Zariel

[Ebiris]

"Lets," Alicia agrees, content to follow the more nature-focused Syala's lead.

[Anastasia]

It is a walk, a wander. A trip through verdant nature, taking it all in. Zariel is mostly silent as she walks with Syala's hand holding hers. A silence that stretches and stretches, thinner and thinner, until it is broken.

"Well?" Zariel snaps, "Aren't you going to say something?!"

"I don't need to," Syala replies calmly, "You know everything I could say here. I am far from an ancient spirit, you have had eons more life than I have. I was waiting for you to say what you liked, what you wanted here."

Something in Zariel's expression softens at those words, "A peaceful grove. There should be the sound of a brook nearby and few deer should be there."

A step forward, a ripple of reality around Syala. Before all of you is a grove that is exactly that. Zariel goes forward, letting go of Syala's hand. "There was never anything like this in Hell," she remarks, "Only scorched battlefields and gaping canyons." The sound of a babbling stream is audible to all of you, just out of mundane sight, winding through the forest. "I hate it." A sudden snap, a rustle as flames erupt everywhere, an inferno forming around all of you. "I HATE IT!"

Syala doesn't even blink at this, "Torm poisoned this memory somehow?" she asks, coming up to her.

[Corwin]

"If Syala's right, then making this scenery fit for Hell is a Pyrrhic victory at best," Seira notes. "If he really did poison the memory, just make a new one with the full knowledge that he's forever barred from here, unlike you?"

[Anastasia]

"I HATE IT! I HATE HIM!" Zariel screams, shoulders shaking as she looks down. "He even ruined this! How can I make something new with that looming over me?"

[Ebiris]

"Lets talk then?" Alicia asks, stepping closer to Zariel. "About what he did to you. Let it out, Zariel. We want to understand all that happened there."

[Anastasia]

It's like a shove into all of your minds, sharp and violent.

An image, hazy and faraway, from the perspective of a woman. She sits in a grove much like this, gaze on the dashing, powerful knight before her. He is so much more, a beacon of purity and forthrightness. His helmet is off, long and graying hair unhidden, a sharp and severe face lightened by a warm smile.

"I want your help, Zariel," Torm replies, "Creation is deeply ill, addled by a choice that demands a medicine that none yet can provide, an answer that eludes us all. Will you stand with me? There is a place for you in my armies. Help me, Zariel. Help me cure Creation and end the sickness that consumes it. In you is a spark of potential that can set all the Hells ablaze with pure, cleansing fire that shall not spare a single wicked soul."

"...My master..." Zariel murmurs, voice thick, emotional.

"Torm," Torm smiles ever so gently, one rough, calloused hand taking yours (Zariel's) in hers. "I believe that one day you will rise with me. It will be a long time, a dreadfully long time until we can be certain it will be safe, but you can be so much more. In you is the potential to shine like the sun."

[Ebiris]

"He got right into the Answer business from the start, didn't he?" Alicia murmurs, closing her eyes. "A memory that should give resolve, turned into a source of anguish. So how did it come to that? What happened that day Daa-vid spurred you to strike at Torm, and he lost his mind at the insult? We saw a vision of it in the trials of the God King's resorts, but even then it never made sense why Torm would react so disproportionately."

[Anastasia]

"Did you love him?" Amaryl murmurs, looking down.

The memory is pressed into you rminds like an arrow through the throat.

"Torm, I would be honored," Zariel says, looking to his eyes - pools of brown that seem to draw all of you in. A look at his smile, strong, inspiring.

A flash.

A sundered world. A whimper, being picked up by your throat by an armored hand. That same face, full of unreasoning fury, full of hatred. A nightmare visage, something broken, something warped. His eyes burn with madness as he snarls, "Mercy? I loathe you, you pathetic failure. Not once! Not once have you lived up to what I wanted! Worthless! At least Yemimah would have been a good replacement for you, but you couldn't even protect her for a handful of years! Mercy? How could I forgive someone like you! You failed me, you failed Yemimah, you failed everyone!"

