RP:Instant Crush

Summary: Revan confronts Skylei and severs his ties to the woman permanently.

Cenril

Revan had been waiting for this day from the moment he lifted his body from the dried soil that kept him locked away from the mortal world. Even while he was stuck in the darkness -she- had been at the forefront of his mind, every moment shared analyzed with regret and dreams of second chances. Every day he found himself at war with the voice inside his head over the proper way to confront her, the inability to agree leading to weeks of indecision that eventually turned to months filled with tasks and confrontations that served as distractions yet still she remained like a portrait permanently always on display and always in focus. But now, enough time had passed and he and the voice finally agreed that today was the day to face their great challenge. Hiding well out of view, the creature of death watches Skylei with a burning fire in his gut, "She will not trust her mind..." he whispers to himself as an idle hand springs to life reaching up to brush the enchanted heart shaped amulet rung around his neck with rotted fingertips. His eyes squinting while his face wrinkles in frustration at the headache caused by the voice berating him, "So be it." he cries through gritted teeth. Refocusing his sight on the wood elf Revan takes only a moment to build up the courage he needs before vanishing into thin air readying himself for the final approach.

She has forgotten him or, at least, she has tried to. Skylei had taken almost every memory she had of the man she had once loved and thrown it away, burned it, sold it or, most likely hidden it in the back of a drawer/her mind. She had been mostly successful. Tyler comes to her only in the accidental unearthing of a previously cherished item, or in a particularly cruel nightmare, destined to shake her entirely from sleep. But now that the initial wound has healed and she knows him gone, in her waking hours, Skylei is safe. Today she takes her usual path – one she had walked in Tyler’s life as well as in his death - from the front door of her apartment in Cenril to the library up on the cliff’s edge. Dressed head to toe in the mottled leather’s that she loves best, the half-elf’s person is decorated only with a purple-black crystal hanging around her neck and a small black book bag hanging from her left shoulder whilst her hair is pulled from her face in a single braid. There is nothing significant to see here and she is oblious to eyes that may be watching.

If Revan knew that she had moved on from their past, that she had pushed the bad dream of them together away then he would never go through with what he was about to do - but unfortunately for them both he appears. Standing directly in her path Tyler is dressed in very basic attire, a ragged pair of pants and a plain white t-shirt, the dye in his hair long faded leaving a mix of whitish blue mostly conquered by his natural brown. The expression he provides is nervous as caramel brown eyes stare at her with a light shimmer and his knees visibly quake beneath the weight of his body. At first it seems as if he isn't willing to speak but swallowing the lump in his throat, his voice cracks through it's barely audible volume. "Please don't run", he asks as calmly as he can with his right hand raised out to her to accompany the request. The world around them is still as the various civilians trekking about frozen are in time leaving the two of them alone in whatever bubble the illusionist has managed to create.

Of course she runs. At the sight of her former love, Skylei freezes stock-still, like a scene in a truly terrible movie. She feels as though she’s been caught in a time lock and all that she can do is look at him over and over again, drinking in the details and looking for some evidence that this is illusionary fake; someone messing with her, attempting to manipulate her. As her eyes rake his form over and over, she feels as though she is continually dragged in by those caramel eyes. They’re so real. They can’t be. It can only be a few seconds – though the seconds feel like minutes – before she turns on her heels and bolts, without uttering a word. Back down Beloy Street until she reaches Memorial Avenue and the Town Square, from there she attempts to take the shortcut that will lead her back to her apartment. In her panic, the half-blood messes up, taking the third alleyway rather than the fourth. The third is a dead-end. Realising her mistake, just a little too late she drops to the floor, a terrified wreck, unsure of the nature of the person who would conjure such an illusion to terrify her. She doesn’t even know if they’ve followed her. “Please don’t hurt me.” Skylei pleads blindly, desperate just to get away from this torture.

