Change is Constant

[Dread]

---

​

It's been so long, my old friend. I've almost forgotten what it was like to travel with you, to fight with your aid or deal with your humor. You were always the clown, I always your number one critic. Your jokes may not of been clever, nor mildly amusing, but thinking back on it I can't help but chuckle inwardly at your attempts. It must of been one tough self-appointed job. There is no easy way to get a genuinely innocent laugh out of a man such as myself.

You were right to worry about me, I convinced myself that all the secrets I kept spun between the others helped me, but my work has only furthered my paranoia. Perhaps with time I will peel back the layers and give light to some truths. However, I admit that I do enjoy the thrill of it all, even if it is accompanied by madness.

Time demands change, some change has called for acceptance of situations I have no clear understanding of. One would be yours. I know not your location, why you're not here by my side as you had been, why you betray our brotherhood, but that is the way of things.

Arcane, when you read this letter, understand that I hope you find peace with it as I have. Know that you no longer have a home within the Pentacle. Consider yourself a exile by all means, and watch your back. One day you may find that the shadows on your walls follow you as you walk through your new home.

---​

A hand written letter folded, tucking into a brown envelope before falling between the pages of a open book. With a snap and a whoosh the book closed itself and sored steadily across a large open space, it's black surface catching all the light sources of the room before slipping away out of sight, into a shelve.

With his eyelids half closed, Wraith's expression lost some of it's previous gloom. The faintest of grins started to replace his frown. His mood began to shift from something of depressed one into partly relaxed. Something about finishing the letter to Arcane brought about a great sense of relief to him. Maybe it was a little bit over-dramatic to write a letter that may never be read, one assuming betrayal nonetheless, but it's meaning meant a lot to Wraith. Arcane had been missing for a year now, without a single sign of communication. He had only left a letter of departure that read: "Don't wait up for me." It was possible Arcane was dead after all this time. Wraith believed otherwise and would not allow his return, if Arcane had planned on it.

His masked face turned to face the twin doors of the forbidden library. The arrival of a important man was expected fairly soon. This man was known to Wraith as Apostle, who also happened to be one of the Order's Hashish; Hashish was a secret rank, a rank that got many killed. Apostle had been able to keep the title for longer then any of his predecessors. Clearly, Apostle was a being of noteworthy skill.

Wraith lazily leaned back into his chair, the bunched up cloth of his outfit rustled as he moved around in the throne-sized chair in attempt to find a comfortable position. Suddenly both his hands tensed into balls of fists and he writhed in pain before unfolding his hands a few seconds later. It was his old scar and his mind playing tricks on him again. The damned scar sometimes felt like it surged with pain, even if Wraith knew it was not possible. At least he didn't think it was... There was something about the memory of getting the scar that continuously haunted him. The old Grandmaster often found himself returning to the memory of the moment it had happened. Wraith shook his head to try to push aside the thought. After a handful of seconds he managed to relax again, and with that his eyelids grew heavy and rested.

Wraith sat perfectly still as he waited. The force pulsed outwards around his stilled figure, covering the room around him; he wouldn't be taken by surprise by anyone. Those who walked through the wake of his power would alert him immediately... that was at least what he assumed.

 

[Jake]

*~*​

Flashback (I'll continue this in subsequent posts, it's already too long for one)

Apostle. A fitting name for the one that walks with gods.

He trod along the beaten path, a laurel branch threaded through his hair. Today was a good day, a special day. Ledo's mind had filled him with more secrets than he cared to count, given him more knowledge than he was sure what to do with. Experiences, memories, sensations that he couldn't place, dancing along the edge of his mind. Reality felt like a fragile dream, pliable to the touch, ready and willing to be manipulated and bent into the form Belial pleased. There were more lights in his eyes than ever, like souls drifting through the river Styx, or stars across the nighttime sky, pulled around like drowning fireflies.

He didn't know what planet he was on. He couldn't remember. Everything had blurred into indistinct haze; since Ledo's destruction his whole life had felt like a deathstick high, sans the repercussions. His lungs didn't feel sticky with nicotine tar, no, instead every breath tasted like sweet medicine that helped push him higher into the clouds.

He could see it in the distance now: a shallow cave, mouth a foreboding abyss that stared out at Belial like a great yawning beast. His skin glistened with perspiration, hair falling in disheveled tangles around his shoulders. A bead of sweat fell off the tip of his nose and his tongue caught it before it could hit the ground.