[Corwin]

"That's an obvious lie," Seira states, placing her hand on Zariel's shoulder. "He couldn't be that sort of plotter and conman and keep the company he did for millennia. All the time up till he simply broke, he never loathed you. And I bet he thought you lived up to plenty, although he wouldn't have tried to impose his wishes on you. But it had just enough half-truths to make you wonder, didn't it? Because we all fail at some point, since perfection is an ideal and not a state of being. We are the hardest on ourselves, wondering and worrying over what we got wrong. So maybe if you thought he was right there, then the rest-- but again, it's a lie. Whether Da-avid just got to him, or was the final straw that broke his back, Torm there just said what he was sure would hurt you the most, specifically for that purpose. So why let it cloud the good memories of him before his Fall? The ones he truly meant, like that meeting you showed us before? It was a different person, for all purposes."

[Anastasia]

This memory is like a dagger, a needle into your minds.

"Peace."

The voice is calm, serene, your vision tinted red in contrast. You stand amid carnage, horrid carnage all over. Broken bodies and blood are everywhere, save the figure before you. The haze of fury fades as you see him. A human-like creature, no larger than one. He wears robes of impossible refinement woven with countless jewels, a red scepter in his hand to go with it. He has a neatly trimmed goatee. His expression is serene, eyes like coal calmly surveying you.

"Zariel," The figure says, "You did not deserve that from Torm. He has fallen to chaos."  There is soft compassion in his voice, a serenity that all of you feel, calming your emotions and making you focus on him.

"Why?" Zariel's voice croaks out, a broken and miserable sound.

"In the end, Torm was not strong enough. Daa-vid still stands. Worry not, for I am stronger than Torm. I can help you realize your potential he spoke of long ago."

"How?" Zariel rasps out, lost in those eyes, eyes that leave you feeling placid, calm. His words are authority, power and control.

"In my power, all is possible should I will it," The man states, offering a hand out. "There shall be a new Lord of the First soon. It should be you, Zariel. Let you show Creation what a mighty warrior you are and what Torm foolishly threw away. Let me show you how you are not a failure. Kneel and all of Creation will be unable to deny your worth, even Torm."

[Corwin]

"Isn't it your potential?!" Seira exclaims. "Why do you need other people to tell you how to reach it? Why do you need to follow their footsteps exactly or kneel in subservience? I believe in your potential, too, and that's exactly why I think you're the one who should decide how to seek it out."

[Ebiris]

"And for all that strength, what did Asmodeus do against Daa-vid? Worse than nothing. It fell to mortal hands to wound him, as mortal minds shall judge him," Alicia says grimly. "Seira speaks true. You've been led along every step you took since you left that grove, Zariel. We would like to see you reach your potential, but we are neophyte deities not much stronger than you are. We're not here to lead or command you. Of course if you struck out at the innocent we'd have to stop you, but otherwise? We're happy to share in your attempts to find greater meaning in existence."

[Anastasia]

Zariel stands amid the inferno, head down and breathing heavily.

"More than that, we believe in who you can be, Zariel. Asmodeus offered you a poisoned chalice, but let it be known it was a true chalice. You are capable of living up to your potential no matter what Torm says.  But you don't need him and his poisonous offerings. You need yourself, free of pain and self doubt, becoming more." Antenora says, a gentle tone to her voice. "Remember what you once were, what you were regardless of Torm."

Zariel is silent, just breathing heavily as the forest burns all around you, hotter and hotter.

[Corwin]

"When it all comes down to this," Seira asks Zariel amidst the inferno, "what scenery did you like better? The of the forest grove with all its bittersweet associations, or the fire? For me, Fire can have plenty of meanings, both good and bad. But from what I heard from you, it's different for you given your experiences. And if you say neither, why not reform it as a different grove?"

[Ebiris]

Alicia exercises a bit of divine will to keeping the flames to a radius of only a few hundred feet. Forest fires may serve a role in ecology but such things are usually managed to a degree in the heavens. In any case she's quiet for now, Zariel having vented quite a bit and seeming rather high strung, so she'll wait for her to gather herself a bit.