Snowfall

((*blows dust off the blog*))

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If you knew you only had one night to live in this world.... how would you spend it?

With whom would you die?

...

I would die alone.

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Snow whipped down from the sky, but he didn't feel it, despite being stripped to the waist and kneeling on the frozen ground. Gui'cul, a twisted golden-skinned Cryptonberry, laughed in his crude and dusty voice, and dug his clawed hand into Alberic's back.

"Does it hurt, child of Altana?" he hissed into Alberic's pointed ear, the Elvaan's sagging head putting him at eye-level with the deformed creature. Gui'cul twisted his claws into the thick black grooves of the intricate scars that marred Alberic's back, and Alberic gritted his teeth, the muscles in his arms trembling as they struggled to hold him upright. Blood and sticky white pus dripped down from the Cryptonberry's claws.

"Where are the gods, child of Altana? They are silent."

Lyall, also shirtless under the blizzard, surged forward, but even he did not dare lay a hand on the Cryptonberry. After all--they were here on the Glacier outside of dark Pso'Xja for his guidance. "Leave him alone!" Lyall shouted. "This isn't teaching him anything--it's just sadism!"

Gui'cul laughed again, the sound like a snake's belly slithering across cermet. "Is it, gnole-whelp?"

The Cryptonberry drifted away, impervious to the snow, his long greeny-gold robes trailing in the snow, and he raised his beaked maw to the steel-gray sky overhead. "You two children came to me, came to the remnants of a dying race, to learn dark secrets. You wished to reach for that primal power that enabled us to survive for ten thousand years. What was that power?"

Alberic lifted his head and spoke from between gritted teeth, his eyes grim. "Hate."

"That's right," Gui'cul hissed, looking over his shoulder at the pair. "The gods have abandoned Kuluu and Zilart alike. Lord Diabolos did not save anyone--and Lord Bahamut laughs at your agony, child of Altana." He whirled then, and his body arced with lightning as he channeled a powerful blast into Alberic's body; the Elvaan fell, howling and writhing, and Lyall again surged forward, but the torment was over as soon as it began.

"And the gods did nothing!" Gui'cul screeched triumphantly. "Let go of your vanity and useless pride--before the power that is hatred, we are all as nothing! We are mere conduits for the greatest power that all Vana'diel can produce--not cheap conjurers tricks, not abasement before uncaring gods, but the power that is hatred made by our will into arcane force!"

Alberic looked up, and tendrils of steam rose from his hands, resting against the snow-studded ground. Lyall, gripping his friend's shoulders, also looked over at Gui'cul, and rage emanated from him as if it was a physical force. Gui'cul smiled, the expression terrifying on his ancient face.

"You hate. This is good."

-----

I can't bear to see you with her. When I look at your happy faces, I feel empty inside. It makes me hate you both, even though you've been nothing but kind to me.

It's because I stole something like that for myself, and then I let it go before it could be taken away.

It's easier to just hate everything. It's easier to hate myself than try to feel anything else.

-----

As part of their training, Gui'cul made them give up what they had brought with them to Pso'Xja. Alberic piled what seemed like endless harps and flutes onto a stack of kindling, then his ornate silken cannions and seraweels, lush fabrics that he had earned for bardic performances from all over Vana'diel. Lyall, perhaps thankfully, had brought with him little, but had to reluctantly surrender a curved scimitar from the Empire. Together, the two reached out together to black magic to set the bonfire alight. Lyall's face was troubled as he watched the pile ignite; Alberic's was indifferent, even cold.

He took to wearing hooded cloaks with long sleeves and thick gloves, hiding every bit of his body as if to wrap himself, mummy-like, away from the entire world. Days would go by without the pair encountering anyone save Gui'cul, though Loo often made the perilous journey out to Pso'Xja to visit. Whenever she would do so, Alberic would retreat and allow the pair their time alone, and he would say little to anyone for some time afterward.

If time passed outside of that place, it seemed to do so without Alberic's involvement. Past, present, and future no longer mattered; the future had ceased to capture his attention. He specialized in ice and thunder magic, and Gui'cul set them to attacking his fellow Cryptonberries, blasting apart Summoner's elementals as he cackled at their side. "Summoners," he would say darkly, "are all weak. They pray impotently to the gods, and see with what they are rewarded--soulless shades by their sides that are so easily removed, and no real power among them! Anger, rage, hatred, passion, these alone are the source of true magic, not begging to higher beings!"

Lyall was more skilled at fire magic, and many nights it was only his skill at producing flame that gave them a warm place to sleep. Despite his seeming impatience with the process and his open distrust of Gui'cul, Lyall never wavered or left Alberic's side, and worked away at learning black magic just as diligently as the Elvaan. Together, they learned how to channel the tumultuous magics, how to twist time and space, how to fling themselves into the nether and back out again, and how to stand on the precipice of madness and wield what power lies there.

-----

I don't love you.

He took everything from me. I allowed him to take everything from me. I made him take everything from me.

I don't want to see the future anymore. I don't want to feel anything anymore, or think, just act.
I want to be able to fight, even if I don't know what for. I want to fight for a future where I die alone, because if I can't be with you then I don't want to be with anybody.