6 {}

In the blink of an eye, Elisia was somewhere entirely different. Taken from her world and dropped.

Literally. She was falling. Albeit very slowly. No air rushed about her, but she was weightless, floating in the ether. Desperately she looked around, this way and that, only to see black. Absolute darkness. Even her arms and legs were hidden from her.

The sensation was like sinking in a waterless river. It all felt like a dream. She pinched herself - still here. She reached all around with open hands, but they found no purchase.

On their own she felt her legs beginning to rise, her head starting to tip. Elisia tried to right herself up, but only managed to make it worse. Now she slowly rotated, so that her head faced down, and her eyes looked-

A soft thud, but no splat.

Several seconds passed. Elisia remained frozen against the floor. After questioning her morality, and then answering the question when a dull pain flowed through her, with a wince she pealed herself up off the ground. It shifted beneath her. She was too distracted to notice.

Now standing she took everything in. It didn't take long. Everything stubbornly remained black, the air was still and had a bitter taste.

All she heard was her irregular breathing, along with her quickening heart. The silence was suffocating.

"Hello?" She stammered. Where am I? What the hell is this?

"Hello?" She tried again, a little louder.

"Hellooooooo!" She screamed. only to hear her voice echo far and wide before the silence swallowed it whole. This time she got a response, a rumbling in the distance. Blood pumped in her ears like cannons.

A trickling of light underneath. Looking down she saw it emanated from the sword, the same blue glow from that hags magic. It radiated her person, her ruined slippers and worn dress. The illuminated ground sparkled, Elisia lightly kicked it, and a spray of yellow grains shot up. Sand.

The rumbling grew louder. The ground began to shake. Something was coming, and she wasn't sticking around to find out what.

Against her better judgement she grabbed the sword. Take me back. Seconds passed with it in her hand.

"Common-common-common-hurry up." Elisia said, shaking the sword. "What's wrong with you." Elisia took her hand off the hilt, and put it back. "Get me out of here!" She screamed. The noise had become deafening, vibrations rocking the void. She looked up helpless to the darkness.

Suddenly, two things happened.

First there was a bright flash of blue light. It shot up all around her, a thin translucent ring of blue; it flew high into the black. At the base of this ring, archaic symbols of light beamed around. Runes?

Secondly the ear-splitting rumbling reached her.

Elisia limply held the sword up against whatever tunneled towards her. She looked away, whimpered, took a sharp intake of breath and held.

The ground stood still. The rumbling cut-off instantly. There was only a light rustle.

Glancing back Elisia watched as from the depths of the darkness, a wave of sand pushed through the blue light and rushed towards her, losing all its strength and giving out by her feet; covering them.

Everything hushed to a murmur.

"I'm warning you." She shouted into the abyss, the steel fidgeted in her shaky grip. "I-" her voice faltered in the deathly quiet. "I have a sword."

A faint rattling.

"Who are you?" This is madness. My mind is playing tricks.

Or at least she thought. Until in the dark, up high. Two red slits appeared. They hovered in the air. They stretched, soon becoming two ruby orbs. Elisia took a step back, her mouth open.

A being spoke. It's tone deep like rolling thunder, rich like wine - it made the ground shudder and Elisia gulp.

"I should ask you that. Who dares awaken me from my rest?" It boomed, making her hair fly, and her dress flutter. "Is that you Zenrod?" The two red orbs, easily the size of a short man - lowered. "No." It breathed, bringing to mind images to mind of a howling breeze, frozen lands and ice-capped mountains. "I haven't seen you before, mortal."

Elisia's stomach curled. She wanted to scream, to run. But where to?

"So the sword has passed yet again." It hissed. "Come closer, let me get a good look at you child."

Elisia stood rooted, her whole body trembling and a sword limply held high.

"Are you going to kill me?" Elisia peeped.

"Kill you?" It mused, contemplating the idea a little longer than Elisia would have preferred. "Whatever for? There's hardly any meat on you - a most unsatisfactory meal. Now...as a toothpick perhaps."

"Please...don't."

