The Seventh Day [Open]

[Armandeus]

[This is a continuation of .:: Prologue || A Beginning ::. ]


Six days.

It had been six days since Armandeus had visited the eccentric shop keep Mary and was warned of the threat that would soon be upon them, but as the sixth day drew to a close Mary's warnings had yet to come to pass. The past few days had gone on as normally as they ever did with no threats of shadows or visions which had just served to prove Armandeus' original assumptions: Mary had been wrong.

The dawning of the seventh day, however, proved how wrong Armandeus had been.

It was a rare occasion when Armandeus managed to sleep through an entire night without waking. Unless stricken with illness or drugged to the gills the elf had not been able to spend a full night asleep since his visions had awoken. It was part of the curse of welding the second sight; Armandeus' very dreams had been irreversibly warped into nightmarish forms of what they had once been. Still, Armandeus thought he could have borne them if it weren't for the memories of happier times with his family, before the war and his captivity, turning dark and ugly. He no longer dreamt of the golden glow of the sun and the laughter of his twin siblings as they ran across the meadows chasing butterflies, but now dreamed of the darker nights towards the end and the way his mother screamed and raved as her mind consumed her.

It was enough to drive any man towards the edge of his sanity and the reason that for more nights than he could count, the green-haired elf awoke shuddering in a cold sweat. So used to waking this way it was a shock to have the sudden feel of warm flesh pressing against his shoulder that Armandeus jerked awake and away from the touch before his eyes opened. When he did so he found himself staring into a pair of clear gray eyes and a combination of shock and concern crossing Elessar's face before the elf turned away. "You were screaming."

Screaming? Armandeus stared after the other man as Elessar returned to his own bed. Screaming? Impossible. While the nightmares were inevitable Armandeus prided himself on the fact that he did not yell or call out during them, and he certainly never screamed. Growing up in a cage you quickly learned to keep your mouth shut or else face the consequences. Years had passed since then but Armandeus could still recall the feel of the metal and leather boot and the horrible crunching sound of his ribs as they collided. It had been the first and last time he had woken himself up screaming. Armandeus shook his head to dispel the memories and the hand that had been absentmindedly rubbing his side dropped away. He had not been screaming. Leaning over the bed Armandeus was ready to tell Elessar exactly that only to find that in the time he had been staring off the other elf had fallen back asleep.

That did it. Annoyance flared from somewhere deep within him and surged up his spine until it nestled right behind his eyes. The sudden pain of it took the elf's breath away and for a long moment all he could do was sit there rigidly with clenched fists as he focused on breathing at a steady rate. In the sudden stillness the Seer suddenly became aware of a thrum lurking under the pain. It was like the charge in the sky right before a thunderstorm; a feeling Armandeus knew more intimately than any other. It was the buildup of pain, of internal drums, and of the deepest curse laid upon an elven soul; it was the warning of an impending vision. It had taken a few days longer than anticipated, but in the end Mary had been right all along.

[To be Continued . . .]

[Armandeus]

Armandeus hated being wrong.

Midday found the elven chef growing desperate. Somewhere between the preparations of breakfast and the clean-up afterwards a fever had laid claim to the elf and effectively zapped what small amount of morale he'd built up. The rest of the morning had passed him by as he sat slumped against the wall of his favorite counter, glazing off into nothing. How long he could have remained there was eclipsed by what was at first a gurgle then a twisting, searing pain in his stomach that had the elf launching off his safe perch towards the rest room.

It wasn't until minutes later when he was resting his burning head against the blessedly cool porcelain of the sink that he finally gave into his misery and moaned. Visions and headaches and nightmares be damned; he was sick. This was something more than the pain that normally accompanied his visions and at the very back of his mind the thought lingered that perhaps this was one of the things Mary had tried to warn him about. Being an elf and immortal sickness was something Armandeus was not well acquainted with. In fact, despite the long years of his life, Armandeus could count on one hand the number of times he had been properly sick.

Dear Eru, how he utterly hated being sick. Illness of any form was a hot topic for the elf as there was a complete unfairness about it all as far as he was concerned. Having lived in this realm and being subject to the few elves that roamed the land Armandeus had came to the abrupt conclusion that they were perfect creatures. True, Armandeus had never spent much company with these so-classified perfect elves, but he had seen enough to draw his conclusions from. These elves were not bothered by the changing of the seasons - the heat of the sun or the coldness of the winter did not seem to effect them. To add insult to injury, illness wasn't even a word in their vocabulary, which irked the green-haired elf from Genesis even more. The one time he had gotten the curiosity to ask one of them about it he had received a blank stare in return.

He should have been like them - insusceptible to disease and the changes of the seasons. The irony was he had been once, back before the guards at the Macon prison had gotten bored of simply guarding the cells. The torture had begun then, all in the namesake of 'experimenting' - all to see if they could find out what made an elf tick. Armandeus snorted, the sound echoing loudly in the empty room. Thanks to those so-called 'experiments' he was lucky to repel a cold and probably wouldn't be able to do that if it weren't thanks to his natural elemental abilities.

