Negligently Raziel tossed the flaming torch onto the bonfire and watched as the flames licked up to consume the body of the dead princess. Somehow he just could not bring himself to leave her corpse just sitting there like a macabre display for Elzevir’s perversion. This at least had some dignity. Wood had not been hard to come by, much of the dollmakers equipment had been quite fragile and broke into manageable chunks quite easily.
It seemed somehow fitting to cremate the princess on the pyre of Elzevir’s broken grip on her family’s kingdom.
 He watched her flesh be burned away leaving a blackened skeleton, which in turn collapsed into dust.  Perhaps the memory of the original King Ottmar, the one who had stood beside Kain to turn back the Legions of the Nemesis in a now defunct timeline, would be proud of such a scion of his loins. It was a nice and innocent enough a fantasy to entertain.
The blue wraith stood there for a long time afterwards, simply watching the fire. Then he turned his head and looked across the small island to the far larger fire he had set burning some time ago. The house was by now completely engulfed in flames, tongues of fire leaping from the smoking slates on the roof.  With a loud crash of collapsing timbers and a roar of an appreciative fire, the furthest half of the roof fell in on itself.
Bursts were mouths roaring with fire and from these openings came thick columns of black smoke that rose up high into the air.
-
“As I watched the dollmaker’s house burn to the ground, I felt in some way cleansed, as if I and the world around me were purified by the flames.”
-
The burning of this abode which had seen so much evil had been entirely necessary, at least in Raziel’s eyes. He would leave no trace of Elzevir and his sickening operation left to mar the face of the world.
With Nosgoth decaying as it was in this era, their area would never be fully healed. But one cancerous lump had been cut out never to return at least.  He would have to be satisfied with that, for now.
As the house began to cave in, its structural supports collapsing, Raziel turned and walked away listening to the final tremendous crash as the abode smashed to the ground. He didn’t look back and kept on walking.
As he past the physical Reaver blade stuck in the ground, he casually picked it up in one hand. With the ethereal Reaver now completely under his control, the distracting buzz of paradoxical flux was now only a background hum. If he were to summon it the effect would return to its normal level. He could hold it without having the world warp around him.
.
“With the Reaver in my possession, I could put this sad affair behind me and forge ahead to my future.”
.
He had no place to hang the blade on his person and he could not simply carry it in his hand. He had to devise some means of carrying it that would leave his hands free.
Looking around he saw that nearby lay on of the ragged clothe men he had fought upon arriving; a dirty hessian sack amidst a still and silent pile of mud and gravel. Striding over he picked up the material and examined it. Hardly belt leather but sturdy enough. With his talons he shredded it into stripes and bound them together into a makeshift rope. A scabbard was impossible for such a serptine blade but tying it across the hilt and guard, Raziel slung it across his back in a similar fashion to how Kain wore it. It was not comfortable. Kain swore the Reaver with much more finesse, as if it were a part of time. Raziel was a good head and shoulders shorter then Kain so its weight on his back offset his balance somewhat. His wings with their restored bone structure kept getting poked painfully by the tip and guard.
How Kain made this all look so natural was quite beyond him.
With the blade secure, Raziel paused to take stock of his situation. Now that he had the sword he would of course have to find Kain again and return it to him. It seemed he was now in the habit of fetching items the scion of balance needed. The new role definitely rankled.
With a frown the blue wraith turned and looked on towards the west, over the tops of the snowy pines towards the distant mountains, hazy at such a distance.
-
“There was only one place left to go. I would venture to west, high into the mountains. I would find the Oracles cave and wait there. If Kain was in this time period with me, then undoubtedly that would be where he would go.”
-
Knowledge of the geography told him that the oracles cave lay across the mountains. He didn’t know if the Chronoplast would be accessible in this era but it was the only place he could so. He muttered darkly to himself.
.
“Despite my resolve to aid the prophecy of the Scion of Balance, it still felt irritating to be Kain’s delivery boy.”
.
He was turning to start back across the ice of the lake when he paused, seeing a ghostly shape floating nearby. It was Ariel. The former balance guardian was starting still at the bonfire cremation of the princess Alicia. Her face was an uncorrupted whole but sad and grim, eyebrows knitted together in her displeasure.
Raziel was about to say something when she cut across him.
“She was selfish, self absorbed and indifferent to anything outside her own goals.” She stated flatly and without any emotion. There was a long pause before she hung her head. “And yet it was her soul that freed the children from bondage.”
