Legends of Belariath

Vysanth

Pain pain.. filling every fibre of his being. Rippling waves of agony tearing and ripping deep into the core of his form, filling him and his every conscious thought. Screams loud and long and wretched filled the place, echoing in his ears, but though his ears heard he could not, much less know that that voice was his own.

It might have been an instant, or perhaps an eternity then, before it ebbed away from him. Strong firm arms pulled him up, steadying him. She was before him, dark skinned and radiant, even before he could see, and it was a beautiful, slight smile she gave him, as a glimmer of sensibility came back into his eyes, a glimmer of comprehension slipping into them, to look into her green eyes.

Then fear, fear unfathomable and absolute, fire running up through his every nerve, burning hotly, infernally, as he tried to move, to get away, to do anything. The smile widened a little, seeing him twitch, her white hair slipping over her dark skin. She could almost read his mind, as she held him in her hands, drawing him closer to her.

Her queen was calling him to herself, she knew, and she welcomed it. Something pure, something strong and nigh unbreakable... reduced to such a state, yet still within, she knew, or her queen would not have stayed. It would be a pleasure to be held thus, within her hand, as she felt her queen's presence descend, to seek her path into the offering, and those burning emerald eyes closed.

He strove against her, as best as he could, not with his mind or conscious thought, for that was set aside now. It was with the primal fear and horror of a little rabbit faced with the horrors of the pit, that he strove to get away, but his body would not obey. It was dead, dead except for the firm grip of pain, streaming through him as it tightened and constricted upon his frail form inexorably.

The eyes facing him opened, but instead of green, they were pure black, dark as night, with four pinpricks of scarlet glowing deep within the subterranean depths of each pupil. He tried to scream but his voice gave out, as she drew her to him. The lips brushed against his, burning against his skin like the coldest ice from the depths of netherworld, before they were pressed firmly down.

It seemed she kissed him with her tongue, but no.. it was a loathsome, frightful thing that came across, as her tongue pressed further into his mouth, and down his throat. He gagged as it pressed against the back of his throat, cutting off his air, moving deeper down to fill his being, bringing chill numbness and biting pain wherever it touched, setting his insides into the deadliest chill. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't feel, just that aching chill and a dark slithering laughter within him, eight pinpoints of blood-red crimson within... then darkness claimed him.

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Cold...Cold... unbearably cold. He couldn't feel anything from his body, except that numbness. Death was near, as he looked out against the world. His eyes were unbearably clear, as if he saw through the eyes of someone else in his place, someone whose senses were sharpened to the razor edge keenness. With more eyes than he had... His ears could hear the rustling of the robes as she slipped into them easily, even note the refreshed, strengthened scarlet sigil of the spider upon the small of her back, glowing dimly, in that instant before it was covered.

The scent of blood choked his nose and assaulted his senses, stickiness all about him where he lay in a pool. He was bleeding, his entire body bleeding from a thousand scarlet streaks where there were none... thirsty, unbearably thirsty... and unbearably cold.

I'm going to die...

Oh no... no not at all, rang the dark laughing, voice inside, that seemed to click sinisterly within.

The dark elf seemed to hear the conversation inside his head, and walked over to him with graceful gentle movements, white ivory strands drifting down across her dark-skinned face tenderly, her beautiful lissom body now hidden from view, something for which he was thankful. She was carrying something from the table, a large cage full of something. Little animals it seemed, of live rodents and rats and a badger, with its snout muzzled, captured from somewhere. Disdainfully she stood before him, where he lay on the ground, then emptying out the cage in front of him.

He could not move, he knew, but something else did. His hands flashed out, darting out with claws, gripping one large rat and the other one crushing a mouse into pulp within his hand. The rest of the animals scattered, before shoving it down his throat, eagerly, then next he bit into the rat, still alive as he sucked on it, before stuffing it into his mouth and chewing to the cracking of little bones. He pounced somehow, renewed energy flowing through his veins as he made for the young badger, the thing about one and a half feet long. Claws tore into its form, staining its white stripe crimson before his bite snapped its neck due to its sheer primal force. He recoiled in horror and revulsion as blood spurted out, but to his he found his thirst and hunger still overrode all, his body still bleeding.

