane!” for truly, he held them as a sacred thing, “but this was no duel, there was no banter – merely two men trying at each other’s lives!”
Smugly, she remarked, enjoying his rage if not his insolence, “Trying, then, is a fitting word.”
Consumed by his hatred, Fynne strode across the room, leveling his sword to Alyiane’s chest, and claws to her throat; his eyes burned at her with a fiery resolve.
Hastily, a Demonic word flew from Alyiane’s nervous lips, and Fynne felt his rage begin to drain from him – his body began to lose its strength, and blissfull surrender beckoned to him. He had felt like this many a time before – most recently in Goldshire, when she had stayed him from slaying Sabastion. There was something important there, his mind urged him, fighting back Alyiane’s dizzying fog. What were her words to Sabastion? What was her teasing remark?
“You know, if you keep tempting his rage, I won’t be able to control him. He’ll kill you, and I won’t be able to stop it.”
The words echoed through Fynne’s mind as the fog overtook him.
“…I won’t be able to control him…”
His eyes flew open, suddenly, as Alyiane dragged a nail across his jaw. Burning with rage, he slashed two deep cuts along her shoulder with his poisoned claws. Demonic words flew from her mouth, but shielded by his rage, they were but gibberish to his ears. With a swift kick, he knocked the warlock to the floor. She did not get up – the paralyzing poison must have begun to set upon her already. There was a look in her eyes; it was not the same smug, possessive glare, but rather fear. Levelling his sword to her throat, Fynne recognized the terror in her eyes, and realized the source.
“You are weaker, now, warlock,” he bantered, finding the swashbuckler in him, the Henri that dared to burst forth, “you fear my rage – for you are not yet strong enough again to control it!” Alyiane’s nervous gulp was enough an answer to his suspicions, and Fynne – no! – Henri pressed his blade against her throat.
“I bet, too, you are not yet strong enough to come back from the grave.”
Henri narrowed his eyes, kneeling down to wrap his claw around her neck, tugging ever so gently.
“I will not fall into your trap, this time,” he growled, his voice barely above a whisper, “never let me look upon you again, warlock.”
Standing, he drew his blades away from her, and strode to the doorway. Silhouetted against crackling lightning, he remarked, “I am not this thing that I have become – I am Henri Fynne,” and vanished into the night.
---
As Shari’lo bore him through the night, Henri’s mind raced to find words that he might explain his actions to Jilliane. Ever withering beneath her Paladin gaze, his imperfections felt magnified – that he was so dark and evil a person that a lifetime of confessions might not purge his taint. And yet, he would always confess his sins to her, spilling forth one dark secret after another, until every white lie had been cleansed from his soul. Standing before her, he looked upon her sleeping beauty, and for a moment, entertained the temptation of never waking her. Spreading an elixir over his lips, and holding a quantity of it in his mouth, he knelt beside her bed and pressed his lips to hers, parting them in a passionate, enchanting, or as it were- disenchanting kiss. Her eyes fluttered open, and as the rising sun shone its rays through the window, Henri decided that nothing needed to be said – he had told Jilliane the truth once already: he had defeated the warlock’s spells, and their True Love had conquered her demon magic.
He was hiding his face from his friends.
He was not such a monster, yet, that he would welcome recognition for the deeds he had committed to bring him down this darkened path, nor for the terrible deed that he had come here to do. The wind ripped swiftly past him, stinging his face with cold rain before ripping his hood away, flattening it back to his shoulders and baring him to its merciless chill. Henri spun about, another flash of lightning crawled across the sky, a twin to the sudden suspicion working its way through his mind. His suspicions were correct; illuminated atop the plateau with him was a robed figure – perhaps merely another silhouette to anyone else, but the sudden stinging icy wind revealed the man to Henri: the name and blizzard belonged to Sabastion Gale.
---
It was a week earlier that he truly had begun to fall. As the cursed druid Celebras fell beneath his blades, Henri knelt to inspect the wounded body. A set of claws, sharpened wickedly and oozing with poison, beckoned to him from the corpse. The adventurer beside him, Pathos, knelt and rapped his knuckles on Henri’s aging sword.
“Take them,” he urged, “it’ll make a fine improvement.”
He knew not the curse which he wrought by those words. And so, the trusted sword of serenity that had faithfully held Henri’s temper in check was laid to rest beside the fallen druid. Henri was nothing if not pragmatic.
---
“I killed just shy of two-hundred, yesterday,” Henri remarked, hoping through dizzy thoughts that his slaughter would please the warlock. Still – a part of him had not yet given itself over to her thrall, and with a smug, defiant smirk, he added, “But I did not give into my rage.”
