#I wasn't preparing to tear up while writing Serella's bit but I guess

[starswornoaths]

♚ - a memory of something paranormal for both?

(I’ll separate them by their names just to make it a little easier, thank you for the patience!!!)

(Also adding a cut because gosh, this wound up longer than I thought it would be)

TL;DR: Uthengentle has an Echo, Serella almost dies, neither are exactly pleased about it

Uthengentle Arcbane

Were the sultana still alive, Uthengentle would be absolutely aghast that security in the Ul’Dahn palace was so lax.

As it stood, it made slipping into the adjoining room to the sultana’s chambers all the easier, though he still took care to lighten his footsteps as he slipped into the dark room and closed the door behind him.

It struck him as odd for how…normal the room looked in the dim light of the moon peering through the shuttered windows. Even as his eyes adjusted, he saw nothing out of place, nothing ransacked—it was as though the sultana had simply stepped out for a moment and would be back any second.

Out of respect for her memory, he did not cross into her bedchambers; that room was not his goal, anyhow.

Breathing deeply, he could smell no trace of death clinging in the air—even for how recently she had died, the room still faintly smelled of sweets and wine. Perhaps it was his proximity to death—and how frequently he came across it in his work—but that he could not pick up that faint smell of decay, even a week on, was enough to press at the cracks in his faith in Ilberd’s words—had the sultana even died, a part of him wondered.

Moving deeper into the room, Uthengentle was suddenly struck by the fact that he only barely knew how Nanamo had died; according to Ilberd, she had been poisoned by Serella’s hand, sure, but how had she managed to slip the sultana the poison? Through her wine? Did no one check her drink before she was given it? How did Serella even get access to it in the first place?

With his anger having been given time to cool, the more he dwelled on Ilberd’s account of events, the more he found himself unsure of what to make of it. What had been a solid, if utterly heartbreaking and enraging explanation of what had happened suddenly seemed…conveniently nondescript.

The more he had sat on it, the less sure he was of anything anymore.

Visiting Raubahn in his prison cell every day since his incarceration had done nothing to quell the feeling that he had made a very, very grave mistake. The Ala Mhigan Bull, his General, his idol, had simply looked at him with what he could only describe as silent disappointment whenever he would bring meals to the former Flame General.

What else could have happened, Raubahn?! Uthengentle had asked him when the silence had gone on for too many days. There was no one else there!

If you have less faith in your sister than I, Raubahn had finally said, his voice a gravelly rasp from disuse. Then you never had a right to call her family at all.

It had angered him at the time, hearing someone he had looked up to so fondly telling him that he was the failure from within a jail cell. That rage had pushed out the thought that maybe Ilberd was wrong, because Uthengentle had made the choice—he had to have made the right one. He had to have.

He wasn’t sure how he would cope otherwise.

But that had been the only thing Raubahn had said to him—any other talking, any other pressing or insistence that Uthengentle wanted to help—was met with only silence, and that same stare of I expected better of you.

As if that had not been enough…no one outside of the Braves looked at him the same anymore. Even some in the Braves gave him a wide berth. Friends, those he had considered family—even the innocuous acquaintances he had made just from regular contact—all suddenly had nothing to say to him.

Uthengentle had enough of the feeling of being ashamed for the coat he wore. He needed to investigate closer, he needed to know if he had earned those looks of open scorn.

His soft soled boots were near silent as he moved about the room, taking in the elegantly domestic space. It was a grander type of domesticity, with the knickknacks and baubles still more opulent than what he had grown accustomed to—in either of his families—but the place had the same familiarity of being made to feel like home.

Moving away from the shelves and the cabinets, all beginning to gather dust, he stepped past a partition in the room. His bright gray eyes settled on the table where it had all supposedly gone down.

It was…strange to look at, he felt. With the chairs kicked over or shoved away from the table, it was an implication of a flurry of chaos, frozen in time amidst the otherwise undisturbed space.