And just look at him now! Wide purple eyes lifted to look in the mirror above the sink he was resting against and simply stared at his reflection. He looked haggard. Sweat sheened on the pale skin of his face with fever-bright eyes staring out from it. There was something morbidly fascinating about the way he winced at the sight of his reflection and the way the ill figure in the mirror that copied his movements. On a general basis Armandeus had little to do with mirrors so, while this was the third time he had been ill, this might have been the first he had actually seen what he looked like during it. What was the point in mirrors anyway when you already knew quite well what you looked like? His green hair and odd violet eyes were the source of another nightmare but after years of practice he squashed the ghostly voice into the recesses of his mind before it had time to speak. The elf was contemplating what to do next when the searing pain of earlier rose up to strike again, twisting his stomach and forcing the elf into the stall behind him.

When he returned to the sink and sought out his reflection again he found he was trembling. The elf watched as his mirror counterpart gripped the edges of the sink, trying to force the trembling away but to little avail. He couldn't stop without bigger spasms overtaking the smaller ones until it felt like his whole body was made of that jello concoction Mary had once tricked him into trying. His breath came in pants, sounding loud in the echo of the room and to his own ears. How long he remained there, shaking and holding onto the sink he did not know but after a time a thought trickled into his brain, 'What are you going to do now?'

'Find a doctor,' came the reply on the stillness of the air, but did he know a doctor? Moments more passed as he tried to think through the haze covering his mind. Wait, wasn't there a doctor at the inn? Though the name escaped him Armandeus was suddenly certain there was a doctor somewhere within the inn. 'But wait,' came the imagined voice again, 'wasn't there another doctor at the inn as well?' Was there? Armandeus frowned at the imagined voice, wondering why it would matter if there was two doctors instead of one. 'Two is better than one!' Came the reply as the room suddenly echoed with hysterical giggling. The voice was obviously crazy, Armandeus thought, but it did have a valid point about finding a doctor and the fever stricken elf agreed. Armandeus had about as much experiences with doctors as he did illness but according to the television programs he'd once watched with Elessar these doctors were the equivalent of the healers from his homeland. For a second point Armandeus didn't care as long as they could get rid of whatever this was plaguing him.

Now with a plan in mind the elf reluctantly pushed away from the sink he had perched against, finding it a small relief that the room didn't spin on it's axis when he moved. Exiting the rest room he headed for the front desk and it's ledger only . . . to keep right on going. So focused on his goal, by the time Armandeus realized he'd passed the desk by he had already headed out the front door into the brightness of the day. The sudden onslaught of light after the comparable dullness of being inside was as disorienting as it was bright and the confused elf quickened his pace to escape it.

How Armandeus managed to end up at the stables he truly could not say, but after the walk it had taken to get there he found himself too tired to be overly bothered by it. Still, it took the promise of being able to make any kind of sandwich he fancied as well as the lure of the elf's special frozen coco for dessert to persuade Oliver the stable boy to leave Armandeus in peace for a bit.

While the stables hadn't been his intended place to rest and lacked a suitable bed to boot the sick elf just didn't care. Once the boy left to get his lunch the sick elf wasted no time in staking his claim to the first empty stall he came to, practically falling inside. Laying down the best he could in the space, he let his head come to rest on the floor as he drifted off into sleep.

[Oliver]

He should have known better than to think that he could walk into the kitchen and make any type o sandwich that he wanted. That's the thing with youth: an older person tells you something to crazy to be true and come to find out that it actually is. He knew that he should have asked Armandeus if De'Ryanna was in the kitchen and knew about letting him have any kind of sandwich and frozen coco treat. She hadn't heard anything about it and she had given him that look - you know the one - when he made his request.

She still gave him food but he could never understand why she always made her food looked like it was being put on display. it was going to be eaten, why bother with presentation? Aside from that he had wanted apricot jelly and the frozen coco spread on his turkey and swiss but had she made it for him the way he wanted? No. Oliver was the type that kinda mixed everything together because 'it's all going in the same place' and before he had been brought here he ate what he could however he could. Can't be too picky when the street provides your food. And some habits were not easily broken - that or he saw nothing wrong with how he ate.

At least she didn't ask him any questions about why Armandeus had sent him off like he did. Oliver didn't have an answer for it anyway and would have shrugged.

So anyway. Time lapsed long enough for him to get a properly made sandwich and his dessert in a cup and he sent back to the stables. The boy was happily munching away when he arrived back and had full intention of sitting on a hay stack and finishing his meal when he walked past one of the stalls and saw Armandeus laying face down in it. His chewing slowed but he didn't do anything else right away. The Elf was just sleeping and it wasn't like Oliver had never gone off to sleep in an empty stall a time or two. Sometimes those things were really quite comfortable as long as it had already been mucked out and you didn't find yourself laying in a pile of dung. Luckily that stall had been.

