Elend grabbed his cigar and turned his back towards the glass venue overlooking the arena below.
He took a deep breath and pressed a button hidden on a nearby wall. The ventilation shafts leading to the office began to whirl loudly as smoke slowly filled up the room. The smoke gaining life swirled around till it circled around Asher, blocking his view.
Soon a soft melody echoed in the office. It was vibrant but carried a touch of sadness.
"Why tell a story when I could show it." Elend's mused as his shadow shifted between the smoke.
Suddenly he burst out from behind Asher, but he wasn't alone. A slender figure of white and grey smoke held him by the hips and twirled around with him.
Asher couldn't describe their dance as romantic or formal, there was a palpable violence to their movements. It was like they were waiting for each other to make a mistake, and it didn't take long till one of them did. Elend stumbled to the ground and the woman fell on top of him holding him in place with a knife in her hand.
She mouthed something but no words came out. A memory of her conjurer privy only to Elend himself. Elend stuck in his puppet show stiffened and flipped her over. With their positions reversed, smoke coalesced into Elend's head. It took the form of a beast as Elend dug into her neck ripping out bone and flesh.
The smoke disappeared after, and Elend clenched his jaw as he grabbed onto her knife and struck her chest. It wasn't a strike to kill but to gut. He dug into her metaphorical flesh and fished out her heart. He brough the beating thing to his face and dug into it with fervor.
With a single bite the smoke all around suddenly surged towards Elend's body as if becoming one with him. Elend stood up after and on que the music stopped as he stared at Asher.
"So?" Elend smiled brightly as if the whole play wasn't messed up.
"So...?" Asher couldn't help but mutter back.
"So...do I still got my stage skills...who am I kidding of course I do." He smiled to himself while turning off the smoke dispenser.
"Care to...I don't know...give context?" Asher said confused. When Elend had said story, he figured it would be something relatable or funny not...well whatever this was.
"Oh figured you already heard some version of it before...this was the day well night I became known as the Ripper...After I was done with her, I did that to about another 20 people before I calmed down...I almost got a sweet tooth for arteries...stressing the almost part." Elend leaned on his desk and looked at Asher who stared back his eyes studying the sylph for any hint of humor.
"Then what's with the lady and-and the dance." Asher stumbled as he recollected the whole thing.
"She well...Tess was the Fang...she was the previous boss and I her humble slave...need I say more." Elend sighed as he walked over to Asher, shooing him outside.
"uh yes you do..." Asher answered confused by the whole thing.
"That's enough remembering for today...go rest up...or whatever children fucking do." Elend smirked as he exhaled a streak of smoke that zipped to his back to form a tendril. The tendril grabbed Asher's mask and propped it back to his face.
Before could Asher say anything, the huge door closed in his face.
"And he talks about my manners." He muttered as he scuttled off to the still raging party below.
Elend on the other hand turned around. He looked at his large office and took a deep breath before walking over to the half empty wine bottle.
He uncorked it, sighed and corked it again before walking over to the piano where he played the vibrant melody again. The tendril of smoke slowly took the form of Tess who sat next to him. He stared at her as he played but before he could finish the song, he coughed violently. Her figure disappearing while he fell to the ground.
He leaned on the piano and lit another cigar.
---------------------------------------
Asher was drunk. Not on purpose gods no. He was drunk because Desil dragged him to the party below and some idiot swapped his drink with another one. He couldn't spit it out or get angry, he was V after all.
He just drank a bit and stormed off before the alcohol could dull his senses. Even a sip got the boy to stumble while walking but that was the least of his problems.
The voices died down but that left room for other things to take a crack at his failing sanity. The shadows at the edges of the glammerstone lights became the bit darker as they encroached towards him.
With anxious steps he scurried towards his room all while his heartbeat drummed up the further along, he walked.
"Almost there...Come on." He mouthed off as his hands shook in their attempts to unlock the door and when they finally did, Asher barged inside and stumbled to the floor before taking off the suffocating mask.