Tyler was a fool to think she would do any different and once she turns he cries out after her with desperation laced in his voice, "No! Please! Wait!" There is no time for judgment or rational thought and the man quickly sprints after her, following each and every corner until they reach the dead end. As she collapses onto the ground his heart drops with her, "Skylei... please." he begs only to hear her cry for mercy, "...Never" he responds to her as the thought causes his stomach to turn. He lowers himself onto his knees a few feet away from her and resiststhe urge to take her into an embrace. "I understand that you're frightened, you have every right to be. But please just give me a chance, a few minutes of your time and then I promise, if you wish it, I will never bother you again." If she were to look at him she would see the sincerity in his gaze, there was no denying that this was the real Tyler kneeling before her but the exhaustion upon his face makes it seem as though the man hadn't had a nights sleep since they'd last met, "Please... five minutes of your time and I'll explain everything."

Skylei remains cowered in the corner; the mere sight of Tyler’s form is enough to throw her from normal to hyper-sensitive panic in less than two minutes. Despite the fact that he seems real, Skylei continues to question whether the vision in front of her is some evil warlock’s vision designed to spirit her way. “I buried you!” the half-elf howls. “In the forest with my own hands!” She’s hysterical - her face is turning red, tears are threatening to stream down her face and she shakes with every single world she says. She attempts to pull herself to her feet, and yet she ends where she begins, on the floor in a puddle. But here’s the crazy thing. Tyler has ‘died’ once and returned to her. The other most important man in Skylei’s life, her father, had actually died and then returned from the dead too. So, technically, Skylei knows that it’s not impossible, however unlikely. And so she changes tack, “Prove it’s you. Prove it! How did this happen? Why are you here?” For the first time she pulls her eyes away from his face and buries them in her hands. She repeats the final question to herself, filled with quiet desperation and fear, “Why are you here?”

The pain Tyler feels is his own doing, two hundred ways to avoid ever bringing this suffering to life comes to mind without more than a seconds thought but somehow he had managed to dodge each and everyone of them landing him where he sits. He lets her voice her frustration and though his spirit is broken down further with each word he endures the sentence waiting for her to finish and allowing a moment of silence once she's buried away in her own hand before continuing. "Yes. You did.", another pause as he stifles a shaken sigh to prevent him to losing his confidence in telling the truth, "When I died, it was my own fault. I forced the hand of Lady Silver because I knew there was no escaping the madness that I brought to others. The endless cherade of pretending that I knew what I was doing grew tiresome and the irritation and pain it brought to others wasn't fair. I thought... I thought that once I was gone that things would be alright. I thought that you could move on and the world would forget me..." His teeth grind together as a deep sense of anger boils in his gut, he manages to deflect it with the sight of the elf still cowering before him allowing the emotion to quickly be replaced by sadness. "But I was wrong. When I died, I lay in an abyss for what felt like years... I looked for a way out but just kept swimming in the nothingness. A voice spoke to me and..." he stops knowing that he must sound insane, his right hand raising up to push his hair from his face while he tries to grasp reality for a few more minutes to get through this. "Look, Skylei. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry that I ever pulled you into the whirlwind of crap that came along with being with me. I'm sorry for everything that happened after that night up on the Scenic View but I need you to understand that I love you. I need you to know that I never wanted anything like this to happen. I know I was insane, I know that I was sick, I know..." Selfishness rushes the man's mind as he continues to refer to himself in his confession. "You... you never deserved to go through any of this. You didn't need to suffer because of my illness and choices. If I had the power to take it all back, I would make sure that you had the happiest life a woman could ever have. All the things I said, the things I did, the drama that I cause... I'm sorry... I'm so, so sorry." That sigh can't be held back any long and Tyler closes his eyes to try and maintain a certain composure while the people behind the alley move at a regular pace for only a second hinting at the breaking concentration of the illusionist. "Look, I haven't stopped thinking about you and I don't know if I ever will. You mean the world to me even if I was too dumb to realize it then. I'm not the man I once was, in fact, I'm not even a man anymore... but through all of the hell I've been through, I've never forgotten the way you made me feel." Turning his head he looks to the busy walkway and bites his lip before looking back to her. Tyler was never afraid to say what was on his mind, regardless of how off it sounded to others. He was often judged in his previous life for being to spastic, corny and suffering from crippiling social anxiety but the fact that he's here doing the same thing now despite being a walking corpse speaks wonders to his dedication of self, if nothing else.