He took another bite and looked around seeing if he saw Connor anywhere, maybe the guy knew that the Elf was crashing in a stall. Or maybe he didn't. As he took another bite of his food the boy was considering what he should do. What if he got in trouble for some reason by one of the owners sleeping with the horses? Ain't nothing too bad happened to him since he started working here, those there was that one time when De'Ryanna had caught him taking clippers to the horses' sides...

No need to relive anything like that. " 'ey. Missa Armandeus, Sir?" Oliver was reaching out with his foot to nudge the elf on the back of his leg. "Iount t'ink ya kin sleep 'ere." Nudge, nudge. "Ya naut a' woker."

[Connor]

Connor was....there. He sighed wearily as he trudged to the stables, knowing he'd probably catch holy hell for shirking his duties for so long. Still, he would make up for lost time! After a moment spent shrugging out of his shirt and into an apron, he grabbed his pitchfork...he had named it Mr. Pointy...and started working.

He had been tossing hay and cleaning for about five minutes when he heard a short conversation between Oliver and someone else, then heard Oliver leave and someone sort of just flop down in an empty stall. A short time later, he smelled Oliver approaching, smelling of cold-cuts and chocolate, and heard him talking again. That kid still hadn't learned not to talk with his mouth full? Ryan would probably be the one to break him of that habit....

After a few moments, he decided to follow the logical course of action and work his way to the stall the two were hanging out in and see what was going on. That way he wouldn't look like he was butting in, while at the same time enabling him to, well, butt in. "This is the way we sling the sh....nah, that'll never work."

[Armandeus]

Armandeus really needed to plan his schemes better - especially the quick, on-the-spur-of-the-moment ones like the too-good-to-be-true crazy idea that Oliver could have his food any way he wanted. Unfortunately for the boy, when Armandeus promised something as crazy sounding as that to a youth he actually meant it. The elf had an incurable soft spot towards any and all children and saw nothing wrong with them getting their way now and again. This time, however, in his ill state Armandeus had neglected to account for the possibility of De'Ryanna being in the kitchen and therefore his scheme had partially failed. His original intent when hatching the plan had been to rest in one of the stalls without the curious eyes of the child watching and he had succeeded with that much. However, he had intended the boy be rewarded for it and would be perturbed to find out that it hadn't happened.

In the short time Oliver had been gone Armandeus had fallen into an uneasy rest with the stall. He was still too hot and at the same too cold and the contrasting sensations caused him to be unsettled and toss and turn within the space. Even his fingers couldn't stop from twitching in response to the conflict within so while his eyes remained closed in a pantomime of sleep, true rest was a pipe dream away. Thrum-thump. While the world outside his mind continued to move the inside of Armandeus' subconscious was another matter entirely and at the moment had been reduced to the sound of drums. Thrum-thump.

Thrum-thump. This was not the beat of an ordinary drum, no, this was the drum of war. It sounded loud and deep and reverberated in the bones of every elf who called the small village of Faelon home. Thrum-thump. The steady beat of the drum had been loudest on that night. It started soft at first, indistinguishable from the soft patter of rain as the heavens began to weep for the bloodshed that was about to occur. Thrum-thump. Steadily it grew, thrum-thump, and grew, thrum-thump, until it vibrated throughout the air in resonance with the pound of the rain and the very ground beneath their feet quaked with the great power of it. Thrum-thump. It was the only warning the mortals got. From deep within the flanks the cry went up and the army of Faelon descended upon the encampment that had set to take their land away and the drums were lost beneath the waves. Cries arose from both sides; shock and of the wounded, of malice and fear. War was upon them and there was no escape.

" 'ey. Missa Armandeus, Sir?" It was the voice of a child, but strangely it did not seem effected by the chaos that filled the air around him. Before he could question it the world was suddenly shaking , tilting away beneath his feet and he wanted to shout against it, to make it stop, but his voice was lost to the roar of the armies and the clang of metal upon metal as it waged on.

"Iount t'ink ya kin sleep 'ere." Sleep? He wasn't asleep! How could anyone sleep with all that noise? Cries filled the air and from somewhere smoke started to rise to fill the air with an acrid smell. It was the smell of flesh burning and suddenly Armandeus hoped this was a dream after all, if only to escape the horrible smell of it. The ground quaked and tilted again and this time he fell to his knees, clasping his arms around his head. Make it stop! Why wouldn't it stop!?

"Ya naut a' woker." Wait, what? The sounds of the fight paused like the button on the talking box in the Lounge and the air seemed to hold it's breath with this new information. Not a worker. Not a worker . . Yes! He was a worker! He was the chef which meant . . . this world of fighting and drums was nothing more but a dream. With this knowledge the world behind him fractured like a crack into a dam before suddenly exploding around him with a last, mighty roar.

Outside of his dream world Armandeus' body went rigid as the elf's head titled backwards into the floor and he began to scream.

[Oliver]

Sometime when one person screamed it made another person scream and then the first screamer may scream again followed by the second and a screaming loop gets established until someone breaks it. So this was Oliver's turn to scream and he did. This boy screamed and jumped backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet. Sadly he did drop what was left of his sandwich. 

Jumping back made him see Connor, wasn't that he didn't hear him when he was talking but he hadn't been paying attention. Betcha now he was! 