The boy took a few deep breaths and calmed down in the safety in his well-lit room. This didn't last long as a weak voice echoed behind the door.
"Help...help!" The voice cried and in response Asher stumbled away from the door.
"This is not happening again...this is the alcohol." Asher curled up and closed his ears, but the voice called out again, tugging at the strings keeping his scars from opening up.
"Be more selfish...be more selfish...thunders this happened before...Come on Stop!" He shouted back but the voice didn't acknowledge his plea.
"This is not real...none of it is...come on STOP!" Asher screamed again, frustrated. He clenched his hands hard enough that his fingernails dug into his palms.
As much as he wanted to deny it, this voice was real. It was real enough that the anxiety bubbling before subsided to give space to the guilt slowly racking up inside him.
"Blights..." Asher spat and stormed out of the room with a knife in hand. He moved quickly ignoring the darkness as well as the yellow glammerstone lights that sizzled on and off the closer he got.
He followed the irritating plea till he reached the slave pens. There was barely any light since most of the glammerstones seemed to have lost their light but that didn't stop most of the slaves from stumbling away from the bars in fear at the sight of Asher.
The voice cried again from one of the corner cells where Asher found a little slyph girl who held onto the bars and screamed again
"Help!...He die...sick...die!" She shouted in crumbs of high loci she must've picked up from the guards. Asher approached a bit but not enough to be at arm's length. He learned from his mistake before.
He examined the barred cell. Two people inside. An old man who wheezed and puffed on the ground and a small child she stared at him with desperation.
She was covered in dirt and scratches. Asher stopped himself before he felt any more pity for the pair of green eyes that followed his movements.
'No visible weapons...no traps...thunders.' Asher was looking for any reason not to help but finding none he stared at the child for a long while until his hands softened their grip on the knife. He sighed and grabbed the keys while the other slaves watched him in the dark.
Asher opened the cell and forced the child to stand by its walls before he kneeled next to the old man.
"Human, mid-seventies…dilated pupils, pale. Weak pulse, and pained breathing. Purple cyanosis around the fingers and veins." He spoke loudly not for the girl to hear. It was out of habit. Stephan used to make him diagnose the corpses the corpses in the lab to test what Clara taught him. By no means was he an expert but he could tell what the problem was with a brief inspection.
"Wraith's touch." He said solemnly. A blood infection that if not treated quickly kills someone in hours. Asher grit his teeth and gripped the knife properly again.
The old man in a moment of clarity having heard Asher's diagnosis, grabbed his arm.
"Let...let me...talk to..." He coughed again as Asher prompted the sylph child to approach them. He backed away and distracted himself to give them some privacy. He didn't want to her a sob story or anything that would make him feel worse than he already did.
The girl soon wept and Asher took it as a signal to approach them again. He looked at the old man who smiled through the pain and nodded. Asher in response grabbed his knife again to end the slave's misery but just as he was about to strike the girl grabbed him by the arm.
"I...I do it...my family...I do it." She said through the tears and Asher didn't need anymore convincing. That might have been cruel on his part but it was for the better plus this whole ordeal was beginning to remind him of things he thought he had buried well.
With a sigh he gave her the knife and sauntered back towards his room. With steady footsteps he walked through the corridors again with the glammerstones lighting the way without their previous sizzling.
'How about you set fire to the place next.' Regret jabbed wryly.
'You gave a child a knife and began a prisonbreak all because you felt guilty...all because she reminded you of yourself.'
"And what's wrong with that...what's wrong with doing some good with the guilt." He shouted back but regret didn't answer back.
"Maybe I should pick up drinking." Asher grumbled after he sobered up. He finally reached his room and collapsed on his bed. He reached out to the mask lying there and looked at his reflection and smiled.
'She has a chance now like I did.' He thought as he slowly closed his eyes. The sounds of shouting and fighting that soon echoed after didn't bother him. He strangely felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders.
He threw the mask aside and finally took a well deserved rest.