Before there were Roses
a.d.r.i.l.e.y.
The assassin looked out across the darkening horizon
of Rune-Midgard, and invariably, stood there and
watched as veins of light descended from the black-grey mass of clouds that
polluted the sky.
Beyond him, and beyond the cliff that the assassin
stood from, stretched Prontera, capital of the land,
known to some as the
Wet things began to patter off his bone armor, making small ‘tac’ sounds.
The assassin ignored the cold rain falling from around him, because his mind
was too clouded to care about the weather.
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The only thing that she felt was the heat—the cruel
sun scorching her skin, burning mercilessly, and leaving red scars that could
not be erased. Below her lay the hard, dry sands of the desert dunes, and above her was the whipping wind that threw the
sand into the air, stinging her flesh like a thousand locusts.
Brightness lay around the warlock, as she curled
herself into a fetal position. Her friends had not
known of her predicament until it struck at the summit of intensity, and now…
Now, she knew that her time was running out.
Voices sliced through the air that shimmered with hot
dust. The warlock struggled to keep her eyes open, but the wind was too strong,
and the sands too many…
“Fenris!
FENRIS!”
She did not know whether the voices were real, or
whether they were just tricks cast upon her by her own mind. The pain she was
enduring surpassed all wounds that had been healed before; hers was a wound
that time could not close.
“There she is! Chaos! OVER THERE!!”
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The Knight grunted as the girl called out to him, her
high-pitched voice looming over the screams of the levanter. Not that that
helped at all.
By Thor, this wind is strong, he thought, frowning
with dismay. It was a good thing that he had traded off his old armor for a much lighter set, when they had been in Comodo.
“Chaos!
I found her!”
The sand blinded him now, as the Knight trudged
forward through the desert storm. The girl had good eyes, he admitted
grudgingly, as the man hastened his pace.
The warlock’s life was draining fast.
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One raindrop landed on the assassin’s pale cheek, as
he sped through the city gates. The guards, who did not pay attention to
shadows, kept their nightly vigil, their dull eyes staring up at the black
skies.
Speed, the assassin thought. There is not much time.
With catlike agility, he set foot on the stone cross
that adorned Prontera’s central cathedral; the
highest point in the
On instinct, the man tensed. His eyes narrowed, as he
remembered the words that she had last said to him.
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Her voice was barely discernable, as it was now weak
and thin; her face pale and sweating. The warlock’s condition was far worse than any
the travellers had seen before.
It almost looked…as if she were dying.
The assassin was surprised, when she had called for
him. He went to her side, cold eyes mirroring nothing.
Her deep blue eyes looked up at him, showing a
turbulent pool of emotions that she was too weak to speak out.
He looked at her, silently questioning her intention
for his presence. She looked away for a moment, but then returned to meet his
gaze, her own penetrating into the assassin’s being.
The warlock’s eyes were pleading.
“There is a place,” she whispered hoarsely, using
every ounce of her strength to speak. “In the
And then, she broke out into violent coughs, the warlock’s
face growing paler at every passing moment.
The assassin did not know what to think. He wanted to
tell her to get better, and to stop talking. She needed the strength to
recover. To live.
And yet there she was, talking to him.
The warlock stopped coughing, and now, her lips were a
ghastly pale colour. She reached one hand out, as if to touch the young man
beside her—but the hand dropped as she withered.
“Before there were roses.” She repeated. The warlock’s
voice was now a rough tremble.
“A fountain stood there—“
“The healer’s water.” Said the
assassin, avoiding her gaze.
She needed the water. He should have known.
“Loki…” she whispered, looking softly at him. The
warlock closed her eyes for a moment, calling upon memories that lay deep under
the folds of time. She needed him to get the water. She knew that he was the
fastest of them all.
She opened her eyes again, but the assassin was gone.
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The young woman shielded her eyes from the sand and
the sun, as she slumped through the unmerciful desert. She remembered seeing a
merchant camp at an oasis, not far away.
Behind her, a voice suddenly screamed in agony.
It was too much. The warlock was going to die, she
knew. The blasted heat and the pain chewing up her insides would assure that.