Looking at the scene, Uthengentle hesitated; would he truly be able to find anything without disturbing the furniture? If he had to move anything, would anyone actually be able to tell? Would they even care? Given how infrequently this area was suddenly patrolled, he highly doubted it, even as he quietly edged himself closer to the space.

That was when it hit him.

His sensitivity to the Echo had always been relatively low, typically, and always much, much lower than Serella’s. Rare was it that he had visions of anything at all; whenever it did happen, it would typically be naught but the feeling of remembering something, as if it he were vaguely recalling something someone had told him happened. As if he had always simply known what the Echo had shown him.

This was…it was as Serella had once described it, that he had simply stepped into the past and was watching it unfold, was the one that everything was happening to.

Suddenly the room was flooded with soft, warm light, and the once stagnant air smelled… sweeter. It still smelled of dessert and wine, but it was not a stale and lingering scent, but a richly fresh one, as if something sugary and delightful had just been pulled out of the oven. In a flash, the table was laden with a large tart that had been cut into, with slices served on dainty and decorated plates. 

And sitting in chairs that were suddenly upright and neatly tucked closer to the table were Nanamo, smiling and alive, and just beside her was Serella.

Seeing them both made him feel faintly queasy; Nanamo and her alleged killer, seated over a baked good and chatting made him feel helpless—if he could just reach out, if he could just stop what was to come—

“My thanks for indulging me in this small break from socializing, Serella.” Nanamo said, now over a week ago. “Do forgive me, I fear that there are times when such gatherings tire me.”

“Think nothing of it, Your Grace,” Serella said in a tone Uthengentle recognized with a sharp pang of agony—she was deliberately softening her voice, as she often did when she suspected those she was around would prefer quiet, or had a headache, or just needed to breathe. She…had used that voice a lot with him, in the weeks and months leading up to the banquet, he realized. “I admit, a moment of quiet is nice.”

“If I am being honest, there was another reason I brought you here, more than just a need for a reprieve.” Nanamo admitted, staring at her hands in her lap. “I had wished to discuss something of great import with someone I can trust—someone other than Raubahn.”

“Import, Your Grace?” Serella asked her, straightening a bit in her chair. “If there is anything you need of me, you need only ask.”

Watching the exchange, Uthengentle felt Serella’s worry as if it were his own—was he remembering her Echo? Was that why it was so powerful for him? He heard her thoughts as clear as if she had spoken them: Would now be a good time to mention the bottle Third Unit and Uthen found? Is this related?

Nanamo went on to describe her intent to turn Ul’Dah into a republic in a desperate attempt to give her nation back to her people. She spoke of her intent to step down as sultana, acknowledging that she had failed her people as a leader.

“That was hardly through any fault of yours, Your Grace.” Serella reassured her. “For how young you were when your power was taken from you, you have done the best you could.”

Not exactly the words of a killer, his heart hissed.

“All the same,” Nanamo dismissed her reassurances. “Whether I would have been able to do aught to stop it matters little. It has happened, and my people have suffered for it.” She shook her head. “But no more. This is the last night of Ul’Dah as a sultanate.” She lifted her gaze, her eyes burning with determination. “Tonight, at the conclusion of the banquet, I shall dissolve the sultanate, and let my crown rest where it belongs: in a museum.”

“If that is your wish, Your Grace.” Serella murmured, lowering her eyes respectfully. “Then I will still be your shield. Whatever your goal may be, you need only tell me.”

“Please, Serella.” Nanamo said with a wide, sympathetic smile. “This is a break for both of us.” She gestured to the plates of dessert before them. “Much as I have left my title at the door, I must implore you to do the same. Let us speak as friends; it’s all I have wanted us to be.”

“…Very well, Nanamo.” Serella said, a smile tugging at her lips. “Or should it be Lilira?”

“Perhaps when we are not in the palace walls,” Nanamo said with a playful wink. “I can be Lilira. Maybe I can be her more in the future.”

