Heirot

Jhaptal entered the room upon hearing the invitation. He quickled approached the sorceress' desk and stood in front of it. "Mission successful Lady Reya," he said. "We have apprehended Soran Nightblade and he is now waiting, locked in your dungeons."

Reya looked up at Jhaptal and set her pen on the desk. "Excellent. Good work," she said, though a small part of her didn't really feel the words. Could it be that part of her had been hoping Jhaptal's mission would be unsuccessful? The thought angered her. She felt her pulse rise as she realized the full meaning of Jhaptal's words.

Nightblade was there, in this very building, and she still hadn't decided exactly how she would deal with him. A sliver of her heart still cared for him, like a splinter in her otherwise perfect resolve. It was the one thing holding her back from stepping beyond her present level. It had caused her to lose control of the spell that would have created the most advanced magical being ever known. She could not tolerate it any longer. But she knew that just killing him would not fix the problem. It would be no different from the long years since she'd last seen him. She would conquer her weakness by destroying, utterly, its cause and source, until she had convinced herself of her dominance over it.

"I want you to get some rest, first. After that, I want you to make him tell you how he met me. Do whatever it takes," she said decisively. Of course, she knew, there was no physical ordeal that could possibly bring out his memories of that event.

After all, she had cast the spell herself.

Jhaptal nodded and stepped out of the room. Quickly and silently, he made his way over to Reya's room, where his bed as well as his extra clothing was situated. Upon entering the room, he immediately walked over to the bathroom and closed the door behind him, not bothering to lock it. The shower was turned on and he stepped in, letting the dirt from the last few days wash off.

Reya sat very still, deep in thought. She finally raised a hand in front of her and wove it in a slow, tight circle. A two-dimensional image formed in front of her of an empty cell. She moved her fingers slightly, and another cell took its place, also empty. On the third try, she found the correct room, and tensed. The lean, handsome figure she saw there was undoubtedly the right person. The elf was standing at the gate of the cage, working patiently at the lock. It's no good, Soran. That's magically sealed, Reya thought to herself, finding it hard to believe who she was really looking at. Feeling something stir inside her, she called off the spell, letting Soran's image shatter into fragments of light and disperse.

She stood up and walked to her room, leaving her desk uncharacteristically cluttered. There, she heard the sound of Jhaptal bathing, and drew herself back under her usual staunch control. It was fortunate that Jhaptal had returned; she did not sleep as well with her other servants. Closing the door, she changed her clothes, paying no attention to the servant who silently stepped up to remove her shed garments before slipping out again, waiting invisibly for anything else her master needed.

"You may retire, Peth," She directed, pulling on a shortened nightgown and sitting in bed, awaiting Jhaptal's presence.

Jhaptal turned off the water a few minutes after he had heard the door to the bedroom close. With very little time, he dried his body off with a spare towel and gave Reya a few more minutes to change, knowing her personal habits rather well. When he heard her dismiss Peth, he stepped out, not even bothering to pull on any clothing. He was comfortable with his personal nudity, being trained as a ninja had taught him such things, and Reya didn't seem to ever mind. The ninja took a seat on his bed and waited for any questions the sorceress might ask him.

Reya looked up from her musings as Jhaptal emerged from the shower. She was accustomed to him going about his business without concern for his state of dress, and had no real reaction to it. If anything, it was proof of his candid nature, which she approved of.

"You don't seem to have sustained any injuries, so I'll assume things went smoothly. What did you learn of the elf's companions?" she asked him.

Jhaptal took a moment to gather the information he had on Soran's companions. He didn't actually have that much data since there was only a day's worth. "He travels with four people," he said, knowing he had told her this information before. "Soran and his half elf companion Mizuki seem to hold feelings for each other. Mizuki has a small child named Blade, whom appears like a cross between Nightblade and the half elf. However, it is doubtful that both are the parents due to the fact that he seems to be half dark angel. This brings up the next person. His third traveling companion is a dark angel woman named Siren. For some reason or the other she seems to serve Soran and she knows of magic and potions. What the connection between Soran and those three are still unknown to me."

Jhaptal took a moment to think some more. "His last travelling companion is a child named Rai, who is of half elven descent just as Mizuki is. However, I don't think they are related," the ninja said. His knowledge regarding the little girl was more compared to his knowledge of the others. "She has very strong healing powers and was able to heal up a large amounts of knife wounds on my right arm without leaving so much as a scar, though it seems to affect her negatively and she feels the pain of the person being healed. However, despite the maturity needed to undertake such a task, she is still very much a child at heart, as her game of make believe with me proved."

Reya's thoughts barely kept up with the pace of Jhaptal's report. One minute she was wondering if Soran had created the child with the Dark angel woman, the next he was wondering whose child Rai was, then the slight surprise that he had been wounded, until... "Make believe?" She asked dully.

Jhaptal nodded, face still completely serious. From her question he assumed she wanted more details about the game, though why he didn't understand. "She played the part of a princess and I played the part of a prince. She had me fight off an imaginary villain, then tried to trap me in marriage, which I wormed my way out of while staying in character."

Reya blinked at her ever-serious servant, and then smiled. "I never knew you were good with children," she teased in her half-casual way, though there was always a certain degree of formality in her interactions with her servants. "When you interrogate him tomorrow, learn the lineage of the two children as well." She was tempted to ask him to find out what his feelings were for the half elf woman, but stopped herself. That was unnecessary information.

Jhaptal didn't respond to the statement about children. It only showed that she now recognized the extents of his abilities. However, he did nod when she added to the list of things to ask Soran. "Very well Lady Reya," he said. "Do you wish to retire now?"

"Yes. I may wake slightly past my usual hour tomorrow," she said, lying back into the bed and turning onto her side. It would be nice to have a good night's rest.

"Very well," Jhaptal replied. He would wake up as he normally did and guard her for a while before she sent him off to interogate Soran. In the meantime, he walked over to his own bed and slid under the covers, closing his eyes to sleep lightly as he always did.

After several hours of tampering with the bolt on his cell, Soran finally stopped. He had kept a pick in his coat sleeve, but it had no effect on the lock. Whatever was holding it closed, it was more than just a mechanism. He paced the cell for some time, wondering how long he'd been there. At length, he decided that whatever was going on, he wasn't going to learn about it until someone returned to the room. He sat against the wall and forced himself to sleep, knowing his instincts would wake him the moment anything approached him.

The next morning, Reya did not rise at the crack of dawn as she usually did. She slept more than an hour past sunrise before her blue eyes finally drifted open. She remembered the day's plans, and brought a businesslike, calm expression to her face. Sitting up, she looked to Jhaptal on the other side of the room. He was already awake, sitting at the ready.

"Good morning, Jhaptal," she said courteously, rising from the bed.

"Good morning Lady Reya," Jhaptal replied. He had been up for a few hours already and had pulled on his regular ninja gear after waking. Today the ninja had chosen to sit on his bed and watch over the sorceress as she slept.