Desreal: Blindly. Very blindly.

N I C O D E M U S

Hawthorne.

Her voice is clear in his ears. A perfect bell, waking him from reality and slumber. His fires ignite more fiercely than they ever had before. There was hope for him again, a hope that he was beginning to lose. The emotion sweeps through him violently, shattering everything that he had worked so hard to achieve. There is a monster that he had locked away, and it rattled in it’s chains. The hope that he felt then in Andarin was a dangerous kind.

Hawthorne.

He hears her again, and Nicodemus feels as though he’d been flying. Keir snarls from his back, teeth bared, the hair on the ridge of his back fully erect. Something is wrong, Nicodemus. Don’t listen! Andraste screeches, fluttering in front of him, attempting to block him. Before he knows what is happening, he is running, wild, perhaps brushing the sides of a fellow wolf rudely. He didn’t notice or care. He hears the distant warnings of Keir clinging to his back, and of Andraste, who was still flying near his head, screaming in his ears. Don’t try to stop me!All that he knew was that She was back. She was calling his name.

Hawthorne!

He dies as easily as he had been awoken. Like his element, so changing, so unpredictable. One minute tame flames, and the next furious and terrifying. There was no Hawthorne. He breaks, and once more he feels the void in his heart. The worst thing was that he was just beginning to learn how to cope without her. This stranger (Saphira, he knew her name but not her.), was there, and Nicodemus failed to greet her. Siren Song had done it’s duty, and now…now he was doomed. Keir and Andraste cry out, but the power of the shard keeps them from saving him. Run! Run while you still can! Now Saphira stepped forward, her neck outstretched, lips caressing his cheek. But he was numb now, and her touch fell useless to him.

Her teeth tear at him, and still he does not move. The pain comes slowly, and when she is done, only then does he feel the cut, and the trickle of his fire-hot blood down his neck. When he finally feels the full pain, searing cold through his normally hot body, he does not scream. His flames are wild, furious, and rather than a red stallion, now there is simply flames in the form of a horse, his golden eyes glowing bright. The fury that is there is far more terrifying than any shard could ever hope to be.

“You.” He snarls, the words thick with hatred.

“Snake! Trickster! Liar!” He screams, his fire leaping at her.

“You may have made me your slave, b###h of Hell, but mark me when I say that my name will be the last thing that you scream.” He steps forwards, her remorse unseen in his hating, vengeful eyes. The evil of the shard taking it‘s place into his heart. “Know the name, and fear it….”

He steps forwards again, his lips to her ear as he whispers the name in passing. She could make him do what she wished, but not for now. For now he was free, if only for a moment to stir her anger. “Nicodemus.”

FIRE III;
phoenixsong