"Wusn't mae! I ain't do nuthin'!" Looking at Connor and pointing at Armandeus who was screaming, Oliver moved himself away from the stall. His street accent poured out a bit heavy since he was slightly panicked. "He wus s'eaping ans alls I do wus spake! Ain't tauch hem o' an'nathing!"

Now, did Connor get all that?

[Connor]

"Bloody hell." For some reason, he could almost feel the disturbance in the elf's mind, like nails on a chalkboard. With a glance to Oliver, he tossed his pitchfork to one side and rushed over to the elf. "Go. Get Ryan. Hurry, kid." His attention was focused on Armandeus then.

"Can you hear me, elf? Er....ven-doo-ee? Crap, I was always rubbish with Elf. Yo, elf-guy, snap out of it!" All he could do was try and keep the guy from hurting himself until Ryan got there, and maybe she could do something with the Power. Outside of that, he would watch over the guy and hope she got there soon.

[Armandeus]

Oliver had screamed and so it was Armandeus' turn again and scream he did. The shattering of the dream world brought about a force akin to a physical blow and when piled upon the fever and the stress of illness as well as the drumming throb of an impending vision it was likened unto the straw that broke the camel's back and nothing now could hold back the tide.

The vision hit with the power of a lightening strike precisely behind his eyes and the elf's body convulsed from the sheer force of it, lifting off the floor and contorting before slamming back into it once again. The screams kept coming, tearing from his throat and welling from somewhere deep inside because nowhere was safe and nothing, not even countless visions before had hurt this much and what rational part of his mind yet remained was sure he would die from the sheer pain alone.

Inside the elf's head the lightening behind his eyes was a tangible thing, scorching across the filaments of his brain with a red-hot ferocity. It wormed it's way into every nook, every cranny, until the entirety of the elf's abused brain was lit up like the sky on a noon summer's day and blazed to rival the fever that was still burning through the remainder of his body. There was nowhere to escape and nowhere to hide and even the deepest recesses of the elf's mind was engulfed in the terrible light.

Even Armandeus, or rather the inner representation of his physical form, could not escape it. On his knees and bent over with his arms wrapped securely about his head the elf was desperately trying to shield his eyes and himself away from the light. It was an act of the impossibility - the light was so bright it seemed to penetrate even flesh and bone and could see right through him to the core and - wait. This was his mind, wasn't it? The light seemed to pause with the question as if waiting for the answer. Yes, it was. It was his mind and as such he should still be able to see. The answer had no sooner formed when the light began retracting, dulling until it was no brighter than the morning sky.

The elf blinked at the sudden change and slowly uncurled himself from the ball he had been in. Where was he? Now able to see Armandeus stood and stared at the never-ending sea of white that surrounded him. It stretched on for as far as he could see and not even his keen eyes could make out anything beyond. This wasn't right. Turning this way and that the elf strained to find direction, any direction but there was nothing. The void went on forever, endless. This wasn't right. In all the times he had undergone visions this was the first time he had found himself immediately in the void. The void always came after - directly after whatever memory his mind had dredged up to forcefully throw him back into and ripped him to shreds with. There was no time in the void and after the memories of the past had finished their assault on him it was here he came to heal, to force the past back where it belonged before rejoining the waking world again. That he was here now before the horrors had even started was a sign of how very wrong things were going to go.

What was he supposed to do now then? Trapped as he was there were only two options; he could either sit back and wait for the inevitable or go out and meet it headfirst. Armandeus didn't have to think about the answer. While fear would have him choosing the former he could not just sit idly by and wait for whatever may come to get him. Outside his mind there was a world waiting for him and though it was one filled with an ill body he needed to return. There were people waiting for him, even if it had been quite some time since he had spoken to them, including a child who he had probably scared half to death by now.

His mind was made up and picking a direction, the elf took one last, hopeful glance around before he began to walk. The impenetrable whiteness remained as far as the eyes could see, but somehow Armandeus knew he was heading down the right path.

[De'Ryanna Aybara]

Oliver may have only been a kid, but he wasn’t a dumb kid. Even freaked out as he was at the way Armandeus was acting this boy had enough sense about him to not be frozen in place. He wouldn’t have been able to survive the streets otherwise. Armandeus was screaming again and Connor was yelling at him to go get Ryan. The kid didn't know a Ryan or how that guy would be able to help out - he'd never seen him around before - but he did know who he should get.

Stumbling backwards and to that side door of the barn he turned the knob and started yelling even before he was all the way through. "Miss-es Ay-ba-raaaa!" What else would he know her by, right? Oliver was running right to the place he last saw her not more than twenty or so minutes ago.

"Mi---!" He could not get the rest of her name shouted out again before he rounded the archway into the bar area and ran right into the one he was looking for. Certainly they were suppose to run into each other but De'Ryanna had stepped to the side to avoid it and at the same instant extended a hand out and took hold of the back of his collar to keep him from going any further.

