Descent

[Issy]

“Take a night off… Take a weekend off…. “

Isuelt was sitting in the overstuffed arm chair in the living room of her apartment at Tourjours le Vert. She was in the chair sideways, both legs bent up to her chest and her elbow resting on one knee. She was staring out the sliding glass window at the night skyline in the distance, absently rubbing her forehead. She had been mulling over both Katt and Ed’s paid leave insistence from this evening.

It was literally the worst thing they could have done.

Isuelt hadn’t been sleeping lately. Oh sure, she was tired. But those nightmares… They were getting worse and more frequent. There was so much blood and violence, which normally wasn’t out of the wheelhouse for a Scathachian. But these dreams lately? They’d been entirely too real. And they were always centered around Renna and that damned virus. Isuelt knew that had been years ago now that Renna had infected her with the manufactured Rage virus, and that it had been removed. But she couldn’t help but feel that something about herself had been….what? Off somehow. Isuelt felt that her temper was coming hotter and without warning lately. She had to work consciously and deliberately to keep her cool. And what was worse, was that the positive side effects of the virus, as Batten had listed them, were seeming to wane. Isuelt was more prone to temperature fluctuations like the cold outside, she had been having tremors in her hands which were usually rock-steady. And the headaches were starting to become unbearable. Isuelt found herself markedly worried about the latter, remembering what Batten had found in her head during his initial exam of Isuelt when she had first been exposed to the virus. Had the tumor come back? She didn’t have the headaches with the same frequency, nor the nosebleeds, still it was worrisome. And what was more, Isuelt, who hadn’t remembered even having a sniffle since contracting the Rage virus, had been feeling run-down and ill. Not to mention that over the last few weeks, she’d been having some nagging soreness in her back on her left side; the site of an old injury from battle, one that used to plague her. Was it possible that these positive side effects were evaporating, never to come back again?

Isuelt felt tired, she felt old. And what was more, she felt that she was a charade. The great Scathachian general who fell from grace was not far removed from her mind ever. She knew she had fallen and when she was left alone with her thoughts? Her demons? Well, that’s all she ever pondered. How it came to this. She was alone, in an apartment in some city far from her island home. By herself with no troops to command, with nothing to do.

“FAILURE!” She heard in her mind over and over again as she stared out at the Rhydinian night sky. Her demons were difficult to silence.

Isuelt whimpered against her hand lightly and shut her eyes. Rubbing her forehead, which was throbbing just now, it had been aching since she’d been at the Golden Perch. She’d been ditching work, which she wasn’t proud of, but who had popped in to spot her but Scarlett. She felt she had let Scarlett down. She wasn’t able to help her in the way she wanted, and she sure as hell wasn’t a shining example for the woman to follow. And then, by a miracle or a god’s cruel joke, Edward had arrived. He’d been gone for so long that Isuelt wasn’t sure whether to grab him and hug him or hide from him, the boss, as she was caught playing hooky. She wanted to tell him what was going on with her, how she was worried about the after-effects of that virus…even these years later, how she was feeling lost and weak and wanting to turn to alcohol to numb her nightmares and her day visions. She’d wanted to cling to him and have him help her like he had before, but she couldn’t tell him. He’d just gotten back and he had more than enough on his own plate. But their plates always seemed to be at the same table setting, didn’t they? And Renna was usually the chef.

And then so many other familiar faces had showed up, friends like Ebon and Katt and Reiko. All people who would help Isuelt if she would just for once stand up and say she needed help.
But of course, Isuelt would never do that. She was supposed to be the strong one. She was supposed to be the one who saved everyone else…

Katt…

Katt who saw through every illusion that Isuelt portrayed. At least that was how Isuelt felt. She knew that Katt was intuitive, shrewd even, to the point of being clairvoyant. She always felt naked in front of Katt, like all of her flaws, sins and troubles were on display and would never be hidden no matter how hard she tried. Katt had accused Isuelt of being scared of her? Was that true? Not in a manner of speaking, but Isuelt certainly was frightened of who she was in front of Katt: broken, scarred, a bonafide fraud. Katt had literally seen Isuelt at her lowest and had lifted her out of the gutter. While Isuelt would forever credit Katt with saving her life that day, she would never know how to act around someone who saw that deeply into her fragility…into her soul. Katt may have never known what Isuelt’s plans were for later that day when Katt found her in an alleyway in the West-End…

