An Insistent Whisper.
The Academy of Arcane Science is the center of my adult life, and no chronicle of my life is complete without mention of the man who unwittingly set me on my path there. Not only my past but my future is shaped by him - his continued achievements goad me from my rest and force me to ever-greater feats simply to ensure he continues to regard me as his equal.
He is not much older than I am, truth be told, though it seemed so when first I saw him. I thought him full grown, and by comparison I suppose he was. I was a dark, rawboned little silver-haired courtesan's brat - too odd-looking to evade attention from troublemakers and too weak to make them think twice. On the occasion relevant to this story I had been cornered by a gang of "pure" human thugs, each of which was easily three times my size. I managed not cry out until the third blow landed, and then as if summoned, he appeared.
He was an Ayr'Dal like me, half Feir'Dal I presumed, to judge by his tanned skin and the russet gleam where the torchlight caught his dark brown hair. What was a scrawny creature of such an embarrassing lineage to do in this situation? It would have taken two of him to match even the smallest of these brutes in weight, and yet he strode up with every appearance of absolute confidence.
And he whispered to them.
I did not hear what he said, only the faintest echoes of sibilants as his lips moved. But then the largest of the thugs turned, and his fist slammed into his nearest friend's gut. Two good blows the fool got in before his friend recovered from his shock enough to fight back. I watched, and laughed, as the brutes pummeled each other bloody, but then he seized me by the hand and dragged me away.
"It won't last," he said, as we ran. He meant the whispers, but at the time, I thought he meant the joy I felt at being free, the feel of someone taking my hand. In that moment, I was certain he was one of the lost gods, that he knew everything there was to know, and so I let go his hand and etched that lesson somewhere deeply into my soul. Even now that I know what he meant, I cannot erase the mark those words made.
He has promised me that he will never use his talents on me. I would be a fool to trust such a promise, but the fact that he was inspired to make the promise tells me that he values me as an ally, at least for now. It was he whom I followed to the Academy of Arcane Science, he who showed me that an Ayr'Dal can inspire not only hatred but also fear.
I would trade a limb for his gift, if I am being honest. If I wish to control another's mind, I must do it the tedious way, through weeks or months or even years of careful manipulation. If someone told me that I could absorb Whisper's power by killing and devouring him, I confess that I would be tempted, despite the many years of accord we have shared and the obvious ways in which I have benefited from his influence.
In time, as my own powers grow stronger, as I learn to rot and wither flesh with the merest thought, perhaps the temptation to destroy Whisper and steal everything that he is will disappear entirely. I recognize my envy and resentment for what it is: the vestiges of a neglected Beggars' Court brat's lack of self-confidence. By the time I am free of the relentless parasite of doubt, I shall command such power that I truly believe he and I united could topple the Overlord himself.
And then, once we stand together at the pinnacle - both of us looking down on the city that once spurned and mocked us - which of us will be the first to realize that we have come as far as we can together, and that now, one of us must fall?
