Reign was surrounded by darkness, a hollowness of everything as his spirit drifted into the endless expanse of this void. He could not move an inch of muscle as he was a helpless audience in the darkness of his own mind. It was a horrid experience, to be made prisoner by this stifling darkness. But its grip on him was not absolute and eternal, as he drifted, he grasped instances of momentary freedom, able to move a finger here and a foot there. He did not give out hope, prying for any weakness in this dark prison whenever he could take it. He only had to wait, vigilant as its solidity flickered and faded as time went on.
A deep, quaking rumble began and with it his prison began to collapse. He rallied whatever strength he could muster and as the darkness that held him fell, he reached out his hands outside his prison, blinking and opening his eyes, his real ones, once more to the waking world of the living.
Reign rose from where he lay, surveying the all that was around him. He had half expected things to be in shambles, the last thing he recalled before being imprisoned by the darkness was the Whispers crept from the darkest depths of Reign.
It was the same shrine of the Goddess Nyella, the abode of the acolyte Ayleth. Fire crackled somewhere. And a familiar coldness of his undeath was trimmed to the edges on what he can only recall as warmth. It reminded him of the remains of an ember. The moon's clear light fell from the ceiling's opening and mantled the shrine of the Goddess in ethereal light. Beneath the statue of the goddess knelt the form of the Acolyte.
She had swaddled herself in thick wrappings made of animal fur, bulking much of her feminine grace in a bulbous wrap to abate the winterlaced wind that found its way within the shrine.
"Ah, you're' awake," she said without turning her head. "But I must ask, where have you been? Being dead and all, I doubt you have need for sleep," she inquired calmly the tone of her voice in conflict as to when she saw her last, quaking and afraid as the Whispers overrode Reign's own body.
"What happened!? Are you well, acolyte?" Reign ignored the question, eyes cast out for any harm he may have caused.
To this frantic questioning, the acolyte merely sighed. "To put your mind at ease, no one died" she simply said. Reign sensed more in that and waited for a continuation. He felt like he did something. A cold blade driven in his conscience but could not find the handle to.
"But...?" he reached out.
A moment of silence passed. Ayleth still knelt piously before the Goddess, not facing Reign, as if she was musing something before speaking.
And finally, she spoke.
"What's important is no one perished. No, your other half did not rampage through the village--" She stopped herself, garnering breath into her lungs before continuing, as if she had trouble wording the next words, "I......
managed
to restrain him, within the shrine and away from the villagers," she gazed towards the statue of the Goddess. Reign felt like she was not telling him something.
The man sifted through his mind, trying to peer into the memories that had transpired of The Whispers but found only nothing. The cruel thing still nestled inside of him, tired and spent but still very present. What power did the acolyte call upon to restrain such a beast?
"Let's continue this somewhere else, this room is...stifling," she said, casting a look around, an expression Reign could not discern as she rose from her kneeling, the cumbersome coat she wore appeared heavy but showed no sign of difficulty as she strode out of the low door of the shrine. As Reign followed her lead, ducking out of the mound of the shrine, the husked remains of the once thriving village greeted his gaze.
Only a handful of houses were truly occupied and of these few, fewer still retained their lights this late into the night as most have gone asleep. Lookouts amongst them stood or kept watch close to the windows. Blanche herself was awake, club and bow at her side, along with a handful other women-watchers for the night as they sat on the porch of one house.
"Walk with me, there is something I need to do," Ayleth simply said as she led the way. Reign walked some step behind her, feeling the gaze of those still awake turn to him. He saw them grip ever so slightly closer to their holstered clubs of wood. He didn't blame them.
Blanche was fletching arrows as Ayleth came to her. Words were exchanged and Blanche gave her nod at something, although it required a momentary thought from her and a look towards Reign. Their conversation done, Ayleth broke away from the group of women and took towards a path that led off to the sides of the houses, gesturing to Reign that he should follow. Their eyes trailed on him as he rounded the corner and followed suit. The path bended out of the houses and into a small bend around two modest hills.
One of the caveats of being dead, he couldn't feel the wind even dressed as he was in a tattered tunic.
"Where are we going?" He asked as he followed her along the path.
"You'll see. It's not far but it'd be better if you are with me. And should anything happen, it's not too far for you to go back to the village posthaste," she replied not turning back. She would look up at the clear skies, at the light of the moon the sound of the gravel beneath their feet.
They walked in silence. Not a cricket nor a whisper of the wind as they followed the slight curves of the path. As Reign rounded the last of the corner, a familiar noise reached him. The peaceful lapping of water against rock filled his ears as they finally got around the last of the small hills. A low stream of water ran the course of about five yards wide and as far into the rolling hills of the distance.
The villagers had made a pool of sorts here, damming a bank of the river with rocks as the current would sweep in and water would amass, forming an improvised pool as deep as the shoulders of an adult.
"Tell me, what happened?" A brewing of relief and suspicion swirled within Reign's spirit. Relief for no one died and Suspicion that there was more to those moment in his mental imprisonment. He wanted to leave these people alone, not wanting to be a bother and quest for a way to fix himself of this undeath malady. To think that he was responsible of unletting the horror of his darker half, already put a strain to his already weary soul.
His body didn't feel the cost of a mortal's physical woes but his spirit on the other hand was an entirely different matter. The young man he had once been relished sitting by a river close to their home, soothed by the gentle lapping of the rushing water against stone. He would sit at hours on ends at times at the sound. He'd breath if he could, to take up some of that scent of the gentle stream.
He pried his eyes away from the stream and towards the young woman, and much to his surprise, Ayleth had loosened her hold on the thick fur cloak. If he had been alive, blood would've surged to every extremity on his body.
She had worn nothing but a loose undergarment of flimsy wool as drawers that did little to hide her sex, a modest mantle of hair visible amidst the translucent cloth. Her chest was bare flesh, the curves accentuated and made dangerous turns that swerved the young man's mind into its natural instinct. Waist that could draw upon the eye as much as her buttocks hoisted upon milky white thighs. Plump as a turkey and just as delicious. A hungering rumbled from the deepest part of him, and the Whispers once more sent echoes of its wants and desires as Reign's eyes glazed upon the young woman's supple body. Her breasts titillated, not egregiously big but more than enough that should a hand cup them, an excess flesh would spill. The pinkness of her nipples tilted into fine contours of their protrusion towards the night sky.
His spirit had the urge to gulp but to an undead body, his face was still as stone and just as emotional.
As he laid sight on her frame, he saw discoloration against the fairness of her flesh. A purplish-dark intrusion in an otherwise untainted pinkness of her skin. As he kept on looking, the more and more of those dark marks were on her person. Reign was suddenly assailed by a lightning strike of images and sensation.
The aftershock of a rumbling hunger, Whispers stirred within his darkest depths of his mind, longing to reach out once more. But its will was too weak and Reign had little trouble smothering him back into its shadows once more. Things fell into place for Reign. He has no clear memory but he could surmise just enough.
"W-what have I done? What did I do to you?" He stared at his own hands, the hands of a monster. A cold pang of guilt split into his soul's core. An alienation as to what he did. Somewhere, someplace, He could hear the faint scornful laugh of the Whispers in his mind.