She walked away as he fed, not entirely certain what to make of it, but well pleased nonetheless. Her queen had renewed her favour upon her body, and in suggesting such a fate for this one, while making known to her the nature of her touch upon this wretch, had gave her more grounds for some actions. There were some thorns she would appreciate being removed.

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When he fully recovered himself, he was no longer bleeding. His wounds had remained merely scarlet streaks along his black fur, and though he still felt cold, it was more natural. Darkness was all about here, there was no day. His mind couldn't think clearly, except for a deep disgust, shuddering as vague distant images of a human being released to him, and setting upon the person eagerly, but there his memory ended mercifully, perhaps by conscious or subconscious choice. As if to emphasise this point, there was a black patch over his right eye, although he could see well enough through it, there was but blackness beyond. He did not move to remove it, the thought never crossing his mind.

They came for him soon enough, and there was little to do but to be led away from there. It was a town of sorts, but like a place he had never seen. There was no sky, just dark rocks all about and above, and they all were dark skinned and white haired, with deep eyes that seemed to radiate volumes of hatred and malice all around to each other. He was led up to join a group of others, cowed and helpless as he was, to the sound of harsh voices and deep guttural tongues shouting around.

Something seemed to go on, with ever rising voices calling out. His mind dimly told him he was the centre of the dispute, and as it drew to the resolution, his eye recognised the group of dark elves that drew away, and among them was her. A shiver of fear and terror crept up his spine as he saw her skulking away as if angry and disappointed, although she had not spoken in the dispute over him. Another group of the dark elves came up and took him away, but he paid them little heed except to follow them gladly, unbearably grateful to be away from the creature that had tortured him so. Indeed, he remembered nothing beyond being with her, and pain, excruciating agony coursing like fire before her.

They took him into their house, a large castle structure with spires of dark rock slipping out, but inside it was not that far from what he had experienced before. They flayed him, tortured him, punished him, but he took it all rather well, so long as he never returned to that pain, or that cold, aching ravenous madness. As he stayed there he understood more and more of their tongue. Apparently he was a slave marked by one of their Gods, though he did not know her name, and he shuddered as he thought of that. That also explained why he was not branded like the other slaves, and apart from menial labour, was allowed to wait upon them, and not killed on a whim, although sometimes he could have sworn it was to within an inch of his life that they brought him to.

And one night, he felt it again. He started bleeding, his red streaked fur bursting out to have his blood flowing out, filling his body with pain and agony. He knew it would get worse, as he struggled, only a matter of time before the cold came, and once it did, that unbearable hunger and thirst would come too. It grew within him as he was tied alone in the backrooms, somewhere between the dark elf living quarters and their servants, bleeding, and soon it was creeping up his form, the hunger growing and growing as he fought it. Laughter, was creeping up in his head, whispering in that sinister softness into his mind, his limbs growing numb as another force gradually took over. He could feel his sanity, his control slipping away, as the pain and the cold intensified, his jaw hanging open gasping to try to find something, anything, to feed... then there was nothing.

When he awoke, he was covered in blood, and not just his own. Around him all dead, dead dark elves, slain in their repose, their beds awashed with their blood, some wooden doors apparently split open by sheer brute force, bloodstains on them, while other more sturdy ones had apparently been unlocked neatly from the outside. By the door, there were two guards dead, apparently struck from behind, their throats almost ripped completely out, as by a beast. In the main chamber, two of the males of the house had been slain, apparently in the act of removing their armour from a night raid above the surface, one body looking as if it had been set upon by a whirlwind of claws, and the other one as if pounced from behind, taking a chunk out of the side of his neck. In the one room where most of the servants and slaves slept, bodies were strewn about haphazardly, human and elf and others alike, as if a single ravenous tiger had been let loose in that place while they were still resting. His mind recoiling from the horror of what had transpired, the soft laughter somewhere above, eight red glowing lights looking at him and congratulating him mockingly, even as he trembled and quook, reeling as his mind was wracked by the savage cruelty of the deaths that had been dealt.

They found him the following day, along with all his victims, quivering in a little corner, gibbering madly away. The verdict was that some beast had slain them all, and he had got away only by sheer good fortune and the blessings of the Queen, by something so terrible that it had driven the poor slave half mad. No doubt the verdict was not quite what it should have been, given the evidence, and he was returned to trembling and writhing in chains and confusion to the temple, where the sight of her face frightened him back into some semblance of sanity and coherence.