“I certainly hope so.” Serella said softly.

Nanamo called for her handmaiden to bring them wine as they nibbled on the fruit tart. Standing there with a mouth dry as the Sagolii Desert, it was more than a little strange for Uthengentle’s tongue to suddenly taste rolanberries and custard, a burst of bright sweetness as Serella took a bite of the tart.

Did she have to deal with this when her Echo acted up? He felt a pang of sympathy—and vague hunger—hit his stomach.

The sultana’s handmaiden stepped into his line of sight cradling a bottle of wine, and he recognized her as having recently moved out of the palace following the Sultana’s death. His suspicion—but not Serella’s, he noted—only mounted as the handmaiden poured Nanamo a goblet of wine—but not Serella. That the handmaiden did not even offer it to her struck him as odd—and struck Serella as odd, too, he realized; even if he could not feel her confusion, he saw the way her brow arched as Nanamo lifted the cup to her lips with a soft smile.

And the handmaiden scurried off like a woman being chased, Uthengentle noticed.

“Your Grace, if I may.” Serella said suddenly, reaching a hand out to take the goblet from her.

It might be nothing, I might just be paranoid, but this doesn’t seem right… Serella’s thoughts invaded his mind. His heart squeezed—he had heard more than enough, did he truly have to watch the rest unfold? What was the Echo trying to tell him?

“Whatever for, Serella?” Nanamo asked. “I believe she simply forgot your cup—she should be along with it shortly.” She smiled reassuringly at the Paladin and lowered her glass slightly. “I appreciate your concern, but it is alright. She has been in my employ the longest of all my staff.”

That doesn’t mean anything. Serella and Uthengentle both thought at near the same time.

Before Serella could interject—insist that she at least test it—Nanamo brought it to her lips and sipped.

The poison worked in less than ten seconds.

Uthengentle watched, Serella’s helplessness matching his own as the sultana choked and grasped at her throat. Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to just breathe.

“Nanamo!” Serella cried in alarm, standing abruptly enough that her chair toppled over—exactly where it still sat, Uthengentle realized.

She caught the sultana before she completely fell out of her chair, her body limp. The goblet of tainted wine clattered to the floor—the wine splashing in the shape of the stain that yet lingered on the carpet—and then Serella was ripping a gauntlet off to check Nanamo’s pulse, her faint and ineffective conjury glowing at her fingertips in an effort to keep her alive, and Uthengentle felt a sick twisting in his gut as he heard the door open again.

“Ilberd!” Serella called as she looked up at him—and the ten men he brought with him in alarm. “The sultana, she— go get help—get a chirurgeon, she needs—“

“My, my,” Ilberd hummed in an amused tone as he stepped closer with the pace of a man with all the time in the world. “It would seem the sultana has been poisoned—by the Warrior of Light.”

Cold dread filled Uthengentle’s veins—or was it Serella’s, and he was simply feeling the way she felt? Or was it both? He was lost amidst the reactions his body was having, unsure of where his ended and hers began. Seeing this, knowing the truth…it was little wonder Ilberd’s recounting of events was as flimsy as it was.

But he didn’t need to feel what she felt to know the moment she figured it all out.

The panic on her face turned to cold and unbridled fury­—she only barely snapped her gauntlet forcibly back on before she was reaching for her sword.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Ilberd tutted at her, waggling a finger condescendingly. Behind him, the movement of the squadron unsheathing their weapons gave her pause. “I wouldn’t, if I were you, traitor.”

“Funny,” Serella spat. “I was about to say the same thing.”

I can’t fight them here. Uthengentle heard her thoughts, her desperation and despair. I might hurt Nanamo—and any chance of saving her.

“Go on, then!” Ilberd goaded, spreading his arms out wide as if to accept her blade’s embrace. “Strike us down and cement your guilt.” He sneered down at Serella, still knelt beside Nanamo. “For it would look suspect, would it not? An entire squad of Braves, all murdered in an effort to avenge an assassinated sultana?” Ilberd clucked his tongue. “One would hardly call that a sign of innocence, Serella.”