Skylei listens but she doesn’t hear. She doesn’t stop to imagine the mirage of misery that had led up to Tyler’s death but remembers who own pain in the weeks preceding receiving his dead body. She doesn’t think about how that dead body came to be reanimated, how the deprival of such a basic mortal right – the safe passage to the afterlife – had been denied to the man before her. Instead she focuses in the way that his rebirth makes her feel. Skylei, in that moment is so utterly selfish that she lashes out in a violent hiss – perhaps knowing that, should Tyler’s words be true and if he does truly care for her still, he will forgive, “You were never truly a man, Tyler. Men don’t do what you do.” She’s still on the ground, her knees pulled to her chest and her face a shade of puce that only looks good on an apple. “You crushed me. You crushed me so many times and every time that I think I can move on and forget about you and everything that you did - you’re back. Do you truly hate me this much?” She shakes her head and then looks back to the man again. His hair, the lines of his neck and collarbone, the strength of his shoulders – she looks him up and down and up and down – still trying to find a fault in the image he projects. She hates him, yes, but she loves him too and neither can be hidden from those grey eyes and that look. The half-elf knows that the man had a talent for illusions in life and so she ends with a leading question, “Are you still dead…? How are you… this?”

No matter how badly he wants too Tyler doesn't allow his face to drop to the ground, he endures the insults and blame that he is rightfully forced too because he is unwilling to leave her again. Looking past the hatred in her voice, she still acknowledged his existence and that was far more than he had in a long time. "You're right. I was never a man" he claims without any hint of self pity in his voice, "I was and am an abomination. I could never hate you, no matter how much I tried and if I did do you truly believe I would bring myself here?" Her last question is the hardest to answer, almost lacking the power to reply he forces himself to start off with a nod, "Yes. Just like the creatures that walk the dark land, I am reanimated." Raising his right hand up between them the flesh upon his finger tips begins to flake away revealing a dark, dry, rotting and torn flesh beneath the surface of his illusion as he clings to hope that honesty may buy him even a sliver of favor though he offers no more than this peek and soon after the living skin covers the blemish once more. "You have every right to fear and hate me, Skylei." The crowd behind them skips again as Tyler is forced to refocus, his hands quickly reaching into his satchel and pulling forth two beautiful roses - one the color of a pure, white pearl and the other a deeper blue than the sea. "I'm sorry that I came into your life and caused a mess, I was selfish to come here and I understand that I am unwelcome." nodding to the roses he offers her a choice "Take the white rose and I will stay away unless you call for me. Take the blue one..." He's frozen now as he stares at the enchanted blue petals, swirling patterns on their surface while the amulet around his neck stirs to life with his old blood magic "... Take the blue one and you have my word that I will never be able to see you again."

Honesty does a lot. It quells the lack of belief that she had currently been sporting. The perfect face is an illusion; the rotting flesh is far more realistic for a corpse buried deep in the forest. Though Sky doesn’t audibly concede that she believes that Tyler is who he says he is, she no longer berates him with questions as to his existence. She even listens to him as he shows her and explains the concept of the roses. Hell, she even gets up and off the ground. She pushes the roses down and away from her, her hands brushing his. “I don’t want a rose, Tyler. I- I want… Have you changed? Are you still the person that you were? Are you different?” She isn’t entirely sure if his answer will dictate what rose she chooses to take, if she takes a rose at all.

