Curse

Storm Crow · Apr 22, 2007, 05:10 AM // 05:10

Well, I've done it again. I recently started a roleplay with one of my friends (you may know her from here as Hecate Lyonset) on her forum. This roleplay is based on the Prophecies storyline, and maybe we'll go into the Factions and Nightfall as well, but that will be long in coming. The update progress on this will be very slow, because my friend has about two dozen other projects she's working on now for other things. We both procrastinate quite a bit and she's finally gotten tired of it and has declared a probably month or two long hiatus. I'm not sure if this will get rave reviews, because most of you are probably tired of reading my works, but I shall post this nonetheless. Enjoy!

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"No!" They said in unison.

"I'm sorry, girls," The professor started, "But there is no way around it. There is only one advanced Elementalist class, and you both signed up for it."

"What if I revert to the standard class?" Alicia offered, staring daggers at the girl standing next to her. She would do anything in Tyria but be in the same class as that scum.

"There is no way you can back out now, dear. You got yourself into this." The professor spoke in a soft tone; as if suddenly sorry for the girls' predicament.

"Professor, please. There must be some way that we can take separate classes. I would hate to leave poor Alicia in my dust." The other girl, Hecate, spoke smoothly. Alicia started to grumble and her jaw reverberated slowly.

"Now, Hecate, be nice. You are taking this class together and no amount of whining can get you out of it. Please, go back to your dormitory and refrain from beginning a fight."

Alicia turned on her heel and threw open the professor's door, stomping out and muttering an incantation. Small flames grew bigger around both of her hands. When she reached the small courtyard a few meters from the professor’s door, she screamed the last word at the top of her lungs, thrusting her hands out before herself in a rage. The flame flew from her hands, striking a tree with full force, sending it up in a violent flame. She stood, her shoulders heaving with enraged breath and her fists clenched tightly. Her silver hair glinted in the light from the fire. Hecate walked up behind her, quietly uttering a spell that sent a wave of frost over the flaming tree.

Alicia turned again, "This is your fault! Yours!" She stormed off toward her room, not allowing Hecate a word edgewise.

Alicia was at one time friends with Hecate. They had shared a room since they had first been admitted a year and a half before. Roommates were randomly chosen by the professors based on a students chosen line of study. Alicia and Hecate were both Elementalists. They were friendly at first, and they had fun studying together, but after the first six months of their rommateship, things began to take a turn for the worse. They began to grow very competitive with one another after Alicia had played a trick on Hecate. They both strived to be better than the other in every field, from Fire magic to dancing. They then began to loathe one another; hating with a silent vengeance. They had torn up their dormitory on more than one occasion from getting into a good fight, but were not separated due to the lack of sufficient rooms.

She threw open the door, slamming it behind her and throwing the lock that she knew Hecate had a key to. She fell face first onto her bed and screamed into her pillow. Several moments later, a levelheaded Hecate walked in the door. Alicia got up, grabbed her linen towel from a chair, and walked out.

"I'm going to take a shower. Don't wait up."

Hecate turned to stare at the Elementalist before turning back her gaze to its previous occupation. She scoffed to herself with that statement having been said. Don't wait for her? How juvenile.

She ran her fingers through her short red hair as a sign of aggravation. Alicia's unneeded reaction to the poor trees had her almost fuming, but at the same time, entirely amused with her short fuse.

She moved from her stand by the door, and walked toward the beds near each other. The pitiful arguments they would have at night, while trying to get rest, were ultimately amusing in the offset of the morning. Hecate would attire herself and giggle from the thoughts of the brash Alicia.

She shook her head. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. It wasn't possible. Heaving a heavy sigh, Hecate's almond-shaped pale green hues landed on a shattered shape. One that made her heart wrench with pain. The pain of memories of a time when Alicia and Hecate had been friends. In her spare time, Hecate had always enjoyed art. It appeared that Alicia never understood, but she tried to. They had been friends at that time. Hecate had somehow convinced her roommate to enter a competition and help her make an abstract sculpture of Lyssa. However, instead of having different pieces to shape her and connect them together, Hecate had very thin abstract shapes connecting each piece. It made the piece fragile, and that's probably when their friendship started going on the rocks. Hecate was an artist, and Alicia simply wasn't.

They'd gotten into another little dispute the other day, and Alicia had managed to shatter it to pieces. Needless to say, saying Hecate cried herself to sleep was an understatement. Even though they weren't exactly "close" didn't mean that the piece meant nothing to the red-haired Pyromancer. It held a great deal of sentimental value to her, and Alicia's shattering it nearly sent her into a mad frenzy.

Gingerly, she caressed the broken pieces with her abnormally pale hands. She held them like newborn infants and traced her fingers along each severed edge, each crack. Her throat began to clench, and she felt herself at the verge of tears it seemed. Her eyes almost felt to have doubled in size, and a sudden pain formed in her vocal chord area. In an abrupt rage, she slammed the pieces down on the table and stormed out the room. At that exact moment, Alicia had finished her shower. She saw the door slam shut and even the shivering shattered pieces. She felt like laughing now, but the bottled-up rage still tormented her. Feeling she might regret it later, she took the pieces, and promptly discarded them into the trash.

Hecate's flat boots clicked on the sides of the courtyard streets merrily, completely opposing her current mood. She felt horrible. She felt like crying. She felt like running away. She even felt like setting all of Alicia's belongings aflame. Perhaps her body as well...

She shook her head, eyes closing momentarily to block her from seeing the girl running quite hurriedly along her path. They collided simultaneously with each other, and fell to their bottom ends in the middle of the courtyard.