She spent some time toying with him there, the sight of her enough to drive him into paroxysms of fear, and she found much pleasure in having him inflict pain on the other, more freshly arrived slaves. Despite his innate distaste to do so, his fear of her overcame this by far, and she found it most amusing that he would be thus tormented when tormenting others. It was also around this time that a certain lady elf was brought in by one of the raiding parties, apparently a highborn, maybe a princess of no mean standing. His heart went out to her even as he initially disciplined her, but the greater part of her abuse and torture was at the hands of the dark elves, using the most obscene and horrific devices and spells, and he was forced to watch her thus tormented and used, barely clinging on to the vestiges of her courage, and the hope that her fiance would come seeking her, a thought she raved about madly in her troubled sleep. He wanted to comfort her, he knew, but he also knew that she, the priestess, was waiting for exactly that, before she would force him to do the unspeakable unto her, which he would not.

To his surprise, one day he was sent again for auction, and another family took him in. He slogged on for them, beseeching those he could to let him go, but they kept him nevertheless, though for his good will they rewarded him harshly, as they did for impertinence. They took especial pleasure in torturing him just for the joy of it, once tossing him into a scorpion pit for a day, using healing magics to keep him alive. They were apparently envious of his marks in the sight of their Queen, especially that she would come to such a wretched slave as this than to their house, and they bore him and she from whom he had came, much ill will.

Their troubles were ended soon enough, predictably. Even as the numbing cold bit deep and agonisingly into him, even as the madness came, it let him watch, this time. Watch helplessly, as he gashed their throats and tore their bodies at the time they were most helpless, their cruel hearts and faces grimacing into the rictus of death, before he ripped their insides out of them and disembowelled them with savage strength, and their blood bathing his form. Yet inside, he writhed and withdrew, horror and terror coming over him at the devastating clarity of his madness, and inside him he could feel the pleasure of the Queen most amused and accentuated. It seemed she was almost wondering if he would take pleasure in doing this to such tyrannical house, and found the results more entertaining than she had thought. He wanted to let go, slip into oblivion, or madness, but she would not, forcing him to see with wide eye, his each and every deed in darkness. Too shaken at the end of it to think clearly, he collapsed into a quivering heap of confusion and fear and self-loathing.

The priestess certainly wielded considerable influence now, especially with two houses among her foes having perished, for he returned to her once more acquitted from the courts' verdicts, and she welcomed him back with open arms. He was her champion, after all, although the thought of her touching him was almost as dreadful as breaking out into madness. She smiled at him, beautifully as he trembled and cowered before her, before sending for a special reward for him - the elf from earlier. It seemed that there was nothing left in her now, completely and utterly broken, and a mere helpless toy she had become. He wanted to run from such a travesty, but his mistress would not let him, and his heart almost broke as the captive elf set upon him wantonly, every pleasurable move upon him making his heart ache in sorrow, while his own body revulsed him in eagerly seeking to defile the one he would most have remain pure in its carnal search for satisfaction, and the sensations that came over him were like those that he had never felt before...

Perhaps his mistress saw it coming, or perhaps she didn't. Perhaps it was due to some machination of those who would get back at her for what she had done to her rivals, or that she had let them get through, or that her foes were simply that cunning and able this time. Whatever the case, it was a short while from the time he returned that a party of dark elves came into the temple, ostensibly to worship, before breaking out their swords and slaying those who stood guard, revealing themselves as not dark elves but as high elves, from above the ground. His mistress was caught by surprise, it seemed, most of her servants and minions out of the temple at that time, and she begged their leader to spare her life in return for turning the elven lady back to them and giving them safe passage. Their leader relented, and she sent him to fetch the elven slave girl. To his surprise, and the relief and joy of her fiance, she broke into tears of joy and relief upon seeing him, and quickly ran into his arms amidst sobs. The party of elves were about to leave, readying spells to disguise themselves once again, when the elven girl bade them take him along. His mistress was in no position to object, and so with them he went, his heart pounding inside him. Apparently his mistress stayed true to her word, oddly, and the party left unmolested, taking with them two slaves, the elven girl and himself.

When he came to the surface, he fell as though struck by lightning, fear coming over him as he looked at the sky above, and feeling as if it were drawing him out into the wide beyond, and quivering in fear there. The elves had to drag him away, and under some coaxing from the lady elf, he recovered himself sufficiently to continue, as they hurried away from hostile territory, the lady now riding with her husband to be, seemingly demure and happy. The high elves treated him as a slave though, but she knew him as Vysanth, a name that had caught her fancy for some reason, for back under the ground there had been no name for him.