Tyler watches Skylei with great fear expecting her to either pick a rose or knock them both to the ground stomping them. He's surprised instead when she rises up, him following suit allowing her to push the roses down before locking eyes with her. The ringing in his ears has gone louder and it's difficult to make out what she's saying, for only a brief second the man isn't a monster, he's the guy who walked into the tavern sporting a faux suit of armor and left with the most perfect person. Despite his wandering mind Tyler somehow picks up her question and slowly shakes his head as he falters allowing his gaze to fall to the ground "No. I'm not the same." Despite his sorrow he manages to force a half hearted smile and exhales sharply though his nostrils, "I'm afraid I traded in one insanity for another." He contemplates detailing the hivemind he shares with Revan and being brutally honest in their reunion but he fears the details might frighten her away, still he doesn't hide the truth. "Coming back from the nothingness did something to me. The old problems I had... the manifestations of my own mind died with me but I'm afraid I'm still not alone in my head. I don't know if it's still just my own imagination coming to life or if someone else is really in here with me, the voice, but... no, I'm not the same and I'm not any better." He looks back to Skylei and swallows the lump in his throat while he tries to read her reaction clearly, so many thoughts rushing through his head as he struggles to maintain control over his own body and the illusion seperating them from reality.

Skylei is calm now, almost eerily so. This whole incident has shaken her to her core, unable to entirely comprehend exactly what has happened, what he is saying and most importantly what she should do next. She would hold her hand out to him, and take his. Her thumb rubs gently across the back of his hand. “I thought I could save you once upon a time, but I know now I was wrong. The gods are cruel, Tyler. They have forced you to walk this land again – you, who should only walk the afterlife. They’ve cursed you with this affliction of the mind. I don’t understand why they punish you so, but they do and I am powerless in their wake…” She pauses and changes tact suddenly, dropping his hand and folding her arms across her chest. “Do you remember the night before you died? You left a red rose in my room whilst I slept? Well, I treasured it in the days after your death. It was the last I had of you. I don’t want another of your roses now. I won’t make those choices for you, Tyler. Be a man and make your own.” Though he stands in the way of her exit, both physically and through his illusion, she moves to leave. Skylei has called her own position very clearly. She will not accept either of the options he presents in rose form.

Tyler can't breathe when the woman takes his hand into hers, his heart lodged in his throat and once again he's relishes a feeling of his past life yet the moment is over just as quickly as it began. His eyes shift between hers rapidly as she goes on about the rose that he'd actually forgotten about. Too stuck in his own thoughts to move out of her way, Tyler doesn't block her when she walks past declining his offer. Though as her back is turned to him he calls after her, "Skylei..." should she turn to face him she would find the illusion of her former lover completely faded revealing a standing corpse that held his exact likeness - his hair was all but gone and a large dent sunk the top side of his head, a massive hole in his throat left him breathing deeply as he gasped for air that couldn't reach his lungs, the bones of his neck broken and protruding yet he somehow manages to keep his head up, those caramel brown eyes of his replaced by swirling blue vortexes that spark to life with mana. His voice is rough like gravel as he speaks with a dead man's voice, "I am no man. I cannot make this choice alone." His counter to her refusal was clear, Revan now stands before the wood elf and everything is laid out between them. If Skylei runs in fear or damns his existence, the creature would not give chase for this was the only deal struck between the two of them, the rest of the world could burn by Revan's hand so long as Skylei's fate stayed in Tyler's control.

Skylei doesn’t turn until she speaks “And-” She falters, for just a second, at the sight of his true form. “I-I won’t make it for you, Tyler. You have never needed my permission to make your terrible choices before, I don’t see why you need it now.” She falls into old patterns of berating him for his behaviour, but even now can’t force herself to do it with gusto. She’s distracted by the true horrors he reveals. So broken and fragile, and at the same time the sight of him fills her with horror. He would know, just by the way she looks upon the undead form, that she is scared of what he has become and yet she doesn’t leave. She doesn’t move to make a choice either. Stalemate.