“I have done nothing, and you godsdamned know it.” Serella snarled as she got to her feet.

“Nothing?” Ilberd asked her tauntingly. “Then you will have nothing to hide.” He motioned with his head to one of the Braves. “Restrain her.”

Though there was hesitation from the Braves, they still did as they were ordered, moving to grip her arms and holding them behind her back. Ilberd stepped forward, his hand reaching out to the pouches along her belt. He moved to a specific pouch at her hip—almost as if he knew exactly what he was looking for—and produced a vial.

Uthengentle’s throat closed. He knew that vial—they had found that vial together just before the banquet, he and the very same men detaining his sister as though she were at fault.

“And what have we here?” Ilberd mocked her. “The very poison that stole the life of our radiant sulta—“

Quick as lightning, Serella’s left arm—her dominant arm—broke free from the man holding it. Uthengentle’s knuckles sharply ached the second Serella’s fist connected with Ilberd’s jaw—well, that certainly explained the egg he had on him when he regrouped with Uthengentle later that night.

He felt a bit of pride for his sister managing to slug Ilberd hard enough he staggered to the floor—and even as Serella was restrained again—with cuffs this time— he could feel that she was darkly satisfied with the way the Braves Commander had to hold his jaw.

“Oh, you will be made to pay for that, Warrior of Light.” Ilberd sneered, still nursing his jaw. “Take her to the Alliance leaders—they deserve to know this bitch’s treachery.”

“You’ve not known my treachery yet, Ilberd.” Serella said in a low voice, even as she was forcibly dragged away. “But you fucking will.”

Coming out of the Echo was…disorienting. Having such a vivid recollection of the past that carried the reactions of another person made his body heavy and sluggish—or perhaps that was the weight of the revelations that now hung on his head. He wasn’t sure of a great many things.

Not the least of which was what he was meant to do now.

He stared at the table and chairs, returned to its state of distress and anchored in the now but holding such dark secrets from not so long ago. It was a scene suspended in perpetuity, as if frozen in waiting for him to discover it.

His anger ran hot beneath his breastbone, and the once dim room flickered with the light of his Berserker’s aura, ethereal flames licking at the air around him in search of something to burn.

How had he not seen it? How had he chosen Ilberd over his own sister, with no show of proof to back his claim?

Even in the midst of his fury…he knew why he had: because Ilberd had wanted him to. Ilberd had planted a seed of doubt and bitterness in his mind from the first time they spoke, saw Uthengentle’s frustration at playing second fiddle to his little sister, and rather than accept Raubahn’s dose of hard truth— that he had engineered his own situation by avoiding taking his share of the credit, even despite her insistence he stand beside her—Ilberd told him everything he had wanted to hear at the time: it wasn’t his fault, she was gatekeeping his glory from him, she was the one belittling and degrading him.

And this was what he had to show for his actions: his sister, spurned and framed—in Coerthas, from what he had heard—the sultana that he had sworn to protect murdered, and every person that he loved and cherished estranged and ashamed of him.

Himself included.

And yet, even through the blood red rage that obscured his vision, he saw two choices available to him: he could continue to stay angry, continue to kick and scream and cry about how unfair things are and lash out ineffectively. He would do nothing but exhaust himself— and those few that were still close to him. 

Or, he thought, sucking in a calming breath even as he wrestled his raging aura back down. Or…he could figure out how to fix this.

Stepping out of the chambers and slipping back into the night, Uthengentle’s face was once more a mask of neutrality, even as his mind whirred with plans on how to get out of this.

Serella Arcbane

It had been a slow struggle against the leader of the assault on Rhalgr’s Reach— a prince of Garlemald, if what Serella had heard amidst the din of war was to be believed. Slow…but eye opening, she decided. 