"I--" Hecate had already had a bad day, and she didn't need more added onto her plate.

"Dear Dwayna! I'm so sorry Kitty!" A familiar voice called out to her, laced heavily with sorrow. "I'm sorry I can't stay longer, there's an emergency and they need all available healing help!" She explained herself briefly to Hecate. She then replaced some strands of blonde bangs from her eyes, and took off.

"W-wait!" Hecate called, standing up and brushing off any dist that may have accumulated on her attire. She had to run to catch up to the galloping Monk.

"The diagnosis?" The red haired Elementalist asked her Monk friend. "Third degree burns on 70% of the body. It's unknown if the person, or people, is/are still alive." She gave it off professionally. Hecate smiled lightly; Anelaiya was becoming the good Monk she dreamed of.

"Prognosis of any type?" She asked, genuinely worried about this person.

"No; may Dwayna help their poor souls."

They arrived at the scene of a single body lying on the ground. It appeared to be that of a male, and he looked to be lying in some sort of ashes. Hecate tilted her head to the side curiously, and bit her lip. This person... looked as if he had been burned all over his body.

"Anelaiya, Hecate..." One of the instructors murmured sorrowfully. Anelaiya's eyes seemed to fill with a sudden knowing, and she approached the lifeless body. Hecate understood the tone as well.

They were late.

The person had died. But... from what? For what purpose?

Hecate kneeled at the side, and stared at the body. The intricate designs and scars of flaky skin that the flame had left upon stealing this young student's life... it was beautiful. She hadn't looked at arson as art before, but with the sight before her... It was simply amazing. True beauty. Every flake of skin, every burned patch, every new scar, every intricate detail of the burnt skin. It left a tingling in her bosom.

She'd managed to catch herself before she reached out and touched it, and turned away shamefully. Defiling the dead by doing such... it was dishonorable. Anelaiya had also knelt next to the body, said a quick prayer, and pulled Hecate away from the body.

"That flame wasn't normal..."

And so, this was the beginning of a new obsession and a historical event in time.

Alicia sat on her bed with a heavy heart. Her elbows lit on her knees, and her hands buried her soft porcelain features. She gave a slow, exasperated sigh; her ears were ringing again...or were they?

She picked her head up and listened intently. It was not her ears that were ringing - it was Nolani's bell.

She jumped up and went to the door. A clamor of students was being ushered through the hallways by professors, some with their weapons still in hand, and some with fresh and unattended wounds. She tried to stop several of the professors, but they just ignored her and tried to keep order of their pupils. There was no way she could push herself through and into the crowd, and she was about to go back into her room before she heard an all-too-familiar voice.

"Alicia!" A boy called from the throng of students. He pushed his way through the crowd toward her. She retreated back into her room and grabbed her wand and focus before latching herself around his neck and scrambling up onto his back. He handed her his staff and she put it between the two of them so it wouldn't get lost in the scuffle.

"What's going on?" Alicia asked over the din of the students.

"I'm not exactly sure. All I know is that they're evacuating everyone."

"Do you think..?" Alicia's voice trailed off. She had never put as much trust into the Great Wall as others had.

"Licia, please don't start on this again. The Charr are no smarter than a skale."

"Vanatiel, sometimes I think you're no smarter than a skale. These...things...they're smart. They understand strengths and weaknesses. They have an army for Balthazar's sake!"

"Alicia Pyrrah Stormcrow. I love you, but you are one hell of a crazy girl. The Charr could never think of a way around that wall. It couldn't happen."

By this time they had gotten to the Grand Hall of the Academy. Vanatiel let Alicia off his back to stand beside him as students filed out. Everyone was told to be quiet and go quickly to the Ashford Abbey, a five-minute walk from the Academy, but even the first students out the doors, respectable near-graduates, went screaming instead of in silence. A great thunder was heard, and more students inside screamed in panic. People were shoving and screaming to get through the door and toward the Abbey. It wasn't until she was almost there that Alicia understood why.

Great crystalline meteors fell from every corner of the sky. She stopped in the doorway and stared at them.

"Alicia, come on!" Vanatiel grabbed her by the wrist, attempting to pull her through the door.

She didn't move, but instead wrenched her arm from his grasp and ran back through the door toward the back of the Grand Hall.

"Alicia!" Vanatiel screamed her name one last time before another meteor slammed square into the center of the Hall.

Several professors hurried the last students out of the doors and toward the Abbey as more meteors fell haphazardly on and around the Academy. When they took a headcount and roll call in the safety of the Catacombs, it was estimated that eighty students were unaccounted for. That was eighty letters that had to be written to parents explaining that their children were dead, and eighty empty casket ceremonies to attend.

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Well, this is it for now. As I said, the update progress on this will be very very slow, but leave your comments and criticisms and all will be well.

Tally ho, loves!

Golden Knight · Apr 24, 2007, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Well, for the third thread I've read this year, pretty good. It's refreshing to see another of your roleplays, Storm. Especially after I left -.-.

Hecate Lyonset · May 17, 2007, 12:08 AM // 00:08

-shakes fist- You didn't tell me you were posting it on here, young ladeh! D: I commands for you to give me an explanation. I COMMANDS IT! >_<

Storm Crow · May 17, 2007, 01:11 AM // 01:11

It's Guild Wars related, it gives us more publicity, and you frankly don't care.

Hecate Lyonset · May 17, 2007, 11:51 AM // 11:51

Actually, I don't care. I was looking to up my post count xDDD