"Ashes child, do you want to wake everyone up in this Inn with your yelling?" She kept her hand on his collar until Oliver gained his footing, then she let him go and brushed it against her dark brown full skirt. "All of you were yelling in the stables, no need to do it inside."

When Ryanna had heard the first scream she had tried to ignore it because she knew that Connor was out there in the stables and he should have a handle on things. Perhaps Armandeus had merely gotten surprised and it scared him. After her recent bonding she was still adjusting to a new presence in her head, with that she could never be too sure that what she thought was really her thought. Not yet.

A secondary scream was to be expected. It was when the scream from Armandeus came again that the matter had changed into something she needed to give attention to and she had ended kitchen preparations and was heading to the stables. This is why she was able to met young Oliver halfway and now they were walking back. Walking, not running. She knew it was Armadeus and if he was experiencing what she thought he was then rushing would do her no good. She had to prepare herself for what was going to happen and she couldn't do so while burring a hole into the wood.

Oliver on the other hand was anxious and his walk was accented with jittery steps. "Tell me what happened." Ryanna asked him.

"Iunno! Missa Armandeus wahs seap---"

"Common Oliver." De'Ryanna's tone was a cross between chiding and sing-song. Oliver looked at her with widened eyes as he wondered how she could be worried about his speech at a time like this! She was trying to beat the street talk out of him, saying it was laziness on his part when it came to speaking and not an accent, but now?

Taking a breath he continued. " . . . was sleeping in a stall an' I nudged him wit my foot an' he start screaming and shaking." He even gave what he thought to be a visual telling by standing straighter and shaking.

Cute. Ryanna thought of Oliver's show but the representation was enough for her to know what was going on: he was having one of his visions. In the past she had helped him ride through it and even was suppose to be teaching him how to protect his mind, but she had slipped. And now . . .

Opening the door the pair of them entered the stables and she immediately focused in on the scene. Now she stepped quicker to close the distance, a hike up of her skirt a bit and helped Connor to hold Armandeus. "Hi. Get his legs." She said to Connor. There was no time for pleasantries and chit-chat at the moment. Oliver was watching but he wanted to help. He head heard about what Armandeus did in the kitchen - the fire and ice - so he went to get water buckets, just in case.

Pulling in deep breaths she thought about Tobias because whatever she felt as a recoil of connecting to the mind of the elf he was going to feel as well and it may not be exactly pain free. "He may convulse, Connor, you're going ot have to make sure he doesn't hurt himself." or her, but she left that part out.

In her mind she knew that Elessar was coming - the two elves had a bond and he would know what was going on. Taking a breath she opened herself up to the Source and pressed her hand to the side of Armandeus' face as she Channeled Spirit into his mind. She knew better than to simply enter a mind that was in torment - such as his - so that's not what she was doing. Instead she was trying to push a strong force of peace, calm and comfort, but even as she did she squeezed her eyes shut and her breathing deepened.

De'Ryanna could already feel the mental strain and pain seeping from Armandeus to herself.

[Connor]

"Not a problem. There was a man in the guard who was afflicted with Epilepsy, and fell into convulsions numerous times. I'll do everything I can, just...be careful, Ryan." His eyes went to hers, the concern evident there, but he did as she requested, immobilizing Armandeus' limbs as gently as possible. He was not rough, so as not to harm the young elf, but to assure that he did not do any damage to himself or Ryan.

He prepared himself for the convulsing he was expecting even as he looked to Ryan, as if he were more worried for her well-being than his own. Knowing that she knew what she was doing took a load off of his mind, so he settled down a bit and concentrated on the task at hand. He trusted De'Ryanna with his own life, and had every confidence in her, so he knew he had nothing to worry about in that regard. Still, he was more than a little worried about the young elf....he didn't know him as of yet, but he hoped he got the chance to make his acquaintance under better circumstances someday soon.

[Armandeus]

In the vast expanse of whiteness the world was already calm, at least on the surface. High above the elf's head the white had begun to shift, rolling like thunderclouds across the sky. It was the barrier between this mental world of his making and the inflictions that had brought him here and as the elf stood and watched, he knew it would not last much longer.

That would be fine by him. Armandeus had created the void as a stopping point, a place to come to think after the past had haunted him to his breaking point. He had never intended to stay there long, however, with a total lack of time mere minutes in the void could stretch on for hours. A good case in point would be the fact that the further the elf walked the more he began to become aware of a growing sensation. He needed to use the rest room and as he acknowledged this fact the more his earlier trip there seemed like a lifetime away. Just how long had he been here? He paused to consider the question and simultaneously curse the fact that when he created this mental image body of his he had forgotten to include the watch he usually wore. In the end what would it matter, though? It wasn't like a watch could help current matters any but then again what could? He was trapped inside his head and despite having heard the term 'gutter mind' before he seriously doubted it was going to make a rest room magically appear. Snorting at that asinine thought he decided there was nothing to do but to ignore the urge to pee and continue on.

So he walked, and walked, and walked . . .