Their clash was one of an unstoppable force and an immovable object, where neither side had yet given an ilm— but Serella knew that it would not last; she could feel her strength begin to wane, even as she dug her heels in and shoved the mountain of armor and an unflinching mask a few ilms away. Her every muscle screamed in agony— how long had they been at this, a part of her screamed in despair.

And then she heard her brother scream in unbridled rage.

She had only heard Uthen scream that way when he had truly succumbed to the rage roiling within him. It was a scream she had only heard twice before— though given that this was his homeland that was being burned, his brothers and sisters all being struck down, she didn’t exactly wonder at the why.

It surprised her even less that he had, in effect, shoved her out of the way. That he had screamed and yelled until his voice broke and his throat bled as his axe swung with reckless abandon against an unmoving suit of armor that Serella could only assume had a person beneath it.

Her pleas to him to stand down— because he was not going to win like this— fell on deaf ears, but the moment she saw him overextend, the second she saw him swing his broken axe blade too far and expose him to what would have been a fatal strike to his neck…she shoved back.

The Garlean prince’s blade had sliced across her back, from hip to shoulder and carved into her as though she had worn no armor at all. She had fallen— hard— into the blood soaked sand beneath her. Even as she had struggled to stand, to reach for her sword because she needed to keep fighting, the prince had only sought to continue to break her until she lie in the dark and the silence.

Serella felt…cold. Maybe she was wet— was she in water? She had lost herself…but perhaps that was for the best. Though she did not know where she had gone…where she was, she did not hurt. That…that was enough, right? She had been doing something— what had she been doing? Her mind was hazy.

This is no time for sleep, little Ella. From some twenty summers ago and too far away to remember, she heard her father say to her softly, sweetly. 

She could feel a sheet— a bed— distantly familiar, as though only recalled through a dream but solid beneath her. A warm blanket being slipped away from over her. The bed dipped with added weight.

Blearily, Serella blinked her eyes open— there was sunlight streaming through a curtained window, and sitting beside where she lay, she beheld a man she had not seen since her eighth summer. With deep umber skin and kind blue eyes he looked at her with all the fondness in the world— a fondness she still felt she did not deserve.

“Da,” she croaked, her eyes stinging and swimming with tears. “I’m so tired.”

Even admitting it exhausted her.

I know, little acorn. He said, his smile growing sad. But today is not a day for sleeping. The dawn has only just come, and it is time you rose to greet it.

“Again?” She asked tiredly. She blinked away the tears that fell— they obscured him, and she did not want to see him without clarity ever again. Not now— not now that she finally got to see him again. “Can’t I just sleep?” She sniffed. “I’m…I’m broken, Da.”

Bent, he gently corrected her. Bent, little one. Not broken. He held her hand— he was so warm— he had always been so warm, she had remembered— and pressed her own palm over her heart. Do you feel that, little one? She did— her heart thumping steadily, if faintly, beneath her palm. That is your purpose, my little Ella. Up, up, now— you must greet the dawn. He leaned over her and smoothed her sweat slicked hair back. She let out a broken sob as he kissed her forehead. I love you, my little Ella.

Remembering how to live— how to be alive— was agony. Serella choked and gasped and coughed at air she struggled to recall how to breathe. Her body felt as though it had been tossed into a pyre— had they declared her dead, only for her to come back in time for her own funeral? No…this flame was only at the wound on her back, she realized. The burning spread from there— but she was alive. She lived. 

Though there was roaring in her ears, she could hear her brother speaking— what was he saying? He sounded like he was trying to call her back from the abyss, as if he were shouting from the surface into the murky depths she had sunk to.

“Uthen?” She wheezed. Speaking felt…foreign to her, somehow.

“Ellie—!” He sobbed. There was a light— too bright, too much— where were the curtains? Da had them closed, why did Uthen open them? “Oh gods, you’re breathing— hold on, alright sis? I’ve got you— I’ve got you— you’re going to be alright.”

Even as he frantically healed her…she wondered if he was wrong this time.

She just wanted to go back to bed.