But the respite was not to last. Over the next few days, he could once again feel the pain building up inside, his claws distending on their own to accidentally rake the flesh of those around him, and while he would beg to be leave the group, at the same time the lady suddenly came down with a pain in her loins, tearing at her insides, and though he was no one to her, he was loathe to leave at such a time. The elves set up camp to try to make things comfortable to her, but then she started speaking of the tortures done upon her beneath the ground in a delirium, and begging for more, which made her fiance leave in deep broken distress and sorrow, unable to leave her as she was, yet unable to attend to her without his heart's blood spilling out in anguish. Vysanth's body started acting up too, the blood seeping out of his flesh under the crimson streaks in his jet fur, and he wandered along the outskirts of the camp, not daring to go near lest he killed them all.

Then came a cry of alarm from the elves, as from the tent the elven lady staggered out, frothing green foam at her mouth, her eyes wide and staring, her entire body quivering and trembling as if wracked by inner pain. Seeing her thus, her fiance quickly came to her, and Vysanth came back in shock and fear and concern, looking upon her with much pain in his eyes. There was another shudder running up her body, then her frail body was wracked with paroxysms of pain, spasming in her fiance's arms, and Vysanth felt his blood run cold as he remembered how some had died within the temple. There was a soft sigh finally, as her face turning a ghastly pale, and she closed her eyes, seeming about to slip into death, then she opened them and started screaming, achingly sharp loud screams, screams that didn't seem to stop, kept screaming and screaming as she looked up into nothingness, her voice ringing their ears, ringing deep into the recesses of Vysanth's being... then suddenly she stopped, her mouth still hanging open stiffly, and the light going out of her eyes.

Her fiance stared a while longer, numb with grief, before slumping his head down, too anguished to speak. Vysanth backed away, as if trembling, his mind losing itself as it recoiled from what he had seen, not noticing the blood flowing faster from him, pooling on the ground, not noticing that as he drew near the fire he felt even colder, only torn by that sense of loss. As if from a great distance, he saw the elves rise, their leader bearing her, turning their backs on him to find a burial place for her, their backs, their unguarded backs...

Morning came. The warm rays of the sun swept over the camp, lighting upon the grotesque sight of carnage, as some hideous beast had been through the place, and blood was scattered all about it. The torn bodies of the elves were scattered about, scarred and with mutilated flesh as if they had been struck by a whirlwind fury of claws, almost all with the trademark torn throat. Too late did he realise the horror of what had been, once again, the cunningly vicious arachnid that had been planted within himself rearing up in delight amidst the sibilant laughter of the Spider Queen herself, and leaving a trail of blood as he staggered out from the place he fled, turning away from the path to elven lands, rejected both without and within.

Vysanth eventually found his way out into the world, picking up a harp from a body of a fallen bard, and then later coming upon an elderly instrument maker, who taught him what he could about the art of making music. From this person, no doubt a minstrel of great repute in his own time, he learnt many of the finer, most distinguishing abilities that he has today, and though none of the scars and memories of the darkness ever truly left him, his gifts and natural affinity for such beautiful music kept him going on strong, even beyond the point when his master passed away.

From those times of darkness, he kept nothing save his name, and indeed all other names have been set aside since his bloody orientation back to the world above the ground. As for his curse, he did what he could to fight it, and ever so often he would hear the whisper, the laughter, the eight scarlet eyes watching from within, and know it was time to be away from the rest of civilisation, for a time.

Due to the lack of memories prior to his “rebirth”, Vysanth has few traits of the Catpeople, except for his innate grace. His speech resembles that of elves and humans, cordial and cautiously polite, and he rarely purrs, hisses or spits except when seized by severe urges and agitations. It is due to his ignorance of what it means to be a Catperson that he is drawn to them in search of his roots, although he shuns them in general just as they spurn him. He also has an affinity for elves and a generally concealed fear of drow, which he often tests. His thirst for knowledge is palpable at times, and he often engages other character 1-1, for in groups he prefers to observe, unless performing. When intimidated, especially by groups, he tends to back down all the way, or resort to his bardsmanship.

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