There was one good thing about being in a place completely alone: he had ample time to think, and commiserate. It was lonely in his mind and for a moment he wished Elessar could have been there with him. Then the moment passed and he snorted at how completely stupid that thought had been. After this morning's incident he doubted Elessar would even speak to him, much less willingly let their bond open to traverse into Armandeus' mind. He may be in the land of his mind and making but he was not so removed to think things like the other elf's appearance could magically happen. If things like that could, well he had a better chance of a toilet appearing, and so far that hadn't happened either.

It was ridiculous. Armandeus stopped walking and shook his head. The whole Eru-forsaken thing was ridiculous and for the life of him, Armandeus was completely, utterly, SICK of it. What had happened to them? What had changed to make them go from being closer than brothers to being strangers in friend's clothing? Armandeus knew what had happened: Elessar had been abducted back to Genesis and nothing had been the same since then. Why hadn't he came to this realization sooner? Simple: he didn't want to. If he accepted what had changed his friend then he also would have to accept that perhaps his behavior had changed as well and if he accepted that, well . . .

With a snort of derision Armandeus sat down and rested his head in his hands. He had been a fool. No, worse than a fool, he had been blind to anything outside his own personal well-being and had wholly ignored Elessar until it all came to a head last winter when he nearly burned down the kitchen. Armandeus had not admitted it to anyone but that had been the turning point right there. The fighting between the two, that before had been occasional at best, had turned into something vicious and constant. Anger and mistrust had sprung between them unbidden and forgiveness had become forgotten. They fought over everything! Just take this morning for example - that fight had started because Elessar had been trying to help him. Armandeus couldn't contain a sigh. Now that he had time to look back at it, he could see what a fool he'd been about it. Elessar had lied to him in the past about various things, but there had been no mistaking the fleeting look of fear in his eyes when he'd woken him this morning.

But how do you turn the hands of time back and return things to the way they used to be? There was no answer for that question although Armandeus would have given his immortality for one. The entire thing was like a ball created from spider webs, each intertwined and wrapped around one another until it was impossible to tell where one strand began and another ended. For his part in it, Armandeus didn't have a clue how to fix it. He surmised Elessar didn't either, but as he lifted his head to look at the rolling sky above him he vowed that when he got out of this he would take the first step to try fixing things by talking to the other elf.

Just how was he going to get out of here anyway? The green haired elf didn't have time to even begin considering it before the whole world turned pitch black. "Aiie!" Armandeus yelped in surprise and fell back, fumbling wildly through the darkness. The elf was not afraid of the dark, it was rather hard to be when you were an insomniac, but the sudden lack of sight after all that white left his heart thumping in his chest.

When his heart rate finally slowed to normal and he calmed down enough to look through the darkness he found that in actuality it wasn't as dark as it had seemed at first. As he looked on, the darkness began unfolding before his eyes and he could make out shapes against the horizon, shapes, that despite being a ways off from him, looked oddly familiar. At first he wasn't completely sure what he was seeing, until the shape closest to him began to speak.

"Armandeus?" The voice was clearly Elessar's, although it sounded much younger than it currently did in reality.

"Hmm? What?" If Armandeus had been surprised to hear El's voice it was nothing short of shock to hear his own echoing back to him across the darkness, sounding as young as his counter-part's, though filled with exhaustion.

"When is your birthday?" Such an innocent question but in the same all too familiar. The older Ar sucked in his breath in anticipation. He had been asked this before.

"What?" His tired, younger version obviously hadn't and as he watched he could see the form of his younger self sit up in the dark.

"I asked when your birthday was." Elessar chuckled as he went on, "It's okay if you don't know, most usually don't. I didn't until Cora told me about it . . " He was prattling off then about the mortal woman he had lived with for a time, his voice full of mirth, and laughing all the while.

Oh, that laughter. His younger version had said nothing, not getting a word in edgewise, but the older of the two Ar's shook his head in amazement. Elessar's laughter was something he had not heard in years, though it was a sound he would never forget. Clear and musical as a birds, it vaguely reminded him of De'Ryanna's although that was something he wouldn't willingly admit to either of them. Neither would probably believe it at any rate.

Outside the cocoon of the void the elf's body had succumbed quite easily to the force of peace and calm De'Ryanna was pushing in it. While the fever and trembling of illness remained the convulsions had finally ceased. The outer barriers of his mind were weakening, leaving the storm clouds of pain and raw emotion swirling between De'Ryanna and the inner sanctuary of Armandeus' mind.

[De'Ryanna Aybara]

Breaking through to Armandeus was proving to be a struggle. In the past when she connected in order to help him through the ordeal of his visions it had not been as hard. Before, energy and provisions to aid against mental bombardment were in place and they had come from Benjamin. The same didn't apply anymore and if she had put more thought into what she was doing then she would have tried to warn Tobias somehow before the connection. Not only was she a victim to the contents of the elf's mind but her Warder was too.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty but there was nothing to be done for that now. The agony of getting through to the already turbulent layer of his mind was causing her jaw to clench shut and her free hand was fisted so tightly that her short nails threatened to break the skin. In a way this was good because the physical pain on her body was actually helping her to keep a small hold on the 'here', without something to ground her De'Ryanna could easily be trapped with the elf. It was another thing she hadn't thought about before starting.