The young woman closed her eyes, wishing foolishly that it would all go away.
A gust of hot air sprang forward, and the cleric’s
head jolted upwards. A dry, ,weak voice spoke.
“Water…”
“Fenris…!” she gasped, and
was about to turn back to help her friend, when the knight interrupted her
thoughts.
“Leave her, Iris. I’ve got it under control.” His
voice wavered over the shrieks of the wind, but the cleric knew to trust the
one she loved. Silently, the knight commanded her to continue leading the way.
“Go Iris! She’s not going to—“
“I KNOW!” She almost screamed. The knight fell silent.
The girl bit her lip. A woman who could have been her
sister was dying. She knew. The sound of the world had told her many times. The sharp, piercing cries of the wind. The
agonized moans of her dear friend.
A tear rolled down her cheek, but the cleric continued
on.
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The garden was dark, in the shadows of a tall tower
that stood beside it, defying the skies. A shadow flitted through the grey
walls, rustling nothing but the leaves, and leaving nothing but the wind.
A breeze whispered into the night, bringing voices
with it. The assassin stood still; listening. The hum of a thousand souls sang
in the thick, dark garden, as dim moonlight shone from the parted clouds.
Nearby, a creature fluttered
somewhere in the leaves.
A bird.
Find the fountain, the assassin told himself, pressing
further into the tangled darkness that enclosed the ancient garden. Many souls
had lived and died here…all of them searching for the healer’s water—
The
secret of the immortals.
With the bleak sky above, and the swarthy, twisted
leaves of age below, he slunk through the garden, hidden in shadows.
The assassin heard the sound of water.
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“Room.” Said the Knight, looking the
dark-skinned man in the eye. “It’s an emergency!”
The merchant barred the door to his tent, wary of the
travellers that had come from the desert. Room, he thought disdainfully. What
do they think I am? A hotel?
Besides, these insolent people looked more like
thieves than honest wanderers.
He didn’t trust them.
“Hurry, Chaos!” a girl’s voice floated over, and the
merchant immediately recognized it. The princess from Payon!
This changed everything.
Before the knight could lug the merchant out of the
way, the doorway was clear, and he and the cleric laid the young woman on the
cot inside.
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Pale skin.
Dark hair. Blue eyes.
The assassin stared down at the clear pool of
crystalline water, reflecting his image. Despite the ages that the healer’s
fountain had lasted through, it was still here—pure and untouched. Such was the
magic of the Immortal.
He took the small flask from the side of his belt, and
immediately filled it with the water. Replacing the container safely, the
assassin leapt into the cold air, skirted a rooftop, and disappeared into the night
sky.
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As he flew through the terrain, thoughts began to
churn within him. The assassin wondered why he was doing this, but he already
knew the answer.
It is for her. For Fenris.
Even before the knight and the cleric had noticed it,
he had known; he had sensed the death inside her. The warlock stopped eating,
he noted, and she drank little. Days, there were, when she said little, or
nothing at all. It was peculiar to him.
When he kept watch at night, over their camp, the
assassin’s glance occasionally, wandered to her face—once rosy and relaxed, but
now, pale, like his own.
The air he now sped through had a distinct aroma, and
the young man recognized it immediately. The smell of crushed red flowers
hovered over the King’s gardens, luring men and animals alike.
Roses.
Her voice echoed within him, rough and trembling. He
hastened his pace. Fenris,
he thought.
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In a place, where no mortal had ever set foot on, a
woman, clad in a beautiful gossamer gown, smiled sadly at the sight before her.
She raised her silver goblet to the shimmering moon, but did not drink.
“To the Wolf Goddess.” She whispered, her voice
echoing through vast halls, like sweet, faint music.
The woman looked down and took a rose from her side.
She looked at it sadly; longingly, before snapping the stem in two. Grief was
evident in her eyes.
“Goodbye, old friend.”
The flower and part of the stem drifted to the floor,
carrying with it the gist of a woman’s life.
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Hot streams of wetness travelled down the course of
the cleric’s face, as she watched the life of her friend ebb away. Stricken
with worry and near desperation, the cleric had called upon several ofudas to heal the warlock.
