Taken Horizon Origin, volume 2, Descension

Episode 28 : the last son of <soldered penumbra> flutters out

There was a part of me telling me to walk away, to leave Pettel to grieve alone. I knew better though. Even if time was tight for my plan to leave <archon hold> i needed to be here to support Pettel with Invoker's death like how Thorn helped me move on from Tatsuo's.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Pettel asked, to my surprise, towards Elysia who was angrily looking up at him. "Do you not have anything to say for Invoker's murder!!?" Aether quaked out with Pettel's shout flattening the grey dust across the moon as the black wall behind him rippled in sync with Pettel's emotions.

Laughing at Pettel, Elysia picked up a chunk of the moon's rocks and tossed them at his chest. "I have nothing to say to the man who butchered millions just because he gained a little power. Your shame will always be deeper than mine! So what if i abandoned Raptor? I just wanted out of that miserable prison! Is that so wrong?!"

"Abandoning Raptor is one thing considering his... streak of misjudgments." Pettel was seething, shaking in his shoulders, yet he managed to keep a clear voice. "But killing Invoker is something you should never have done." Pettel twirled his finger and a spike of black sand shot at Elysia, stopping just short of her fair neck. "I will always bear the shame of what I've done with dignity. I deserve that punishment for my failure. However, you have no idea what it's like to be forced by aether to do something. To be driven insane by it's influence."

The man beside Elysia was frantically looking around for something that could aid him. Compared to the black wall behind Pettel and i who would allow no escape, he would only serve his punishment sooner if he tried.

With Elysia crestfallen and given up any chance for forgiveness from Pettel, the kralscell of ash turned his attention to the man. "You..."

Several black spikes shot out of the writhing obsidian wall behind Pettel and into the man's limbs, lifting him up into the air as he screamed in pain, feeling his muscles be corroded with every breath he took! "Ahhhh! Ahh-haaa! Please! Spare me!"

"Did you ever think about sparing him?" Pettel furled his hand into a fist as the straight spikes piercing the man's wrists and ankles suddenly became jagged in their shape. "Was there ever a thought of remorse when you took the life of the man you killed?! How many? How many innocent men like Invoker have died just because of your! Whims!"

Aether quaked out in the air again as Pettel raged on at the man he had strung up in the low gravity of the moon.

As i watched Pettel cry and wallow in anger, i wondered if this was how Thorn saw me as i grieved Tatsuo's passing. Another thought then came, one i dreaded. Would i have even grieved Tatsuo's death if Thorn was not there to force emotions into me?

"Tell me deity! What did you feel when you killed him?!" Aether continued to pulse out of Pettel and he tortured the man even further, forcing him to scream up into the stars above they sky. Having enough of his screams Pettel tossed the man into the ground. "You don't deserve an easy death. Strife, i have a request."

Questioning what it could be that Pettel was about to ask me to do I wasn't sure if i should be uncomfortable or relived he hadn't been overcome by his emotions. "What is it?"

"Is it possible for you to 'help' Elysia hear aether's whispers?" Startled by these words Elysia began to tremble as i huffed out my nose in an amused manner.

Extending my left hand, bolts of orange aether sparked out from [sephiwrath's] amber markings across my left arm. "It certainly is."

Before Elysia could resist, Pettel sent several hooks of black sand to hold her in position, locking her arms behind her back and covering her eyes as well as ears. "Wait! Don't! Let me die with my sanity intact at least! Please! Don't let me become a monster like him, Strife! Anything but that please!!"