Isuelt shivered then, bringing her back to her living room. Her eyes turned toward her kitchen. There in a cabinet above her sink was an unopened bottle of Dalmore that Batten had given her years ago as a gift. She had never opened it, she had left it behind in the Sanctuary after her court-martial and eviction. It was a trophy to her that she never opened it. She was clean and sober and she kept is as a memento of not only her friendship with Batten, but of her own strength, praying it would never give out.

But tonight?

Isuelt’s lustful and longing glance toward that cabinet lasted for longer than she knew would be a passing thing. She was in trouble and she didn’t know where to turn.

[Issy]

The weekend was at an end. It was Monday, a day she would have joyfully returned to work. Finally something to keep her mind engaged and not centered on her dwindling sanity. However, it was not to be. She’d had a message from Kyle Pontius telling her to take the rest of the week off; an email that was met with dismay. She couldn’t take much more of what she saw as seclusion and internal-exile.

She hadn’t slept much, she’d had a few nightmares about Renna… She watched Renna stab herself over and over in one of them; on the steps of the Dragon. All Isuelt could do was to watch as the blood from Renna’s body inched closer and closer to her. She couldn’t move, her feet were stuck to the ground as Renna’s red-black blood started at her toes and then moved up her legs until in enveloped her like a cocoon. Isuelt was suffocated by Renna’s blood and woke up gasping for breath, nearly sure that someone’s hands had been around her throat. She noted in the mirror that there were red marks and one distinctive bruise two inches above her collarbone.

That was Friday night. On Saturday night she’d had a similar dream in which she was at work, in the sub levels of Batten Tower. For some reason she’d been strapped to a table, thinking that they were going to work with a new weapon. But Renna was there and it turned into more of a laboratory than Batten weapons R and D. Renna had crooned over her, promising her new heights of pain and pleasure; all the while whispering in her ear about the virus and the ‘new Isuelt’ it would create. Renna was relentless in her sadistic sexual pursuit of Isuelt; to the end of Isuelt being ‘awakened’ with a knowledge of what was inside of her. The virus was still there, it had never been removed. It was only dormant…. though it was changing. It was ready to show its next phase. This nightmare was so graphic that when Isuelt woke up, she tumbled into the bathroom and threw up off and on for an hour. She spent the rest night on the bathroom floor, shaking.

Sunday night came and she didn’t go to bed. She didn’t want to. She was exhausted but there was nothing to go to bed for. She wasn’t to come into work, and she didn’t want to have any more nightmares. She couldn’t take anymore. Isuelt wasn’t eating and all she could think of was that bottle of Dalmore in the kitchen and Renna’s virus morphing inside of her.

Perhaps a hot bath was what she needed? Isuelt ran the tub water to within a breath of scalding and added some salts to it. Everything she did was in a daze, her fatigue was at its height; she was on auto-pilot. When the tub was nearly full, she slithered out of her robe, letting it fall to the floor. She stepped into the tub and slowly sank down until her mouth was even with the surface of the steaming water, the overflow hitting the tiles of the bathroom floor below without care. Isuelt closed her eyes and let the heat of the water try to boil the weakness from her bones.

She must have fallen asleep in the tub. The next thing Isuelt remembered was a woman’s voice…

“Isuelt…Isuelt…wake up.”

It was her mother. She could see her face. The soft curve of Abigale Blywthe’s cheek and her gentle eyes smiling at her daughter. Isuelt hadn’t laid eyes on her mother’s face in over thirty years and the very sight of her made Isuelt cry out to her.

“Shhhh….my littlest mouse.” Abigale enfolded Isuelt into a warm embrace, like an angel comforting a repentant sinner. “You are my most precious gift, my darling. My dove. And I love you more than I love myself.” Abigale’s voice was just as Isuelt had remembered it: gentle, healing and restoring. There was nothing as soothing as a mother’s love. “Don’t cry, my love. I’ve got you. I’ll help you. I shall not let you walk alone in this realm anymore.”