Brash. Why was she being so brash lately?

Connor could clearly see the pain she was in by her actions but hopefully he wouldn't try to pull her away as to forcefully break the connection could bring about lasting damage to herself. Especially since she was starting to get glimpses of what was going on inside.

His raw emotions of anger, sadness and grief were working against the calm she was pushing into him and if his body had not settled and gave her assurance that what she was doing had effect she would have stopped. It was taking more energy then she thought she had at the moment and sweat began to bead across her forehead. But it was working. She only had to push on a bit more.

Focus on her hand, focus on staying calm, block out the pain, and remember to breathe. Armandeus. Armandeus wake up.

[Connor]

Connor was worried.....he saw the pain in her face, the sweat beading on her brow, and it concerned him. Ryan was one of the few people that accepted him for who and what he was, and for that and many other reasons, he owed her. When he felt the young elf relax, he took a hand from the elf, leaving his left on his shoulder, and gripped Ryan's elbow gently. Perhaps she could pull some strength from him....and when this was all over, he had a proposition for her. One that would benefit them both, as well as aid in his teaching her.

[Armandeus]

The scene between the younger version of himself and Elessar had ended and thus plunged the void back into the semi-darkness it had been before although Armandeus hardly seemed to notice. The elf had remained where he was - sitting with his head in his hands. Was this what Mary had tried warning him about? An illness that probably had more to do with the leftover pork chops from last night's dinner and a couple of old memories from his time in the Macon prison? The woman had spoken of darkness but as he lifted his head to gaze at the pitch black landscape before him, Armandeus had a feeling that this was not the darkness the diminutive shop keeper had in mind. If that was true, then what was? The elf dropped his head back into his hands and sighed. It hinted of irony; he was trapped within his own mind and yet sick to death of mind games.

As the elf mused on his current reality the folds of the velvet crepuscule had drawn back again reveal another page in the book of memories. He had not noticed, too lost in his thoughts, until the sound of tinkling water began echoing all around him. It certainly did the trick of getting his attention and caused him to shift uncomfortably as he barely suppressed the groan that threatened to escape between his teeth. Fortunately the sound was lost underneath the sudden voice that cut above it and the surgance of low light that suddenly streamed in from overhead.

"You're going to waste all our drinking water!" Elessar's voice, strained and exhausted rose above the trickle of water before abruptly being cut off by a strangled cough.

"You should have thought about that before you decided to pick a fight with the guard captain. Just because she is a woman does not mean she can't or won't hurt you Elessar. Now will you listen to me?" It was his younger counterpart again, sounding weary.

After so much darkness the light, though so dimmed it was comparable to a candle just before it flickered out, left Armandeus blinking and rubbing at watery eyes as he struggled to see again.

It lasted on the space of a minute or more, but when his eyes finally cleared and he dropped his hands away he found himself staring at the new scene laid out before him. As the voices indicated the Doppelganger's had returned but this time Elessar was sprawled out across the dirty stone floor of their cell with several nasty looking gashes crisscrossing across his back.

Armandeus watched as his younger self knelt over Elessar's body, carefully dribbling water from his cupped hands over the fresh marks, and winced as he watched the water run off the bare back, crimson with blood. He had a perfect view as the young elf stiffened with the pain and saw his eyes widen as the simple motion caused even more pain and the small movement as he stuffed his arm bodily into his mouth to hold back the cries.

"We can't let these get infected. You saw what happened to Rowan." He marveled at how calm he had been all those years ago, managing to sound much older than he truly was. He watched how steady his hands had been as they ripped strips from his already ragged shirt and set to cleaning what would later become the first of the hundreds of cuts that covered Elessar's back in a terrible spider web of scar tissue.

"I was hungry!" The tired voice cried out as Elessar set to move, struggling into a sitting position before Armandeus' hand came to rest carefully on his shoulders and push him back down. "Lay still."

Silence hung in the air between them then, the only sound coming from the sharp intake of breath as Armandeus continued to dab the wounds clean. It lasted no longer than a few moments before Armandeus finally sighed and dropped the rag onto the floor. "We're all hungry Elessar . ." The elf below him carefully twisted, piercing gray eyes rising to meet his as he waited. "But it is only you that goes picking a fight with the guards when you know well it will do you no good!" Elessar hadn't been disappointed; by the end of the sentence Armandeus' voice had risen to a pitch that echoed off the stone walls.

Tension filled the room, tighter than a strung bow and when he spoke next the exhaustion that had filled his voice was gone, replaced with a sobering calm. "I couldn't take it anymore! How can you stand to watch them eat right in front of you knowing you haven't eaten for days? They're torturing us!"

"I have not been hungry for a few days now." The revelation had been so quiet after the ringing of Elessar's words Armandeus thought he had imagined it until an equally quiet voice from the floor said, "What?"