Raziel remembered how her freed soul had brought the other captive children Elzevir had tormented free from their containers. It had been a sight to be sure. Ariel turned to look back at him over her ghostly shoulder, her eyes intent and full of a deep sadness.
“Far different from my own story.” She admitted with a mocking self accusation. “I only sought balance in order to affect my own release. Almost by the end I had forgotten that the restoration of Nosgoth was the end result.”
Raziel considered her words. He would not lie to her about her faults but still felt keenly the need for her to be freed from her mental prison.
“Sometimes it is hard to see the clear encompassing picture if one is entangled so much in personal guilt and fear.” He said, wondering how much of his statement applied to him. “Much of this conflict has been caused by those thinking only of themselves in one fashion or another.”
Ariel turned to face him completely and as she did her face descended into its corrupted half skull, her good eye looking at him through wisps of ethereal hair.
“Are we any different, now?”  She asked and from her tone the blue wraith felt she earnestly wanted an answer.
He considered long and hard, eyes narrowing as he looked down at the crowd. It was a difficult question to answer. He had to admit, if only to himself, that he had changed considerably over the course of his journey. When he had started out after Kain had had been his only goal and drive but over time his motives had become subtle and far more complex and with that complexity, came a new sort of empathy for other positions and views.
“Hard to say.” He admitted eventually, hands on hips.
“What do you think?” She asked him. He looked down as if examining his toes and then looked up towards her again.
“I would like to think we are.” He replied and then gave her a winsome sort of look, his eyes smiling where his missing lips could not. “Or would that be arrogantly presumptuous of me?” Then his expression grew serious.
“There was a time when I would have spurned the princess, taken and sword and been on my merry way.” He said flatly. “Instead I stayed and fought, destroyed a great evil and possibly saved hundreds of innocent children from being taken from the generations yet to come.” He paused as if pondering his own words and then shrugged his shoulders.
“That knowledge makes me feel proud, to whatever degree.”  Ariel smiled at him in response.
 “As it does me.” She  agreed.
Absently Raziel kicked some of the pile of mud that had made up one of Elzevir’s crude golems. The pebbles in the dirt skittered across the ice.
“Are we better people for it? I think it depends on our perspective.” He mused, watching the stones skip away.
“Then we agree what was done he was the right thing? For all involved?” Ariel asked and she sounded a little unsure.
Raziel chuckled and looked up at the sky.
“I think perhaps we did even the Divus a favour.” When Ariel raised an eyebrow at him questioningly he explained; “They would not have welcomes a snivelling, perverted worm like Elzevir into their ranks with much enthusiasm.”
Ariel’s smile was like the sun coming up.
“Into every life some rain must fall.” She said with relieved mirth.
“How true.” Raziel said and they shared a quiet moment in the midst of the joke. The moment dragged for a long time and then the blue wraith half turned, his expression unreadable to look at her;
“Ariel...” He began and his soft, sensual tone made her look at him, her expression slightly confused. He had never taken that tone with her before.
“Yes?” She asked a little warily. Raziel was silent for a moment longer and then he let his shoulder relax, but there was still some tension in his eyes. This was a topic not easy for him to start.
“We... have not always been on the best of terms, but I feel I have to say this.”
Another long moment of silence.
“I...admire you.” The statement came seemingly out of nowhere and Ariel started at him with wide eyes. The word ‘admire’ had not been said with the usual elevation it required. It had been replaced for another word, far more direct.
“I have never encountered another soul as endurable as your own and yet willing to grow and change, despite what it has gone through.” Raziel continued on, watching her ghostly face. As he talked, the corruption disappeared and her complete beauty returned.
Quickly he held up a hand to forestall her when she seemed on the verge of saying something.
“I do not presume to replace Nupraptor in your affections.” He said and the words came out in a rush.
Then he froze and words stuck in his throat. His mind fumbled over itself ackwardly and he went silent.
Ariel looked down at him and her face was blank, unreadable. She closed her eyes and then looked completely unresponsive.  Then slowly she opened them again and her face changed and there was in her expression a look of profound wanting and a kind of need subtle need.
“Nupraptor is dead.” She said and there was in her voice all the hurt for that admission, made all the more acute by the knowledge that his death had been of her design.
“As are you.” Raziel reminded her in a joking sort of manner to lighten the mood. She smiled at the jest.
“And you, so to speak.” She said and he cast a glance down at himself, for once noting his ruined wraith body without chagrin and revolution.  The two of them remained there in each other’s company, the crackling fire of the burning house behind them the only sound.