She was pleased, at first, and wore a satisfied smirk on her cruel, seductive face. Two-hundred? This pet of hers, this Henri Fynne, was coming along nicely… again. When first she had enslaved him, it had been harder work than some demons! For three months, she had broken his will, and tempted him to lose himself to his rage. The rage, at least, had been easy; he was such an angry boy – angry at the militia for casting him aside, angry at Jilliane for abandoning their Love, and so deliciously angry at this seductive mistress and her enthralling magics. Yes, he had come along quite nicely, the first time. After three, grueling months, her training had given birth to Fynne, the blood pirate. He had looked so dashing, standing shirtless with runes of demon magic carved into his skin with her blood – tearing whole ships’ crews limb from limb with his blades, bathing his golden hair in their blood, and returning always to kneel obediently before her. What a marvelous swashbuckler she had trained him to be. But that smirk drained from her pale face, and she stopped her slow jaunt through the forest, turning to fix Fynne with an increasingly infuriated glare.
The point was not lost on him.
“I like the feel of these claws,” he quickly recovered, seeking words that would appease his mistress, “it’s as though I’m ripping the guts from their bodies with my own hands.”
A smirk tickled her mouth – he had such a way with words, sometimes, but that insolent comment could not be allowed to pass.
“Why did you not give into your rage, my pet?” she cooed sweetly, though her burning eyes held no sweetness in them. Henri’s mind reeled, and pockets of light burst in at the edge of his vision; he felt suddenly dizzy, and dropped to one knee to steady himself.
The warlock’s smirk grew as Fynne knelt before her. How swiftly he fell, indeed. She had lost him, before, when a storm tore their ship apart. Between his escape from her presence, and her succubus’ betrayal which had cost her the loss of her Demon master’s favor, her pet had secured his freedom. She had found him again, in the midst of a bustling crowd in Ironforge. He had been most busy, she noticed; he was clad in fine armor with a pair of blades hanging at his waist – perhaps he thought himself a swordsman, or a duelist now? She caught his attention – she was good at that; after all, she knew what the young boys liked – especially Henri Fynne. For eighteen months aboard that ship she had discovered, and had taught him, everything that he liked, and having caught his attention, she led him away until at last they were alone in an alleyway in Stormwind. A prick of her finger, just a drop of blood, was enough to send him to his knees, babbling and repeating her commands. How swiftly he fell, the second time.
“I…duel and slice and fence with my sword…” he remarked from his knees, his words flowing incoherently in the face of Alyiane’s focused power, “…and I can gut, and tear, and rip…with my claw.” He stared pleadingly up at her, expecting her to recognize the symbolism of his words. She did, of course – with one hand, he would remain the swashbuckler Henri, and with the other, he would become the blood pirate Fynne, but too she recognized the symbols beneath his words: he was bargaining, and that she would not allow.
“You are a killer, Fynne,” she replied icily and even, “you are my killer, no matter what instrument you use.”
---
Lightning flashed across the sky, bathing the plateau in pale white light once more. Henri was standing directly before Sabastion now; he had swiftly covered the ground between them in the blink of an eye – or rather, the absence of a lightning strike. Before he could bring his blade, or vicious claw, to bear, Sabastion drove his hand into the air in a mighty arc, chilling the drizzling rain into thick sheets of ice in an azure ring that exploded into ripples away from him.
Damn the man, cursed Henri silently, his rage beginning to lick at his mind – a fitting flame to help turn these icy magics. Though his feet were frozen solid, his arms held no such chains, and he plunged his sword and claw into empty air before him. They met no flesh, for in the darkness Sabastion had blinked away. Over the crackle of thunder, Henri heard quiet incantations, words of arcana not meant for his ears, and with another flash of lightning, his world turned to white.
---
“Do you think I can sheep someone forever?” Sabastion remarked, leisurely swirling his ale about.
“It’s possible, I’m sure – but you couldn’t do it with just anyone,” Henri replied, taking a seat at his friend’s side.
“What do you mean?” remarked the mage, letting his drink rest on the table a moment.
“That warrior spirit. It gets in the way. People just build a tolerance to magic – it’s that warrior spirit.”
“Then I’d have to find someone who’s not a warrior? A rogue, or perhaps a priest?” Sabastion smirked, sizing up his friend in jest.
“No – we’ve all got that spirit in us. Sometimes we draw it from within, sometimes we grab ahold of an insignia, and draw it forth from our loyalty to a cause – and sometimes,” Henri grinned, “we just get plain tired of that damned magical intrusion!”
