Chapter 11

Twenty years ago, the Apathy Wars came to a close. The plight of one man and one woman to send the Universe hurling into the Void was thwarted by nine individuals chosen by the Universe itself to become its warriors and defenders. Eight of those indivuals died before seeing the fruits of their labor take the form of the deaths of Mystra and Alexander Lovecraft at the hands of the sole surviving member of the so-called "Chosen," Seryph Gibbons.

Yet Lovecraft never really died. His body rendered dead by a katana through his heart, his soul scattered into the very Void he fought so valiantly for and failed. Despite being consumed by that nothingness, Lovecraft retained his individuality and his will. Fueled by rage and vengeance, he slowly pieced himself back together through his hatred of one person. Can you imagine overcoming the influence of a force of reality, bending its power to your will purely to satisfy a burning desire within your devastated soul?

Few have overcome their universal masters in the way that Lovecraft has, and few after him will ever do as such. So... do you feel you now understand the full extend of his wrath?

No. You have no idea.

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Tanin finds himself uncharacteristically depressed. While Tabatha ransacks each library she can gain access to in Khazan searching for some sort of cure for his condition, Tanin can only modivate himself to shuffle to the refridgerator for the occassional snack.

It isn't the the notion of ceasing to exist that Tanin finds scary. After everything he's experienced in his lifetime, and after discovering the things he now knows, the idea of ceasing to exist is just another adventure to weather. Nothing is truly permanent in this reality, even non-existence.

No... what troubles Tanin is the idea that someone could detest him to the extent that Eva professes. For a man who prides himself on his water-like nature, going with the flow and never really becoming attached to many things in life, the idea of someone being so attached to anything to that extent... especially in such a malevolent and spiteful manner... the very thought baffles Tanin.

"Damn... you look like you're actually worried."

Tanin looks up from his latest bag of potato chips to see Tabatha perched on the side of the couch, crouching and staring right into his eyes.

"I'm just depressed that they canceled that Tom and Jerry marathon this afternoon. I was really looking forward to that..."

Tabatha frows and hops down from her perch. "Keep up this attitude and you won't have to worry about Eva. I'll personally kill you. Snap out of it, you putz. You're falling into Eva's trap. She wants you to regret what you did. She wants you to be miserable right up to the final moment. She wants you to suffer like this. Are you gonna let her win? Anyway, check this out. We may have lucked out." Tabatha tosses Tanin a dusty old book. "Page 193."

Tanin thumbs through the book. "Hey... the library card isn't in this one. You didn't steal this, did you?"

"Desperate times, desperate measures, man. And I didn't so much steal it... more like I beat some old man over the head as he was going to check it out and ran out of the library. So it was more like assault..."

Tanin sighs. "You never change, do you? I like that. But anyway... where are we going to find a funeral shroud of someone who was also erased from reality? Sure, this ritual'll work, but how often does a person who doesn't exist get a funeral afterwards?"

"It was the best I could find. You'd think magi would come up with easier ways to cure these kinds of curses. Its almost like they get off to seeing people have to track down obscure objects. Some sort of sick wizard fetish if you ask me."

"Unlike us legendary heroes, legendary wizards are never slackers."

"And do tell me, oh 'legendary hero,' why are all of you such damn slackers?"

"Because if we just went about saving the world every day, being proactive and thwarting evil before it starts, we wouldn't have the big adventures that we get off to. We'd ruin all of our fun."

"Idiot..."

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A large portal opens up in the middle of Crest Avenue, in the middle of downtown Khazan. From that portal steps a woman adorn in a red gown, blowing in the wind like blood flowing from an open gash. She steps out onto the street and looks about her surroundings and smiles. His end is soon to come.

---------- Tanin and Tabatha jump to their feet at the same instant.

"She's here! Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuumbleeeeeeeee!" Tanin smirks and looks towards Tabatha, waiting for the obligatory smack across the face. All Tanin sees is the front door of his apartment slamming shut and a few Elvish curses being hurled in the distance.

"Oh god... what is she thinking? All this talk about me confronting her and she rushes off like this... dammit..."

Tanin bursts out of his door in an attempt to catch up with Tabatha. While out of sight, Tanin notices that the flowers in the garden outside of his apartment building are all slightly tilted towards the north, as if they were trying to reach out and help something... or someone. Tanin takes to the air and flies into the northern horizion.

---------- Eva glides down the street. Few people are aware of her majestic pressence, and those few that do pay any heed to her care little for what they see. Unlike her homeland, she is nothing but another figure taking up airspace in the crowded Khazan skies. It is an odd feeling for Eva, considering her long-gilded position in her former home, but the facelessness of her situation felt oddly relaxing. Eva softly lands on the ground when she sees a familiar figure running towards her in the distance. The moment she touches down, the asphault below her cracks open and vines and other plant-life emerge from the ground, quickly wrapping about Eva's body. Eva quietly allows the folliage to entwine her and she awaits the arrival of her old friend.