Isuelt sobbed against her mother’s shoulder, clinging to her as if she were clinging to life itself. “I’ve….I’ve missed you so much….”

“Shhh…” Abigale smoothed her daughter’s dark hair with a gentle touch, her fingers stroking Isuelt’s locks with a rhythmic certainty. “You’re all right now…I have you, dove.”

“Mama…” Isuelt couldn’t contain her grief, she wept openly and shook with every ounce of her being. She could barely breathe between her syllables she was weeping so desperately. “Mama…I love you…” And Isuelt simply dissolved into tears, falling against her mother as if she didn’t have another ounce of strength in her body.

“Shhh…that’s enough now, little mouse.” Abigale reached to lightly stroke her fingertips across Isuelt’s wet cheeks. “Come now, let me see the beautiful woman you have become.” She pulled away slightly from Isuelt to look down at her daughter. With those loving fingers she lifted Isuelt’s chin. Finally Isuelt sniffed and was able to open her eyes; she yearned to look upon her mother’s beautiful face once more. But this time, it wasn’t the comforting Abigale she saw. Her mother was bloodied and bruised: her deep auburn hair mangled and tossed to the side, blood running down her temple toward her chin. Her bottom lip was split and oozing, the fragile skin about her left eye was already bluish-black. This was the face that Isuelt remembered as the last time she had seen her mother. Raped and left dead in the family home, just near the hearth on the floor. Her gown was ripped and bloodied, her corset absent, her eyes blankly staring at a broken bowl along the floorboards.

Isuelt stepped back and gasped before she fell backwards. Her lips turned down and her eyes refilled with tears as she wailed an absolute cry of grief. She mourned her mouther again, this time not as an eight-year-old girl, but as a grown woman. The keen howl from her soul ripped the heavens as she grieved yet again. Isuelt’s cries were so deep and so splitting that she began to cough until she found she couldn’t breathe. She felt as if she were literally drowning in despair. All she could see was her mother’s dead body, pale and lifeless and covered in blood and shame. Mama….Mama…. Isuelt couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe, yet she still reached out to her mother to save her. In her head, Isuelt could hear her eight-year-old self screaming for her mother, pleading with the gods to bring her back.

Then…there was stillness.

And it was blissful. It was wonderful. Isuelt was at rest. Finally.

There was a light that coaxed her closed eyes open, it was so bright that Isuelt had to bring her hand up to shield her face from it. As her eyes adjusted from the darkness to this dazzling light, Isuelt’s fingers moved as curiosity took over. There was a figure coming nearer, coming from the center of the light. As it neared, Isuelt saw the curves of a woman. Was this her mother? She reached out instinctively to the figure who was coming into view. Dark hair, an almost floating quality to her gait, her voice soft.

“Isuelt…”

Isuelt reached further, feeling like she was unable to advance her own steps.

“Isuelt…”

The face came into view fully. It was not her mother. The red glow to the eyes, the sharp jawline and high cheekbones. It was Renna.

Renna smiled at Isuelt and held aloft a finger, then waggled it slowly back and forth.

“Ah, ah, ah. It’s not your time yet. I still have so many more plans for you. You don’t get off that easily.” Renna lunged at Isuelt’s still outstretched, if not stunned, arms and pulled her harder than Isuelt could ever remember being man-handled. “You’re not going anywhere yet!” With Renna’s voice reaching a shrill volume, Isuelt’s breath caught yet again as Renna flung her aside like she was a rag doll.

Coughing, gagging and throwing up water, Isuelt found herself on the hard, wet tile floor of her bathroom. She was naked and shivering. She looked around with wild eyes and burst into tears. Her mind was scrambled and she couldn’t think straight. She remained on the floor until she couldn’t cry anymore.

[Issy]

By the time Isuelt could bring herself to stand up from the wet bathroom floor, she felt as if she had been through a battle. Her body was worn down and her insides felt the stabbing pains of injuries from long ago as if they were freshly made. She was finally able to get into her robe, though the soft white cotton provided little warmth. She was shivering with a deep cold that she had never known before. Isuelt was literally amazed that the steam was still over the mirror in the bathroom; she looked around and saw water all over the floor, the tub was still more than half full and was still very warm to the touch. Isuelt felt utterly defeated. Utterly defeated that she couldn’t even get dying right. This was the bell jar.