The warlock turned to look up at her from the cot,
smiling despite her pain.
“Thank you, Iris,” she whispered, stroking the young
woman’s cheek, “but my time draws near…” her gaze wandered to the open flaps of
the tent, revealing the desert.
Her sea-colored eyes looked
out to the sandstorm, as an unsaid name echoed in her mind.
Loki.
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As everything rushed past him at breakneck speed, the
assassin found himself fading.
He had the water of the Immortal hidden away in a
goatskin pouch. He had journeyed miles and miles, to a place in the
And he was doing it not for himself, nor for his
guild, but for the only woman that meant anything in his life.
And she was dying.
For the first time, the assassin felt his heart
race—which had happened only once, when he discovered that his comrades had
been slain at the hand of Skurai.
But that didn’t matter, because the assassin knew that
revenge wasn’t important to him anymore, and neither was his vanity; him
thinking that he was unbeatable.
For even though the assassin wasn’t really human, the
warlock had shown him many things about the human heart, that had piqued his
curiosity.
Their imperfection, their weaknesses…
“To love
is pure joy in itself, Loki,” she had said, smiling faintly. He
noticed that her beautiful blue eyes were set on the Rune-Knight.
…Their Love.
Human Love.
Now, the landscape was changing, as the trees grew
sparse. He knew he was nearing Sograt. Only a few more lengths to go.
As he sped like a northern wind into the shadows, the
assassin realized something.
He loved her.
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The woman in gossamer was startled, when she heard a
loud bang, and when the large doors to the room broke open. Another figure came
in, dressed in white as well. Only this time, her fair locks cascaded down in
elegant curls, and a distraught look was painted on her face.
Frigg
spotted the dead rose on the floor.
Slowly, her eyes met with the woman dressed in
gossamer’s, staring at her disbelievingly.
“What…” she thundered, “What on earth have you done!!”
The woman just looked up at her sadly. “It was her
time.” She reasoned.
The Mother Goddess frowned. “No…” she whispered
softly. “Fenris Fenrir is
destined for a greater end than this! Ragnarok must
be brought upon us. You of all people should know that.”
The other woman looked to the floor solemnly.
“I am sorry…but it is finished.”
The goddess looked at her.
“Nothing is finished.”
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A rose crumbles quickly—into another adventure that is
death; another place where mortals do not come back from.
But in the case of the warlock Fenris
Fenrir, things may be different. On that hot day in
the deserts of Morroc, a sandstorm roared free,
taking with it many things…one of which may have been her life.
For you see, the woman had a curse on her; something
which could not be undone. Fenris was to die on the
third new moon of the twenty-fourth year of her mortaldom,
since the Wolf Goddess had disappeared from Asgard.
Of course, the Mother Goddess Frigg
knew that all too well. But some things in the world were not to be changed,
and quite possibly, Fenris Fenrir
was one of those things.
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By the time that the assassin had arrived at the
merchant camp, the cleric and the knight were grief-stricken, tears falling
steadily from the girl’s face. She was kneeling over a still figure that lay
down on a cot, covered up to the chest with a white cloth.
The assassin tightened his grip on the goatskin pouch,
fighting the urge of this emotion welling up inside his stone heart.
His inability to show life gave him the power to sense
it—and none came from the body that lay quietly inside the flapping tent.
Was she…?
Iris’ face said everything. His journey to Prontera had been in vain. Not even the healer’s water
could bring people back from the dead.
Dead.
That’s what she was, wasn’t it?
Loki bent his head, dark bangs obscuring his eyes.
Before Chaos and Iris could see him, he fled.
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v
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LokiFenris. LokiFenris?!?! AGAIN?!
Gosh…I’m obsessed. Heheh. Well, this one turned out to have a quite…different
ending. But then again, aren’t endings good when different? Anyway, I hope this
small oneshot does apt justice to the wonderful
pairing it speaks of. Kindly review!!!!!!
And, uh…please forgive my ignorance about the Norse
mythology part…I’m not very good at that particular topic.
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.: Nothing
is finished.