“So why do you say it’s possible, then?” inquired Sabastion, intrigued by his friend’s insight to the intricacies of magic.
“I suppose you’d have to find someone so utterly lacking in that spirit, that their will was crushed, and even their body wouldn’t put up a resistance to your spells.” They both burst into laughter, and drank to that. Perhaps some day Sabastion would unravel the secret to a permanent polymorph.
---
Henri blinked a few times – he was not so cold anymore, but he was hungry. He trotted around, looking for a pile of delicious grass. Rain pattered down on his woolen coat, but he did not seem to mind. Taking a mouthful of grass, he eyed the tall, robed man who seemed to be watching him. There was something suspicious, dangerous, about him, dancing at the edge of his mind. Thinking on it, Henri violently tugged another mouthful of grass from the ground; he was a very spirited man. Man! He was a spirited man, not a sheep! Realization dawned on him, and in a cloud of magical smoke, he sprung towards Sabastion once more, blade and claw striking at him from once-more human arms. His poisoned claw grazed the mage’s flesh, locking his muscles with its venomous touch – but again, in another flash of lightning, Sabastion vanished away with the blink of an eye. Henri spat the taste of grass from his mouth, glancing around the plateau, waiting for a lightning strike to reveal his foe. The taste was not unlike thistle tea, and it invigorated him. The last thought flickering through his head before his world exploded into white once more, was a curiosity of how goldthorn tea would have tasted, instead.
---
“You hold him down, and I’ll kill the warlock.”
So much was Sabastion’s plan to Jilliane; after all – Fynne would tear him to pieces if he tried without finding some way to subdue him. He had told him as much. But he had not counted on Fynne lurking beneath the bridge, listening to their plotting. At no small expense, Fynne had procured an odorless, tasteless poison, and brewed it alongside goldthorn into Jilliane’s tea. He had come to her, he professed, to show her that he had defeated the warlock’s spells, that their True Love had conquered her demon magic. She drank the poison willingly, unknowingly, and when at last her body had gone slack and helpless in the deepest of sleeps, Fynne carried her to her bed, and laid her comfortably to rest. Proceeding swiftly to the mailbox, he deposted an account of his actions to the mage.
‘Sabastion,
my friend, by the time this letter finds
its way to your hands, my deed will be done.
Jilliane has taken to a sleep from which she
will never wake. Meet me in Desolace, and we
will duel for the antidote.
- Fynne the Shark’
Henri chewed on the blades of grass thoughtfully, stumbling about on his stubby hooved legs. His thoughts turned again to the thistle taste, which reminded him of goldthorn tea – and at last to what he had done to his beloved Jilliane! Once more, he sprung from the woolen form, and charged Sabastion, fury in his eyes, and seething through his blood. Sabastion wriggled his fingers; he needed time for the poison to release its hold on his crippled muscles. Once more, Fynne’s world exploded into white.
Something was wrong. Henri’s eyes darted to a pocket of grass on the ground, and an urge tempted him to eat it – such was his purpose in life. And yet – those words rang hollow in his thoughts.
“I am not this thing, that I have become – I am Henri Fynne!” his spirit rang, and he leapt upon Sabastion, knocking him to the ground. Something else was wrong – this duel, he realized, had no flair; it had no banter – what had they come to do? Duel, or kill each other like tactless thugs? Driving his blade between Sabastion’s ribs, and pinning his claws to either side of it, Fynne began to pry Sabastion’s chest open, but he was forgetting the banter!
Flowing from his liberating thoughts, he drew forth the words that had set him free, screaming down at Sabastion as he eviscerated him.
“I am not this thing, that I have become – I am Henri Fynne!”
Lightning crawled across the sky, and too through Henri’s mind, illuminating the events before it. It was not too late for Sabastion, he knew, and drew forth a potion smelling of Lotus; forcing the contents into Sabastion’s mouth, the strange liquid threw him into a dreamless sleep. When next Sabastion awoke, he laid atop a stormy plateau in Desolace, rain trickling down and stinging his bared, wounded chest, and he was alone.
---
His rage had been his downfall, when first had Henri met Alyiane. It was a seductive trick of warlock magics – through his rage he could ignore the sweet, enthralling enchantments that Alyiane and her succubus weaved into his mind, but relying on his rage only hastened his descent into her power. Through his rage, she had skillfully controlled him, binding his fury into demonic pacts until he was all but a demon himself.
“Fynne, her blood demon,” she had called him possessively and affectionately. With her, perhaps, they were the same. But a plan danced within Henri’s mind. When first Sabastion had come to try and break Alyiane’s spell over him, he had tempted his rage.