Tabatha gives Eva a wicked little grin. "Hello Eva. It's been what...800 or so years since we last saw each other?"

"Is that all? Forever isn't long enough a time to forget someone like you. Are you here to save your precious Tanin?" Tabatha blushes slightly at this comment but quickly forces herself back to her smirking demeanor. "You plan on forcing the cure out of me?" She starts to laugh as the vines entangling her begin to decay at an unnatural rate. "Then come at me. Fight me. Live or die, I still win."

"Last time we fought Tanin broke us up. And while I'm sure he'll be here any second, I'm positive the fight will be over by then and we'll be able to get what we want out of you." Tabatha flings her hands outward towards Eva as the pavement leading towards Eva colapses and two thick thorn-encrusted rose vines leap forth from the ground and jut towards Eva at an unnatural speed. Tabatha bellows something in her archaic Elven language, and two more rose vines appear behind Eva. The four floral weapons arc high into the air briefly before changing course and descend upon Eva, hoping to pin her to the ground.

Eva quickly yet gently take to the air, flying straight towards the encroaching vines. As the vines come within centimeters of Eva's body, they instantly decay into harmless pulp and crack upon impact on Eva's unprotected body. Eva then flies away from Tabatha, her body still facing her nemesis. A faint sparkle emits from Eva as she flies off into the distance. Knowing what this is, Tabatha doesn't pursue and waits for the spell's effect to dissipate.

As the spell's glimmer settles onto the bystanders watching the ongoing battle, several of the poeple fall into a flurry of convultions, and within seconds they transform into various rotting forms vaguely resembing animals that immediately turn their gazes towards Tabatha.

Eva stops in mid-flight and watches Tabatha as she begins to fend off the creatures with her plant minions. "I sense you find my stylings... disagreeable. Is it no different than your blatant misuse of floral life? You manipulate them the way I manipulate these worthless innocents."

"You could say that." Tabatha gasps as she dodges a particularly gruesome fiend. "Other than the fact that I don't go around twisting them and making them my unwitting slaves." Tabatha decks one of the creatures with a well-placed hook. "We both manipulate our comrades in one way or another, but at least I, like, ask nature to aid me instead of bending it to my will."

"And you think I do not ask these wretches if they wish to serve me?" Eva retorts as Tabatha continues to fight off the creatures while doing her best not to actually kill any of them. "If they truly didn't wish to become that which they did, they would have resisted with their full might. Something inside of them wanted to give in, or else they would still be human."

Tabtha backs herself into a corner. The monsters continue to gain ground. "That's... one way to put it." Tabatha jumps back and attempts to rebound off of the building behind her, but one of the beasts intercepts her in mid-air and tackles her to the ground, allowing the others to pile upon her prone form.

Eva glides down to Tabatha and smiles. With a wave of her hand, Eva causes the creatures to melt away and evaporate into nothingness. All that remains of the unfortunate humans is a thick, putrid mucus covering the unconscious Tabatha. Eva moves to finish off her adversary, only to hear a voice shouting in the distance.

"Eva! Don't do it! We can talk this over!" Tanin flies towards the others at breakneck speed.

"Stay out of this Tanin, your time comes soon enough." Eva throws up one of her hands and she and Tabatha dissapear from the street in a cloud of black haze.

Tanin mumbles a curse and closes his eyes, concentrating on Tabatha's life force, and tries to pinpoint her life force in the vast sea of souls of Khazan.

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"Damn... what a headache." Tabatha groans as she awakens. "And what the HELL is this stench...?" The smell reminds Tabatha of what just happened. She bolts up to her feet, trying to orientate herself to where Eva had brought her. She saw nothing but sand dunes and cacti. most likely one of the deserts on the main Khazan continent. Nothing but a wasteland. Tabatha could see Eva gliding back and forth in the air, seemingly waiting for her to awaken.

"Good. Shall we continue then without any interuptions?"

Tabatha levels a glare that would figuratively cut a normal man in half. "The only interupption will be when I have you screaming for mercy and giving me the cure for Tanin!"

Prickly spines jut out from the ground and spiral towards Eva, and the sand below her floating feet begins to swirl as if it were alive before rising up and encasing Eva in a cage of sand.

The sky starts to darken as Eva laughs. "I'm prepared to die. I only wish to watch Tanin's final moments of existence. If you kill me now, nothing changes. Hit me, be brutal! It doesn't matter." Eva's laughter continues. "Look into the sky, your fate is sealed in those clouds. Just as Tanin's fate is sealed in the curse.

