Tifa & Sparkles (Darkhunter)

[Tifa Lockhart]

As the sword sung through the air Andraste had felt herself start to become comfortable with the weight of the weapon, and the force she needed to exert to use it. It started to feel like her mind was IN the sword, like she was thinking with the weapon rather than her body.
Then she saw it, an opening in his guard, the dagger falling away so that there was nothing the block her oncoming strike. She felt a triumphant heat start to rise, a bitterness tanging her tongue. She felt her senses prickle, her vision tunneling as if to zero in on the unprotected spots, the now exposed places where she could do the most damage. The heat in her veins grew intense, and her excitement began to reach a fever pitch.

Then she realised what she was doing.

With a shriek she turned her body, turning the momentum of the swing into a throw, launching the sword away from Rayne and herself, leaving him unharmed and herself unarmed.

[Sparkles]

He could feel her excitement, could taste the acid rising up behind it and was slightly taken aback, though he knew what was happening - the knowledge of her capabilities and the outlet to express them was more than enough to spark the hunger of the powers inside her. 'Maybe it will be easier than I believed', he thought a millisecond before Andraste flung the sword away.
His eyes widening, he dropped the dagger, his moves unprepared but graceful none-the-less, and launched himself after the blade, catching it by the blade as it began to clatter on the stone floor.
Righting himself, he ran his bloodied fore-finger along the hilt without wiping the blood on it, his inspection thorough.
His breathing had picked up not from exhaustion but from the stress of the thought that the hilt would be damaged; it now calmed down, but he continued to stare at the hilt, at the finely cut gems embedded along it.
A silence..."There was a point to that, you know" his voice was casual, but there was an edge of anxiety to it as he held the sword closer to him and looked up at Andraste.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Andraste had already lowered herself to her knees and was hugging herself as she sobbed, eyes screwed shut. She was terrified of that... power. The rage that seemed to build up inside her now each time her adrenalin started pumping.
"I don't care. I don't want to," she choked when she heard Rayn speak.

[Sparkles]

Taking a breath to steady himself, Rayn walked across the marble floor to gently place the short sword back in its mantle before taking the edges of the desk in his hands and leaning forward onto it. "Firstly... I'm impressed with your reaction time." he tried his hardest to dull out the sounds of her sobbing behind him. Next time someone came for her.. and there was guaranteed to be a next time.. he couldn't promise to be there... "Secondly, I'm unimpressed that you foolishly left yourself unarmed."

[Tifa Lockhart]

Andraste wiped her eyes with an arm then, before turning to glare at him angrily.
"I don't want to be what you're trying to turn me in to!" she snarled, surprising herself with the acid in her tone.

[Sparkles]

Rayn's lips turned down in a sharp frown as he turned around to face the woman behind him. Just as he was parting his lips to respond, a loud resounding crash rang through the room, coming from one of the many hallways off to the side.
Narrowing his eyes at both the noise and Andraste, he left to go find its source. If anyone had dare intrude into his house while he was in his mood....

The hallway extended into another hall, through this one was rather smaller and not as dressed up. There was, however, a statue of a Grecian woman staring off into the distance with a handkerchief held to her cheek by one delicate porcelain hand. The statue that was, as it were, in 6 pieces on the ground.

With anger colouring his purely masculine features, Rayn glared at his squire.
When Aiden looked up at Rayn, his eyes bulging, he dropped the piece of the statue that he was holding onto. It promptly shattered against the marble, spreading out at his feet.

His features unchanging, Rayn's eyes followed the disregarded skateboard that was slowely continuing to make its way across the room.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Andraste stayed where she was when Rayn left to investigate the noise. She remained kneeling for a while, but as her hysterics ebbed she slowly gathered herself up. She was just brushing the creases out of her clothes when her head suddenly felt as if it might explode. Fire filled her brain, pounding against the back of her eyes. She choked, her knees buckling as the pain became blinding. For a while she tried to hold back her cries of agony, but eventually a shriek slipped through her lips.