Then it chuckled.

"I jest. Besides, this pesky barrier keeps me away and even if I could, I wouldn't." That at least, gave Elisia some comfort. "Now, get over here."

Screaming inside, she obeyed. Heavy feet moved forward. Those red eyes watched her, and with every step they got bigger and bigger. She stopped just before the thin blue veil of light.

"What is your name, child?"

"E-E-" She swallowed hard. "Elisia."

"Elisia." It said the name absently, as if in deep thought. "A funny name."

A pause. Elisia looked into those eyes, taller than her even and they seemed to strip her bare.

"Since you so kindly asked. I, of course, am Bakkut."

"N-n-n-"

"Destroyer of empires, plague of the east, his holy eminence, etcetera etcetera, the list goes on." Below the eyes, Elisia caught a glimpse of numerous rows of teeth like white spires. They gleamed in a gash-like grin. It horrified her.

"Nice to meet you." She squeaked.

"I'm sure it is. Now tell me, what have you heard of me?"

"Heard?"

"Rhymes with bird, word, tu-"

"Oh." The question took her by surprise. "Nothing."

"That's impossible, how do you have the sword?"

A flicker of irritance.

"An old hag traded it to me, well not yet, I'm testing it."

"An old hag? That can't - what of Zenrod?"

"I don't know - I never heard."

The being muttered something murderous under its breath.

"Forget him then." It hissed, muttering something viscous to itself. "Tell me more of this old hag."

"Not much to say, I only met her today." Elisia huffed, forgetting her fear. "She said she had a magical sword to trade, I told her I wanted to test it to see if it works and when I grabbed it, I was sent here."

"Funny, I could feel someone was leeching upon my magic but they never visited...How rude...all this time...and now you. Looks like you're my new master then."

"Master? How can that be?"

"The sword controls me and you control the sword, ergo you now control me. So what'll it be?" The same soft rattle in the distance.

"I don't know." Elisia replied plainly.

"You wanted to test the sword correct?"

"Yes."

"See if it works?"

She nodded.

"Well then, what about a taste?"

Elisia grew quiet. She'd grown cautious and reluctant ever since she grabbed the sword, but she also wanted to try it out. An indecisive war raged on within her.

"Come on Elisia." It said hissing once more. "A lick of power - real power."

How could she say yes? She was out of her depth, out of her league. It could end a million ways, this thing could be tricking her, it could kill her. What was to stop it from lying after all?

"Carve the world out the way you want. Surely you have a need for it?"

How could she say no? She did need it. Even as a Duchess she was powerless, so easily imposable that an old wretch could demand to see her. She was sick of it, all her life living on the whims of others, of the Duke, the council, the people and them.

"There has to be some wrong to be righted, an enemy to be put straight."

She clenched her hand, and unclenched. She remembered, taking a younger Elisia, one when she wasn't a Duchess, hand in hand around her life. Pointing and showing. She ran off, Elisia chased. The horrified look. Again and again and again.

A familiar anger bubbled up within her, a fire blazed alight, coals glowed red hot.

"There you go." It breathed. "Now we're getting there."

Elisia followed the little girls gaze, and what did she see?

Old wounds, healed over but not healed. They'd been covered, and cleaned, but not treated. So, the rot spread, reaching out with it's black tendrils; infecting everything it could touch. All the while Elisia had to smile through the pain.

She turned her chin up, gazed defiantly into those towering red eyes, those teeth like daggers. Her fear completely gone.

"Okay." She said through grit teeth. "Give me a taste."

"Put your hand through the barrier then."

Caution complained, fear warned. She didn't care. She outstretched her unscarred hand and touched the barrier, it resisted like putting it through a waterfall.

All she could see was the rot. Black as a starless night. She was blind to the rest.

Her hand plunged through the barrier, it cackled irritably around her fingers.

Like a soldier, with an infected wound on the arm that had been left to fester, there comes a time when it's too late to treat. Or heal.

At that point there's only one option left. Hack the whole thing off.

A faint scream ripped through the abyss.