The Fifth Star - Chapter 13 (2/2) - Displaced

It took less force than she’d thought it would. Like when she’d relived that moment from Darius’s memory, hot blood poured over her hand, eliciting a shudder she couldn’t explain. She didn’t care; for a moment, she let herself enjoy the sensation, committing the details of the kill to memory. After all, Darius was not connected to her now to chastise her.

She’d always wondered what it would feel like, and now she knew.

The guard coughed frothy blood and she knelt with him, lowering him to the ground, holding him near to her chest like a lover as he stared uncomprehending up at her. But this embrace was so much darker in its finality. She didn’t take her eyes off of his - she watched that spark of life fade and finally disappear from within them. It was done. She couldn’t go back now if she wanted to. No regret coloured her mind, no grief; there was only satisfaction. Justice.

Just then, the boarded up window behind her exploded, the noise illiciting an unthinking sound of surprise from her throat. She twisted to look, losing her balance and falling backwards from where she had been crouching. When her eyes adjusted to the sudden change of light and the cloud of dust in the air, she saw Darius, daggers in hand and free of illusions, scanning the room. She could have wept right there - the relief of a familiar face was almost too much after so much happening in such a short time.

His eyes locked onto hers, and only then she remembered he had no idea what had happened, who dwelled in the body she occupied. What he would see was much different: one dead guard and another who yet lived, and his charge, possibly dead or unconscious at best, laid exposed over a table. He wouldn’t pause to ask questions, why would he?

Elowyn saw then what it was to be the target of Darius’s rage. He threw his weapons viciously to the floor and before she had so much as a chance to open her mouth to plead for him to wait, he was on top of her, his knees on either side of her chest pinning her down. Those hands she’d watched dress her wounds, cook her meals, care for her in this new world - those hands wrapped now around her neck, tightened until she could no longer draw in a breath, hard as she tried.

The weight of her skull was lifted for a moment then slammed down into the floor, Darius fairly snarling as he did so. Stars burst in her view as this new pain flared, and she managed a great, choking breath when his hands loosened just enough to allow her one. “Are any more of you coming?” he yelled in her face, his eyes barely human.

“I don’t know!” she sobbed, “Darius, stop…”

“You dare address me so?!” her head was again lifted and again, struck against the floor. “After what you did to her?” Once more the assault was repeated, only this time Elowyn heard the sickening wet crunch of bone, felt the blood dripping and pooling around her skull. The body stopped responding to her, and she could do nothing but watch in horror as Darius’s hands again went to her neck and resumed squeezing.

Her vision dimmed, blinked in and out. In the barest moment of clarity she retreated into her mind to attempt a spell, thinking to compel him off of her - but there was no trace of magic in this body, and it seemed hers did not transfer along with her consciousness. The pain as her chest convulsed, her throat desperately trying to gasp, was unbelievable - she’d have done anything in that moment for a precious bit of oxygen to grace her stolen lungs. In the back of her thoughts she still felt the man who’s flesh she inhabited, had to experience his terror infiltrating her own and escalating it that much more as the reality of his own mortality set in.

She tried to show her agony with her eyes, for she couldn’t manage to make even the slightest of sounds, but Darius was well beyond that point. His held a terrifying level of anger - even as they filled with infuriated tears, she could tell he was in complete control, a ferocious smile pulling at one side of his mouth. He was killing her, and he was enjoying every moment of doing so.

Vision failed her, leaving her in utter blackness. Elowyn felt her heart slow, skip a beat, two. It fluttered desperately and ineffectually, then stopped altogether. She registered how awfully cold she felt, then a moment later all physical sensations ceased. All that remained of her was contained in that last thought of anguish, wordless in its utter helplessness, and then it too blinked into nothing.