“Remember those talks of will, we had? And how it can defeat magic?” he taunted at Fynne, playing into Alyiane’s hand.
“Warlock magic is different!” spat Fynne, bristling with rage, “it is not so simple and weak as your spells, Sabastion!”
And then – something quite unexpected happened. Alyiane, the seductress, the warlock, the temptress of hate and fury, warned Sabastion not to enrage Fynne, and spoke soothing, enchanted words into her pet’s mind to sedate him. As Shari’lo Terro bore him through the stormy wastes back to Alyiane’s lair, these events were not lost on him.
---
“My pet, you are soaked with blood,” purred Alyiane as Fynne entered the room, closing the door behind him, “tell me, who did you kill this time?” His mind reeled, intoxicated suddenly by her presence. It staggered his senses and he murmered helplessly a lie he would have rather kept,
“No one; I have let Sabastion live, though I held his life in my hands.”
He raised his blood claw, letting a drop of Sabastion’s blood trickle down it’s razor length to fall from it pointedly. All of Alyiane’s seduction crawled to an icy stop, and coldly, she retorted, sending Henri’s mind spinning a different direction.
“Have you grown into such a coward so soon? I give you permission to a duel – your greatest fancy, and you cannot kill the man?!”
His rage seething to a sudden boil, Fynne spat back at her.
“Don’t dare mock my duels, Alyiane!” for truly, he held them as a sacred thing, “but this was no duel, there was no banter – merely two men trying at each other’s lives!”
Smugly, she remarked, enjoying his rage if not his insolence, “Trying, then, is a fitting word.”
Consumed by his hatred, Fynne strode across the room, leveling his sword to Alyiane’s chest, and claws to her throat; his eyes burned at her with a fiery resolve.
Hastily, a Demonic word flew from Alyiane’s nervous lips, and Fynne felt his rage begin to drain from him – his body began to lose its strength, and blissfull surrender beckoned to him. He had felt like this many a time before – most recently in Goldshire, when she had stayed him from slaying Sabastion. There was something important there, his mind urged him, fighting back Alyiane’s dizzying fog. What were her words to Sabastion? What was her teasing remark?
“You know, if you keep tempting his rage, I won’t be able to control him. He’ll kill you, and I won’t be able to stop it.”
The words echoed through Fynne’s mind as the fog overtook him.
“…I won’t be able to control him…”
His eyes flew open, suddenly, as Alyiane dragged a nail across his jaw. Burning with rage, he slashed two deep cuts along her shoulder with his poisoned claws. Demonic words flew from her mouth, but shielded by his rage, they were but gibberish to his ears. With a swift kick, he knocked the warlock to the floor. She did not get up – the paralyzing poison must have begun to set upon her already. There was a look in her eyes; it was not the same smug, possessive glare, but rather fear. Levelling his sword to her throat, Fynne recognized the terror in her eyes, and realized the source.
“You are weaker, now, warlock,” he bantered, finding the swashbuckler in him, the Henri that dared to burst forth, “you fear my rage – for you are not yet strong enough again to control it!” Alyiane’s nervous gulp was enough an answer to his suspicions, and Fynne – no! – Henri pressed his blade against her throat.
“I bet, too, you are not yet strong enough to come back from the grave.”
Henri narrowed his eyes, kneeling down to wrap his claw around her neck, tugging ever so gently.
“I will not fall into your trap, this time,” he growled, his voice barely above a whisper, “never let me look upon you again, warlock.”
Standing, he drew his blades away from her, and strode to the doorway. Silhouetted against crackling lightning, he remarked, “I am not this thing that I have become – I am Henri Fynne,” and vanished into the night.
---
As Shari’lo bore him through the night, Henri’s mind raced to find words that he might explain his actions to Jilliane. Ever withering beneath her Paladin gaze, his imperfections felt magnified – that he was so dark and evil a person that a lifetime of confessions might not purge his taint. And yet, he would always confess his sins to her, spilling forth one dark secret after another, until every white lie had been cleansed from his soul. Standing before her, he looked upon her sleeping beauty, and for a moment, entertained the temptation of never waking her. Spreading an elixir over his lips, and holding a quantity of it in his mouth, he knelt beside her bed and pressed his lips to hers, parting them in a passionate, enchanting, or as it were- disenchanting kiss. Her eyes fluttered open, and as the rising sun shone its rays through the window, Henri decided that nothing needed to be said – he had told Jilliane the truth once already: he had defeated the warlock’s spells, and their True Love had conquered her demon magic.