Cruel Empathy ✓

The Mage of Nightmares

Trigger Warning: Suicide and attempted filicide.

*Velasande*
17 years ago

It had been a long while since Vela felt warm. She was once a vivacious girl, filled with smiles and goodness. She was her father's pride and her mother's legacy. She used to wander about the gardens humming the tunes of her homeland without a care in the world. She would walk among dreams and create fairy tales and beauty. Now she was an empty shell. No longer able to feel anything but the cold. She was a mage of dreams but she would only be known as the mage of nightmares.

Her father was just a merchant who fell in love with a purple-eyed beauty. It shouldn't have happened. A mage and a mere merchant was an extremely unusual pairing. Her father could not claim her mother. Her grandfather would never agree to such a match, so they would sneak off in secret. Her father said he had a charming way and her mother had a gift of touch. The way he told it was she could feel the souls of whomever she laid her hand on. Vela never quite understood what that meant, but one touch from her father and her mother could not resist him.

When her mother fell pregnant, the two ran off together. They were happy for a short while, but they were naive.

Vela clenched her hand into a fist. Her daughter started to scream again.

Anakyah was always screaming or crying.

Vela was sitting in her velvet chair by the window. She had soft wavy brown hair and sky-colored eyes. Her eyes were as striking as any mage, but the light never touched them anymore.

Her daughter had been playing on the floor near her feet. Ana was a beautiful babe, with her ocean eyes. Too bad her disposition didn't match her beauty.

"Shh, Ana, no more." She patted the tot's head with no feeling. The little girl did not settle. Vela couldn't muster the energy to pick her up and comfort her. It didn't matter anyway, her comforting only made Ana scream worse. Velasande had tried using her gift on her daughter several times, but it never worked. Ana wouldn't be soothed by her mother.

Vela had loved her children with every bit that was left of herself. That love had driven her to the unthinkable. Now the cold had seeped into every crevice and nook of her soul. There was no love left now, only the motions. Only ice.

If her mother had still been alive she wondered what she would see if she touched her.

"She is always crying with you, Vela," Solmin chided as he entered the bedchamber. He had golden hair and eyes that matched. His golden eyes sometimes seemed to swirl when he was angry with her. His beard was trimmed short and he was lean and muscular. Those muscular arms were capable of unthinkable violence. Vela had hated him, but she was too numb to feel anything so strong now.

"She is not even two summers, Sol. She cries." Her voice was monotoned as she spoke.

"Ana does not act this way with me." Vela did not respond. She watched the rain outside the window and thought it looked like tears. She hadn't cried at all when she did what she had done.

Solmin's father was a strong warrior, but he did not have the eyes. Solmin stole his father's title with a quick sword to his father's gut much to the surprise of the villagers. The challenge itself wasn't a shock, but it didn't necessarily need to end in death. With Sol though, his body itched with the need to kill. He could hardly go more than two seasons without wanting to be on a battlefield. Vela prayed before each battle that it would be the one where he didn't come home. Alas, he always did.

Solmin's mother must have been a mage. She died when Sol was very young and he never spoke of her. Early death was the fate of many mages, her own mother among them. Vela shivered.