Revan struggles to maintain his composure as the words sting like wasps, yet he endures and continues to ignore the urge to flee - if the wood elf could stand to stare at a decaying sack of meat then he could stand to hear a few things he didn't want too. "I have made many horrible decisions in all my lives but I assure you, I never asked for this." His momentum shifts as he gets ready to move closer but hesitation sets in while he watches her carefully - ultimately deciding to make his advance. His walk is painful, the sound of popping bones loud in the narrow alley as he forces himself to close the distance. Assuming she hasn't fled by the time he's up close his left arm would raise to offer the white rose "I hold the most selfish desire to never lose you again..." the arm with the white rose trembling as it lowers and the one with the blue one becomes dominantly offered "... but I haven't had you in a long, long time... seeing the way you look at me, your reaction even when I have a guise of my former life - a form that doesn't haunt the dreams of even the bravest knights like this one, feeling the hatred in your heart when you speak... I know that you are better off without me... I just want you to know that I meant everything I said. I'm sorry for the past and though I cannot correct it, I will make sure the future isn't as bleak. Take the blue rose, Skylei. I promise, you won't be cursed by my existence any longer." This close to her his eyes would be become mesmerizing in their rotation, the black hole that serves as his pupil somehow filled with pain regardless of the void that it consisted of. The shaking boy that stared to her mere moments ago now lets go of whatever hope he had when he approached her, the blue rose setting perfectly still in his grasp. His five minutes were up and he accepted his defeat.

Skylei doesn’t move. She stands and listens and watches and examines as the creature that was once Tyler reasons and explains and eventually comes to what she deems to be his decision. She sees the rise and fall of the white rose and then the offer of the blue. That unselfish gesture where he offers to set her completely free of another world of torment – because let’s be honest, every part of Skylei’s world that has featured Tyler has featured at least 90% torment. And she knows what she has to do. “Can… can you show me the you that I know?” She’d meet those eyes that couldn’t truly be described as eyes anymore and offer one final plea that her request be granted, “Please?”

Revan stares back at her for a few seconds then offers a short nod. The transformation begins at the crown of his head and cascades down his body like water, every defining feature of the man evolving to a picture perfect replication of Tyler from his past life in a blur of flaking ash. His eyelids flutter a few times once the change is complete, he staggers from fatigue but recovers to return his stare to her while continuing to hold the blue rose outward, ready to fade into obscurity once she takes hold of the artifact that bars his presence from her.

That stagger fills Skylei with guilt. Her hand reaches out to his shoulder to help him regain his balance, leaning down to look up and him, eyes filled with real concern. But, if holding up his illusions are truly exhausting him, then Skylei doesn’t want to force him into that position for longer than she has to. Instead, she reaches up and runs the back of her hand down his cheek maintaining eye contact as she speaks, “I loved you.” Then, leaning forward, her lips press against his so gently that she could almost deny that it happened (If she thinks about it too hard, Skylei is disgusted by the fact that she’s kissing the walking yet decaying corpse of her former boyfriend covered in an illusion, but let’s mosey on past that…). It barely lasts two second, but it’s filled with a tangible bittersweet regret. Then she does what Tyler expects. She chooses blue.

Tyler doesn't return the kiss, he knows what's going to happen next and is occupied with keeping himself stable, he doesn't want to break down, she didn't deserve that and he knows the gesture from her is likely of pity for his broken soul. As she plucks the blue rose from his hand the man gives her one final look and then seemingly fades from existence as the world around her springs back to life and voices of the population flood her ears. Far away, a meeting inside of a dead man's mind takes place - Tyler stands before Revan lacking the ability to look the death incarnate in the face, the white rose clutched tightly in his fist. "Then our deal is completed?" Revan asks in his archaic voice, the shaggy haired human nodding in return. "Yes. I have nothing left to fight for, the body is yours", Tyler states in a broken and heavy tone. Revan doesn't take satisfaction in the pain of his counterpart but finds relief that his plans are able to advance without any further hesitation, moving towards the human he presses his body against his fusing the two of them together. Judgement has been made and the day of purification will come to pass.