"You heard me. I shall not repeat it." There was a hint of that stubborn pride in there to which Armandeus could not contain a snicker of humor towards. Even back then he'd been a stubborn creature but all humor fell away as he watched his younger self stand and turn, heading to get more water.

Dear blessed Eru above, had he been that thin?! The Seer found he could not look away from the sight of the gaunt, walking skeleton as it slowly made it's trembling way across the room to the small crevice that ran along the back of their cell. This wall, he remembered, was the one that faced the lush forests outside as well as the river and by a token of luck fresh water flowed into the crevice daily. It was here that his thin form knelt and dipped his hands into the water below before slowly bringing his cupped hands to his lips. He watched in rapt fascination as he took the smallest drink possible before carefully standing and carrying the rest of his burden over to Elessar.

The clean-up had continued then but Armandeus the older did not see it. Having tore his eyes away from the terrible sight he squeezed them closed. Holy sunlight he had forgotten this moment. No, suppressed it was a better word. There was a vague recollection at watching Elessar mouth off the guards and the beating that had followed, but how close he had came to starving to death, how close they both had been, was something he had tucked deep into his mind and forced himself to forget. Fear coursed through him with the revelation at how utterly close they'd been to dying in that cell and shivered at the icy chill in his bones upon realizing how many more had not been so lucky to live.

Rowan Bellsulion had been one of those not so lucky ones. He had been there the longest and served as a stark, living reminder to the newcomers of the prison just what could happen to them. He had been the oldest prisoner as well as the longest standing although had the Fates decided upon different circumstances the man would have been an Elder in some village instead of the prisoner he had become. It was a ruined destiny for someone who had seen so many long years, and even in Armandeus' memory Rowan appeared resigned to his fate. In his mind's eye Armandeus could see the elven man standing before him, hunched over as he had been in life, as if the long years in the prison had been too much weight for his shoulders to handle. After being confined to a stone cell without the touch of the sun for many years Rowan's skin had started to turn white with the depravation, save for the delicate skin covering his pointed ears.

Here the skin had become nearly translucent and Armandeus had marveled at the way he could make out the spider webbing of the veins and the fine bones that curved upwards to form the tip of his ears. Being young then Armandeus had not yet known the horrors of starvation and just what it took to transform a once healthy elf into such a frail looking creature. Despite the frailty of his body the wisdom of age had shown in the elder man's eye, the spark of life seemingly strong right up until the end. Even then it had not been illness or malicious intentions from their captors that had taken him, bur rather weariness.

It had been the final act of a strong spirit repressed for far too long and Armandeus still remembered how Rowan had simply lain down one day, never to stand again. And as he had in life the green haired Seer turned away from the sight of the body laying so still upon the cold floor. "I Melain berio le, Mellon nîn."

~~~~~~~~

There was a lot of raw emotion hidden in this elf. Anger, sadness, grief, were like a force alive, swirling in the depths of Armandeus' mind, buffeting against the calm De'Ryanna was pushing inside. Through the glimpse she was having she would see the endless swirl of tornados, ripping and tearing through the mental representation of Armandeus' kitchen. It was not unlike the night he had destroyed the room with his fire and ice; wood and metal was twisted and piled everywhere until the room was hardly recognizable. These were not ordinary tornados, however, these were creations of pent up emotions and each screamed with their own voice.

Anger. "Daro! Stop it! Just stop Elessar! I can no longer trust you after what you did." A flash of Elessar's face floated in the depth, looking as though he had just lost his best friend, and he had . .

Desperation. "I-I love you!" Idiot. Fool. Who says that in the middle of a fight!? The mental bombardment of insults were endless over words that should have been saved for another time and place.

Grief. This tornado rolled in silent contrast to the others, compounded by a pair of wide, glassy red eyes that stared lifelessly into nothing. In their reflection a matching pair of fever bright green eyes stared back, frozen in shock at what had happened.

From under the roar and voices another called out, weak and tired as if it had been calling for far too long. "Help me! Get me out of here! Help me!"

[De'Ryanna Aybara]

De'Ryanna pushed steadily at Armandeus' mind, not to hard or fast for that would only defeat the purpose of the calm she was trying to give him. But it was hard to keep that state of mind when simply keeping contact with the elf was sending riveting pain through her body. All her attention was going towards her task so, when those pointed thoughts came through the mental link it was a shock.

The remembrance of the time when he confessed his feelings was not something she was prepared for. She felt the resurgence of her emotions from that day; how she had felt hurt, angry and distraught. Ryanna felt Armandeus' emotions that were tied to the words and all of it mixed together and fell upon her like crushing stone in her head. Focus was shattered and her head pained dearly; in that moment her hands left from his head and went to her own as she bent over in her own pain.

The last thing she remembered hearing from inside the elf was a plea, but in the jumble of her mind she couldn't decipher it. Breaking the connection like she did ran the risk of trapping a piece of yourself in the other, to something as minor as a long lasting headache.

Very very long lasting.

In a moment or two -or twenty- she would have enough hold to pick herself up to a normal position. If she was in her right mind at the moment she would be hoping that Armandeus hadn't suffered anymore damage.

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