Isuelt didn’t know what her next steps would be, what her life was, what sort of suffocated shambles her mind was turning into. She stood in front of the steam-veiled mirror, pondering. She took a deep breath and reached out the wipe at the mirror. She wanted to see herself, she wanted to figure out what to do next.

With one smear of her pruned palm, she wiped away the coating of moisture on the glass. However, it wasn’t herself she was looking at. She was looking at a woman with black hair and red eyes. Renna was looking back at her. Isuelt’s initial reaction was to recoil, but so did Renna. Isuelt’s shaking fingers reached up to half cover her mouth, but so did Renna’s. The same horrified expression that Isuelt felt on her features, she watched materialize on Renna’s face in the mirror. Isuelt tentatively reached out to touch the mirror. So did Renna. Isuelt moved her fingers in a pattern, so did her reflection. She stared at Renna in the mirror until she didn’t feel surprise or shock any longer.

“So…this is what it’s come to?” Isuelt and Renna said in unison. Isuelt stared at herself…at Renna for a good few minutes before she…they spoke again. “I hate you. You did this to me. I know you’re up there in my head now. I know you’re there for good. And I hate you for it.” Isuelt’s nostrils flared and her fingers curled into a ball as she made a fist. “I hate you.” She whispered. But this time…her Renna-reflection did not. Instead, Isuelt watched as Renna’s face was swept up in a smirk as the red of her eyes spurned brighter. It was only for an instant as Isuelt’s fist came with a powerful thrust to explode through the mirror, sending glass everywhere and a stabbing pain through her fist. The last thing Isuelt heard after her own yelp and the tinkling of glass shards falling to the floor was the echo of Renna’s laughter.

When Isuelt emerged from the bathroom, her hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked washcloth, tied in a knot. She made her way past the couch, past the sliding glass window and straight into the kitchen. A modest blood smear was left on the cabinet door as she shut it after retrieving the bottle of Dalmore from above the sink. Isuelt turned around and opened the 25 year single malt. She unceremoniously upended the bottle. She didn’t even bother with the glass. What the hell would be the point of that? She coughed on the scotch as the familiar heat scalded the back of her throat. But after another drink, only a clearing of her throat was needed. Her throat found itself ensconced once again in its lover’s embrace: the Dalmore was doing its job of seducing Isuelt into a sense of security. She slid down, down, down until she was on the floor of her kitchen, still dripping wet and only half-wrapped in her robe, blood and glass were still at home in her right hand beneath the now-stained washcloth. Yet, she didn’t care. And that was the point. Isuelt didn’t want to care about anything right now. She didn’t want to care about anyone. She simply wanted to be numb…and disappear. Another drink. Isuelt exhaled and looked down at the bottle. The silver stag stared back at her like he knew her secret. “Fuck you…” Isuelt whispered to him as she sneered and kept drinking.

[Issy]

Isuelt had been on a binge. She was barely conscious. But she was conscious of one thing…

A wisp of shadow. Like every past triumph of Isuelt seeking glory for the holy order of Scathach shot blood onto her face, Renna smiled. "Sleeping well?"

Isuelt's hearing was playing tricks on her again. She was sure of it. Her half-lidded eyes opened. She was on her kitchen floor. There were several empty bottles in the sink. She was dressed, but her clothes looked as if she'd taken a ride in the washer and dryer while still wearing them. "Wha...." Her head turned to the side, her vision trying to focus.

A wicked metal claw clamped over her mouth as another metal finger pressed to Issy's nose. "Do you remember what I had always told you, Isuelt?"

Isuelt was either too drunk or too far gone to react to the metal hand clamping over her mouth. She knew that voice. How could she not? She heard it nearly constantly in her head.

"How does it feel?" The voice whispered.

Isuelt moved her lips to speak...but to no avail beneath Renna's hand. Until slowly, the claw removed itself from her lips. "Why won't you just kill me? Just let me die...." A tear gathered briefly in the corner of Isuelt’s eye before it freed itself and rolled past her temple and fell to the floor.