Belial may have been dreaming, but it was a lucid dream, and he remembered why he had come.

The embers of a fire cast the grotto's wall with its red glow. The smell of woodsmoke was thick in the air. Arcane's shape materialized from the darkness, face concealed behind an almost featureless mask. Despite his attempts to hide it, he also looked far scrawnier than the last time Belial had seen him at the enclave; weeks of isolation added up, picking away at him. He did not look weak, however; far to the contrary, his sojourn seemed to have hardened him considerably. In place of his regal poise he had a grizzly quality about him, a wiry strength to his gangly limbs.

"Brother Apostle," he said, voice weary. "I did not recognize you without your mask... but I could not forget your very unique footprint in the Force. I don't know if we've had the pleasure of meeting each other, but I have heard much about y--"

"You ran away from home, Arcane." He could barely see Arcane from where he stood, swaying drunkenly, mad with power. Every nerve in his body begged for sweet release, his synapses played a piano symphony of fire that urged him on. Belial couldn't help but revert into a state of child-like glee when he was like this - of course, he'd only ever been like this once before, the day that he had slain Aiden Dekker. And that high had felt like standing on a hill compared to this mountain.

Arcane seemed to sense something was wrong; Belial felt a spike in his Force-heightened awareness. He could smell the fear dripping off him like a dog. He swept his tongue across his lips.

"Apostle?" Arcane asked, tone hesitant, hand lowered to his waist. A vicious two-pronged lightsaber waited their, dual emitters gleaming in the harsh glare of the sun.

"Apostle, I don't know what's wrong with you, but I left the Pentacle Athame as your proud brother. I just need this, a little time away to collect my thoughts." As if on cue, a distant bird tweeted happily. The crickets chirped their soliloquy.

They were only a few meters from each other then.

"There's nothing wrong with me, Arcane. I just can't afford to let you come back," Belial retorted, and unceremoniously blasted a wave of kinetic energy at the man. He reacted with a blast of his own, the two colliding waves mingling in mid-air to explode outward in a shockwave that flattened every blade of grass on the sward.

It had begun.

~*~​

Sobered by days of meditation after his encounter with Arcane, the Hashish entered Wraith's throne room with hands clasped behind his back, sporting a Hanya mask and white robes that completely hid his dusky skin. He had not forsaken his sense of vanity, however. Armlets dangled off his sleeves, and gold amulets were looped around his neck, studded with exotic gemstones. Belial's lavish taste in fashion had not lessened whatsoever.

"Hello, Wraith," Apostle said in his breathy murmur of a voice. "I offer my condolences for Arcane. I was aware of your closeness."

Beneath his mask, a smile played off his lips.

 

[Dread]

Just as Apostle finished his greeting Wraith opened his eyes, a pained look had glossed over them after hearing it. 'Condolences for Arcane', Apostle had said, and those words rang through Wraith's head a hundred times over, unsettling him. It almost set the mood to that of a funeral's. But Wraith couldn't let his train of thought get too far off the point of the meeting.

"Thank you, though his absence brings change, and sometimes change is needed." He answered, projecting a confident tone, attempting to cover up his discomfort.

Wraith's hand lifted off his chair and gestured towards Arcane's council chair. "Have a seat, brother." He offered, partly out of politeness, the other part he was sure Apostle had some take on. Though he didn't care if the man ended up sitting or not. They would have many things to talk about, but small talk and pleasantries would likely be kept to a minimum, making their meeting short and to the point. The Grandmaster believed that the closeness 'brotherhood' among the higher-up - the laid back way some things were discussed before - would fade into obscurity through time. Arcane's untimely departure had just kick started the process.

"You have done more then most in your time within the Pentacle, Apostle." He began, taking in a long breath, "I take note of everything that happens in the walls of my Order, and believe your work should be taken in account for Arcane's replacement." It was all too real; change was really happening, and it was standing right in front of him. Wraith brought his hand to his mask, pushing back on it to adjust it on his face; what he was really doing was fidgeting. "What do you think? Do you believe you're the right man to replace him?" Wraith wanted to hear Apostle's thoughts on his own possible promotion. He would have to be up to it as much as Wraith should be.