Ariel’s smile faded in melancholia and she glanced out across the lake towards the far shore and the distant west.
“I will never see him again.” She said flatly and there was in that statement a sort of deep finality that at last she had to confront and accept. She hung her head and for a moment, said nothing. Then her ghostly projection swung about and faced him directly and he could see in her eyes a kind of yearning, almost desperate.
“Raziel, I know you from the inside out” She said and he could feel her heart in her voice.  “I shared the Reaver with you. There is no one soul tied more to mine.” She paused and then added. “Even Nupraptor’s.”
Raziel stared at her, finding in himself a deep sort of wild hope he had never known before. It made him feel week at the knees.
“Release, absolution, final rest... all fine sounding things.” The spirit of the former balance guardian carried on and her eyes, almost glowing in their ethereal nature, were full of what could only be a profound affection. “But in all honesty, I am content as a part of you.”
Not knowing entirely why, Raziel reached out to her with one hand. She offered forth her own in a gesture reminiscent of the moment when she had appeared to him in the bottom of the Spirit forge and by taking her hand he had purified the Kain and ultimately the Reaver itself. He could not physically take her hand, her form a mere insubstantial projection but he held his talons against the hazy outline of her fingers and there was some sensation; like a soft breeze.
Their forging together had endured the trail by fire and it had brought them closer. They were not just joined, such a word was inadequate. They were almost quite literally one being now, as inseparable from one another.
No gesture nor words were necessary for either of them to express their connection. She was a part of his mind and soul.
“We should go. Kain is waiting for us.” Raziel was eventually forced to say; disappointed that such a moment of clarity and union had to come to an end. Ariel’s smile widened a little and she lowered her hand.
“So he is.” She said and looked out again towards the west. The blue wraith followed her gaze., fixing on a barley distant mountain with a flat plateau top.“If we find him, I will want to talk with him.” Her statement was so suddenly and unexpected Raziel did not register it for a moment. Then he turned his head sharply to look at her.
“You?”
Her face did not betray it but her eyes reflected a resolve of iron, a flash of a part of her personality that had been repressed since she haunted the pillars.
“If we are truly about setting ourselves towards our future, then we ought to leave no loose end behind us.” She said and gestured back towards the burning house, which by now was being to turn into a pile of smouldering black rubble. “Kain made that mistake here and you had to correct it for him.” The cellars support collapsed with a crackle of embers and masonry , forming a pit of black sludge.
“Truly.” Raziel agreed but with some grim resignation. He could see this proposed meeting all too clearly in his mind’s eye. It would most likely not bode well.
Ariel seemed to sense his hesitancy and her form drifted down until it was eye level with him, making sure he made eye contact with her.
“Kain and I must have our grievances aired and confronted.” She told him, smiling fondly.  “After that...” Then her hand reached up to the top of his head.
With her ghostly fingers she trailed down across his forehead, over the tip of his nose and then down to where his lips ought to be.
They lingered there and Raziel felt himself feeling very odd again.
“....it is our time.” She finished and then her form flickered and vanished. He could feel her resettling herself back into its snug and by now comfortable place within his soul and feeling her wrapped around his essence, it felt right.
Warmed within by a sense of completion, Raziel started out across the ice towards the west. It would be a long journey that on foot would take several days, but if he kept to back-roads and trails he ought to avoid men or even the patrolled of the pseudo Sarafan who ruled Nosgoth in this era.
Of course there was the danger that he might not be able to get into the Oracles cave at all. He had entered there only once before, far in the distant future. Changes to the geography between now and then were bound to happen so there was no guarantee that just because the Chronoplast chamber was accessible in the future that it always had been.
Still it was the only logical place for Kain to go, although irrationally he wondered what would happen if he got there and Kain did not show. It would take him a very long time indeed to puzzle out the controls of the time streaming device. He didn’t care much for that alternative.
Soon he reached the far bank of the lake and moved on up into the trees. The dolls that had been nailed to each trunk had dropped off and fallen to the ground. The porcelain ones had smashed open. The faces of the toys staring up at him were just that, the faces of toys; red rosy cheeks stitched faces.
There was no hint of horror, fear or any other emotion in the sequin and button eyes that stared back at him. These were empty shells. The curse of Elzevir had indeed been lifted. Raziel paused to look back once at the lonely little island in the middle of the lake of ice and then resolutely turned his back again and walked off.
The future, and Kain, awaited.