"You know."

Know what? Isuelt wasn't sure she knew anything anymore. She wasn't even sure that Renna was here. Wasn't she dead? Was she a ghost? A demon??

"Oh no, Isuelt. Because, I have the greatest revenge that has taken years... How are your dreams, Isuelt?"

"You should know....you're in them all...." Isuelt was trembling. She was broken.

Renna slowly held out a metallic claw. "Take my hand."

Isuelt swallowed and looked to Renna's metallic hand. Then her gaze shifted to Renna's face as she reached out to take her hand, another tear falling from her eye to splash on the floor.

Then Iseult's hand was metallic; the tear was liquid metal.

The clicking that she heard from their fingers brushing up against each other caused no shock, no recoil from Isuelt. She simply let a few more tears fall, feeling the heated metal slide down her cheeks. Isuelt's lips twisted, her teeth visible as she cried. She would let Renna have her way....she couldn't fight any longer.

Slowly, Renna clutched Isuelt close to her chest, her lips close to hers. "I leave behind my greatest revenge. Well done, you killed me. But... inside of you..." There was a cackle. "You see, my dear? I didn't go away. And your dreams? Are so true... when..." She offered a mirror to Isuelt, only to show a reflection of the woman, with burning red eyes. "You, are now... my incarnation."

Isuelt's tears were burning her cheeks, yet she didn't flinch, she didn't care. She held close to Renna, as she would have done a lover. She listened to Renna's words, looked to the mirror and saw only Renna. The vibrant crimson eyes, the sharp jaw, the high cheek bones. She stared for a long while, knowing that throughout their decades-long game of chess Renna had finally declared 'checkmate.'

"And I will see you become all that you hated." Renna's voice cackled. "And when that time comes?" A dark chuckle whispered. "In fact... are you hungry?"

Isuelt's brain felt waterlogged, she lifted her gaze to meet Renna's.

Slowly, a claw raked its way over a man's neck, spraying blood over her. "Are you hungry?"

Isuelt was hungry...for what, she had no idea. She surely wasn't thinking straight. She was drunk...no pickled was more like it. Was this a dream? Isuelt's lips parted and her eyes closed, an almost lustful moan escaping her mouth. She wasn't sure if she was about to be kissed, killed or fed. And she really couldn't have cared less.

In her eyes, in her vision, was but the burning crimsons. "Don't lie to me, Isuelt. We are always attracted. And we shall?" Her whisper darkened. "Fuck." A tongue slipped over her cheek. "Now, wake up. Do not fear. Take what you want. Raise up an army in my name... Your previous religion, called them Bhaal. Now, call me Betrayer. Spread my name. Feed me."

Perhaps it was that name that acted as the lightning bolt. Bhaal. Isuelt heard it and was shaken out of any torrid and steamy notions she was going through with Renna at her side. She gasped aloud and shivered violently. Was she waking from a dream? Was this real? Isuelt's Swiss cheese mind was crumbling even further apart.

Awake, Isuelt found her room empty, but a cloaked figure looming over her. "Wake up, Isuelt."

"Betrayer....Renna..." Isuelt whispered, her voice almost husky.

A hand from the cloaked figure touched her cheek. "My Queen."

Isuelt’s eyes shut, she may even have trembled at the touch. She longed to know... she opened her eyes to reach out for the cloaked figure. One hand still bloodied and bandaged from its earlier run-in with her bathroom mirror.

Nothing was there. But a soft whisper in her ear. "As I said... you, are mine..." The voice left, cackling in the unseen wind.

A bedroom whisper. "Yours..." She had felt so utterly lost, so alone, so unhappy, that this revelation was something that took an evil root deep within her soul. She slowly tried to sit up, the room was spinning. But she took a moment to look at her hands, curious to see if they were Renna's or her own. They were her own, despite her swirling intoxication. Like worms, wriggling inside of her fingertips, it could have been a trick of the light, or eyes. Isuelt reached up and let her hands touch at her chest. In a moment her fingers traced over the curve of her breast. Was Renna within her? She could almost feel her inside, scratching.







My bottomless gratitude to Renna for her ideas, inspiration and everlasting support. Love you, sweets!