The sky reaches a pitch black hue, only for a small patch of light to break through the darkened clouds. The light shines down upon Tabatha and envelops her, briefly blinding her. Tabatha tries to leap from the light's sphere of influence, but finds herself trapped within its glare. Within moments, a searing pain begins to build up in her eyes. The pain quickly begins to coarse through her body. As much as Tabatha tries to resist, she lets out a long, painful scream, much to Eva's delight. Tabatha can see no physical damage being dealt to her body, but despite this fact she still feels like she's being pulled from every direction by thousands of small, infinetly strong hands. The pain soon dissipates. While the pain only lasted for a few seconds, it had felt like a proverbial eternity. Tabatha colapses to the ground and begins to slightly sob.

"My... giving in on the first wave. I'm dissapointed in you, Tabatha." She gently brushes away the sand prison that Tabatha had constructed and walks over to Tabatha. "In a few moments wave two will strike, which will eat away at your very body. Then, even though your body will be effectively dead, the light will still shine, eroding away at your soul. It won't destroy your soul they way Tanin's soul will be afflicted, but you will be a mere shadow of your former self in the afterlife."

Fighting back the pain, Tabatha attempts to speak with Eva one more time. "Why... Eva? Even when Tanin told you....you were never THIS sadistic? What happened to you on that night that would warp your soul so?" Tabatha looks at Eva's sneering eyes with a sorrowful look." Those eyes... I understand now..." She whispers, before passing out again.

Eva stands over the fallen Tabatha, the elf still instinctively twitching from the pain that wracked her body. She smiles grimly as the air about her starts to shimmer before the form of Tanin appears before her. In his arms stood Chrysilium, and his face wore a scowl that, for the first time in centuries, causes Eva to wrench back in fear.

Eva drifts back a bit, keeping her distance from Tanin. "Were you not content with your own demise, Tanin? You could have stopped Tabatha, but you didn't. Does this satisfy some dark desire of yours?"

"What happend to you Eva? You aren't the person that confessed her love for me on that starlit night..." T sighs, sheathing Chrysilium. "I've... done some thinking." He looks over at Tabatha and frowns. With a snap of his fingers, the light surrounding Tabatha dissapears. Tabatha's contorted face relaxes into the look of a sleeping baby. With another snap of the same fingers, a bright portal opens behind Tanin. "Come Eva... it's time you found out the truth." T takes a deep breath and steps through.

Eva smiles. "Is this your final request, Tanin? Very well, I shall go with you." Eva follows him through the portal.

The waves of time ebb and flow, passing through the two travelers as they stride along the edge of the River of Fate. Years fly by, both towards the future and back into the past. Histories pass before their eyes, some faster than any mortal eye can perceive, and some at a crawl that strains the mind to witness.

"This... is what my existence is like when I am not anchored to a particular time period. I float here, barely aware, until I am dumped back into the physical realm we all know and love. Its been awhile since I've been here, since I'm particularly fond of the era I've found myself living in, so I wanted to return here one last time before the inevitable happens." Tanin walks forward along the bank of the River, his form growing younger and older with each step. "I am no longer human... or even mortal for that matter. I walk a path chosen for me since before I ever met you and Tabatha. Its a hard existance, and I have sacrificed much..." The River throbs and ebbs as T brings forth his deepest secrets at will. "I gave up something... someone... to take on this destiny. That feeling of peace-- of happiness-- that all living beings seek to achieve. I had carved out my niche, and I was happy." The stream narrows at this point, a single isle of land coming into focus, with a portal floating above it. "In exchange for my sacrifice, I was given this. A portal to the day after I left my wife and unborn child for good. A single day, given to me so I might ease the burden on my shoulders."

Tanin steps through the portal.

Eva pauses. "You talk as if your existence is a burden to you. Why do you even bother?"

Tanin turns around before dissapearing into the poral and smiles. "Because whenever I come back here, it reminds me of what I'm fighting for. Not for peace, not for all living things, but for her." Tanin gestures towards a cabin on a nearby hill. "And everyone like her. In every reality, in every time period, there is someone just like her. She may not be the person I love, or the person I bonded my soul with, but the fact that she EXISTS gives me the strength to go on. And that, Eva, is why I couldn't love you in return. If I did that I would spit in the face of all my ideals. I would crumble the very basis upon which I base my existence."

"So you long for that which you can never have. Pathetic. You have everything at your disposal. Power. Adventure. Friendship. Someone that was willing to give her life to you. Yet you long for the one thing you can never have."

"But I DO have it. Love isn't something that's tangiable. It isn't something you can hold in your hand and say 'I have found it. I have it.' It's a FEELING within you. Although I can never go back to her, our love for each other is still there. As long as that love survives, as long as that love exists, I have a reason to continue living." Shaking his head, T sits on a rock. "That is your flaw Eva. You see love as a certain thing, and if you don't see that thing then you don't believe it exists. In a way I DO love you. I love you as my friend, I love you as my companion."

