[Self-mod] Honour's Path: Part II

[Cerius]

Cerius' hand reached out tentatively. He couldn't stand staring out behind these twisted black bars anymore, with the waking world merely a dream floating outside his prison. He watched through Jakob's eyes as the twisted elf danced a deadly tango with Laura, an elven master of the arts, brutally unpredictable, going toe to toe with a creature born of the very heavens. He knew the destruction Jakob was capable of, seeing thousands dead with a single spell in Zerdagia. He had to stop them, to fight his way through the wards that his alter-ego had set up within his own mind. His right hand made contact with one of the bars that held him prisoner within his own body, and jerked back violently.

Emotion.

This was a waking nightmare.

The bar was crafted of emotion, all the emotions that Cerius had locked away during his vigil since his reformation. They burned, a mass of despair, pain, anguish, sadness, loneliness, and loss mixed with fear. The positive emotions should have been there too, but they had long since festered, unrequited love and joy withheld. Through the bars, swords of pure power appeared in the hands of both the Angel and Jakob, and the aetherial blades clashed in mid air. Cerius had heard of this phenomena before, dark thaumaturgists who held within them the power to draw upon the Celestial Plane without feeling any side effects of that contact. He had never thought he would ever see one work. He had never dreamt he would become one.

Thrusting his hand towards the twisted bars of essence that kept him prisoner, the elf grit his teeth. He could not grasp them, the emotions eluding him at every turn. He had to move them. He had to get out, to save Laura. He had to overpower Jakob.

The pain coursed through his body, not physical pain but decades of pent up emotion. It was too much, and the elf fell away from the bars, and his presence there writhing with the years. With a shock, Cerius realised that his leg was burning with pain - Laura's blade had struck home while his effort to break free had Jakob distracted.

So be it. If he died for an innocent, then so be it.

The elf threw himself at the bars, not caring about the emotion that wracked his body. If he couldn't break free, then he and Jakob would both die anyway.

In mid-flight, Jakob froze, eyes wide. His sword flickered, then simply vanished. His limbs wouldn't move. His mind didn't work. He could not control his body.