Visions began to bleed through the haze of pain. She was running, charging through a battlefield. The sky was red like blood, and the earth beneath trampled until it was muddy, thick with the fluids of felled bodies that lay strewn and pulpy on the ground in mounds. She could feel the sick excitement coursing through her as she sliced through her foes. The screams of agony were defeaning, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She wanted to shed more blood, she wanted to taste its tang on her tongue.

She shrieked with agony and terror, clutching her head with fingers that hooked into her scalp like claws.

[Sparkles]

[Wow.. awesome post!]

Hearing the shriek that came from back down in the hallway, both Rayn and Aiden headed back towards the hall at a sprint.
Arriving first, Rayn had his throwing daggers, his weapons of choice, clutched in both of his hands and ready to be thrown. Surprised by the lack of anyone else's presence, he stopped walking and watched Andraste for a few elongated moments, giving Aiden time to catch up.
"Get away from her you-!" Aiden came up behind Rayn, but on seeing no one around, and knowing there was no one on account of Rayn's lack of movement, he ran over to the woman who was clutching her head and almost breaking her skin with her nails. "ANDY! Andy what's wrong?! Andy, stop it" he grabbed her hands and tried to force them away from her head, "Andy listen to me! You're fine! There's no one here!"
With both his voice and his expression desperate, Aiden looked back to where the darkhunter stood, unmoving, his expression one of concentration.

"I can't hear anything.." he said as his eyes met Aidens, "She's blocking me out. You have to get her to calm down."

[Tifa Lockhart]

Andraste screamed as Aiden touched her, and abruptly she pushed out, trying to force whoever it was away from her. Her eyes were hazed over and slightly luminescent.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" she screamed, the fire burning stronger and stronger in her veins as the rage grew, fueled by the horrible images that still flashed through her mind, making her thirst for blood.
"Make it stop!"
She arched backwards, still gripping her head as she shrieked.
"That won't be me! It won't be me!"

[Sparkles]

Upon hearing the genuine distress in her voice, Rayn warned Aiden with a look passed between them and slowly walked over to Andraste. His methods were not full proof in any way, but if Aiden had not calmed her with calming words, then they would have to try another method.

Snaking his left arm around her waist, Rayn pulled Andraste back to himself so that her back was solidly against his chest. "That is your destiny only if you choose it to be." he feverently whispered to her, 'We choose our destinies, they do not choose us."
Being a living example of someone who defied the destiny the fates had given him, he knew what he was saying.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Andraste's screams cut off with a choke as Rayn pulled her in close. She warbled softly for a minute as her tears continued to flow before she buried her face in his chest, crying softly.
The fire began to ebb and the painful images disperse. She was left quivering and hysterical though, shaken by the gore and the violence that for a moment in time had been committed seemingly by her hands.

[Sparkles]

He tightened his left arm around her lower back as Andraste turned to bury her face in his chest. His free hand he lifted to her upper back, where he proceeded to rub small comforting circles. "You have the power," he whispered into her ear, "to control and destroy the whole of the human race...it is not your choice whether or not you accept that power, but it is your choice how you use that power and what you use it for."

Aiden, feeling out of place upon seeing Rayn in what Aiden considered a sickeningly tender moment, retreated back into the smaller side-hall to go try clean up the mess he'd made before Rayn remembered.

[Tifa Lockhart]

"That won't be me," Andraste would begin chanting again, repeating the words over and over like some sort of personal mantra. It seemed to be helping her calm at any rate. When she was finally completely back in her own head she lifted her eyes.
"Don't let that be me..." she whispered.

[Sparkles]

Rayn softly smiled, "Your father was always like that. His entire people were always like that. They reeked havoc everywhere they went." He brushed a stray lock of black and green hair back from her tear streaked face with the hand that had been on her upper back, "but you have a human mother - and from what you've said about her, I don't believe she could raise a monster"

[Tifa Lockhart]

Andraste gave another soft sob as Rayn explained that her father and his race had just been like that... destructive and violence. She didn't want to end up like that...
"If I learn to use a sword, won't I end up like that?" she asked, still not so sure she could control that instinctive urge to shed blood that seemed to rise in her veins every time she got her adrenalin pumping. Be it through fear for her life or excitement at wielding the sword.