Eva merely stares at Dragoon. "How can love exist when you have no way to express it. You will never be with this woman again. You can never be sure that she still loves you after all of these years. For all you know, she forgot about you and fell in love with someone else. Would you rather hang onto that mere fragment of a hope than have something guaranteed?"

"It isn't a hope Eva, it's a guarantee. THAT is what Love is, the undeniable beleif in the other person."

"Love, like everything else, can and will die."

"Love never dies Eva. How many stories are told by the bards on lovers following each other to the grave? How many wars have been fought over the coupling of a man and woman? Love may be the only thing in the Universe that truly IS immortal."

"You expect me to think that those rare exceptions are the rule? This is life Tanin. Not everyone lives this fantasy life of knighs in shining armor. You may be mistaken, since that is the role you have played all of your existence. Your own experience blinds you from reality. People fall in and out of love as easily as they put on their clothing. For most, love is fleeting. The fairy tale only plays out for a select few."

"That may be so Eva. I dare not say I speak for the entire universe. But, in my case it is. THAT is why I rejected you on that starlit night so long ago. If you are so wrapped up in your beleifs to not see that other people have their own, deeper, personal ones, then that is your decision." T turns towards the portal, ready to leave. "As for me, in the last few days of my existence, I have a friend who needs my help." T gives a mock salute to his former friend. "So long, Eva. I'm sorry that it had to end like this."

Eva grabs Tanin's arm, pulling him back to her side. "And it is your decision to do as well, expecting others to accept your own fanciful view of life. Did you ever think about what would happen when you refused me? Did you not realize that someone else besides this other woman could feel as strongly towards you? In brushing me aside as easily as you did all those years ago, did you ever take into account how I felt? You preach on and on about your devotion and your undying love, yet pay no heed to mine? Tell me how you can easily accept love from one person and not another. Is my love somehow inferior? Tell me how you can crush another's feelings and feel justified."

"I don't feel justifyed in crushing another persons feeling Eva. That night... you forced me to make a descision that I had hoped to put off for much longer. To love someone I could never see, yet vowed my soul to, or to accept and embrace the future, represented in you. I waged a silent war on that night, between my feelings for you and my feelings for her. It came down to this. It wasn't a matter of who I loved more. It wasn't about which girl, or which time period. It came down to me. How strong were my morals? How strong were my convictions? Was I willing to sacrifice all I held dear to embrace something else? Were my belifs merely something I clung to until something nicer looking came along? The answer, Eva, was no. I couldn't love you, just as I couldn't abandon myself. To love you would be to cave into the pressure that assaults me everyday. I truly felt sorry when I had to reject your feelings Eva, and to this day that night still pains me. But you have to realize, you are one person. Because someone else doesn't share the same feelings as you does that justify you bearing them hatred? Do I kill the orc because he has beleifs different then mine? No. I kill him because he would kill me if I didn't. The way you feel love Eva, is the universaly wrong way to view it. It is fine to love someone, but to expect that feeling to be mutual, simply because you say it should be... I'd rather kill myself then live in a world like that."

For the first time in almost 100 years, Eva feels tears forming in her eyes. "And you yourself are one person. You still forget that you too hurt me in the process. You can talk all you want about how it 'pains' you, but it does nothing for me. You crashed every hope and dream I had, and you expect me to just go about my life. In rejecting me, you killed me on a metaphoric level. I simply didn't share your universal view. My purpose was gone, and as such, I retaliated in turn. Death for a Death, yours being far more literal."

"Would you rather I have accetped? Entered into a love where you would never truly recieve what you want? Would you rather have lived in a lie then in the truth?"

"Live a lie, a waking death. Or have my dreams crushed forever, another waking death. I had no decision, either way I was damned."

T smiles and puts his hand on Eva's shoulder. "And now you understand, since I had the same decision to face. The classic damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario."

"And I hope you understand as well."

"I think we were the victim of a cruel fate Eva, as clichéd as that sounds. We ended up in a situation where no matter what happened we'd end up being hurt." T offers Eva his hand. "What do you say we put it behind us?"

Eva lifts her hand and accepts Tanin's with a sob. A slight light emmits from her hand and encircles Tanin before fading away. "So be it. I need not play the puppet anymore."

"Puppet? Eva, what are you talking about?"

Eva turns her back on Tanin. "Nothing."

Tanin's eyes go wide. "Seriosuly. Please Eva, tell me."

Eva falls silent for some time. Then, with a sign of unwillingness, she speaks. "You... were never the ultimate target of my spell..."