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Shalem was no stranger to navigating Rhodes Island’s medical department.
It was not because he sported a lengthy career as an operator who sustained casualties in battle - no, he had only recently taken the aptitude test and earned his badge - but because he was used to delivering reports across the landship or checking on recently returned squads. Shalem took pride in his preparatory work. It was akin to ushering performers to and fro as a stagehand. His natural inclination for meticulousness lent him an advantage and he adapted quickly to the myriad systems that kept the landship functioning, falling into the role with ease. The work suited him well enough. It was familiar, but not too familiar, lest it dredge up something unpleasant.
There was also the matter of his Oripathy treatment. This, too, had been used as a part of his carefully crafted facade; he played the part of a hapless Infected when he sought refuge at Rhodes Island, citing it as the reason why he was insistent on becoming an employee. The truth was that Shalem cared little for his own state. If he succumbed to the damnable crystals circulating through his blood, he only hoped he reached such an end far from the clutches of his past.
Still, he was obediently receptive to the provided treatment. During the initial days of his employment, he frequently made trips to the medical wing. The doctors swiftly diagnosed him and performed the necessary steps to stabilize his condition. Nowadays, he occasionally assumed the moniker of patient, accompanying adjustments to his infection monitoring device, or routine examinations.
So long as he did not draw too deeply from the Arts that were carved into him, he would be allowed a relatively mundane life. It was something to take rare solace in, even if he would never be deserving of it.
Above all, Shalem was familiar with every inch of the landship out of necessity. How to keep out of sight of the security cameras, which escape routes were readily available. The circuitous rhythms that dictated daily life at Rhodes Island, all personnel beholden to an invisible path guiding their every move like dancers in a routine. Shalem could retrace the steps around this particular wing sightless and by the way he memorized the number of paces between each doctor’s office.
Yet now, the tiles feel foreign under his weight, his legs no better than a staggering fawn’s. It feels as though he never left the castle, the scenery shifting as he probes deeper into the maze of rooms and halls. The ingrained instinct to flee settles shallowly beneath his skin. Stage fright, even though it had long been wrenched out of him by force. Each step forward is a stiff march, the solemn dirge of his demise crescendoing amidst the chatter of colleagues and the fluorescent lights overhead.
Shalem swallows back his anxiety. No, he resolved to see this through, and he was never one to leave a performance half-finished.
He immediately freezes when he slides open the door to one of the rooms in the medical wing. What holds him in place is not practiced courtesy that prevents him from crossing the threshold, but a pair of gleaming slate eyes fixed on him with an otherworldly keenness.
The Crimson Troupe's Blood Diamond, the infamous phantom behind the curtain, was sentenced to bed rest for the foreseeable future.
Shalem’s breath lodges in his throat. He thought he was prepared to see Lucian again. The other maintains his ethereal air despite his piteous state, as if he would melt into shadow should Shalem glance the other way. Shalem suppresses a full-bodied shiver, the residual pinpricks traveling all the way down to his tail.
He forces himself to exhale, relaxing his face into a mild smile. His unruly bangs tickle his nose. Lucian’s expressions were often fleeting and muted, but Shalem catches the trace of bewilderment in his gaze. Such things were of little effort to glean when they shared a lifetime under the yoke of performance.
He casually leans against the doorframe. “You seem surprised. I thought you would have discerned my presence by footfalls alone.”
Lucian could refute him - tell Shalem that the way he carried himself was unmistakably reminiscent of the troupe. Instead, he looks uncertain, words slowly coalescing on his tongue. “I was told you developed a penchant for reclusiveness. I wasn't expecting you to respond to such an arbitrary summons.”
Ah, yes. Shalem had taken to seeking sanctuary in his dorm until this ordeal came to fruition. Now that the reason for his withdrawal was laid before him, confined to a hospital bed, there was little reason to hide any longer. Shalem knows the effort would be futile in the face of someone like Lucian, anyway.
“One of the medical staff said you were looking for me. I’m still on leave for my recovery and needed a break from filling out reports.” Shalem answers easily. He allows himself inside the stark white room and pulls a chair to Lucian’s bedside. Miss Christine is nowhere in sight.
Shalem takes a deep breath as he settles into the seat. His movements do not falter, not even his tail betraying his trepidation.
Operator Phantom did not make social calls; answering to Lucian was inviting danger.
“What of your injuries…?” Lucian peers at him, as if attempting to locate the bandages underneath his loose dress shirt.
“Nothing the healers couldn't fix.”
Shalem had been loath to use his Arts in such a way, but circumstances necessitated it. Flesh singed and rot licked at his body in an intimate decay. The thrum of his Arts coursed through him as if a wondrous melody played on the instrument of his corporeality. It had been far too long since he last used the foul magicks gifted to him. He was a wild candle burning down to the wick, greedily seeking its own end. The heady rush frightened him deeply and dampened his fear in turn.
It garnered him an obscene amount of fretting from the medical team in the aftermath, too. What if it caused his condition to metastasize? What if the healers hadn’t been there to sustain him as he pushed through the limits of his ability? Shalem attributed the reckless use of his Arts to the castle’s inherent madness, or perhaps some foreign pollutant in the troupe’s numerous traps. If his squad members noticed the darkness he harbored welling up through the concealed cracks, they made no mention of it. There were more pressing matters to contend with as they traversed the castle.
The bandages chafe slightly against his tender skin. Shalem’s face shows none of the discomfort as he tilts his head in concern. “I daresay you had it worse. How are you feeling?”
Lucian's hand reaches up to his throat, unconsciously running pale fingers over the collar keeping his Oripathy at bay. His long lashes lower in consideration. “Better. Thank you.”
Shalem briefly follows the movement of his hand. The doctors worried that using his Arts without the suppression apparatus accelerated Lucian’s infection, creating advanced crystallization on the pale column of his neck. His prognosis was grim upon his initial evaluation at Rhodes Island. Taking to the stage no doubt put a great strain on his body.
Shalem had been privy to them as he carried Lucian’s limp form in his arms - delicate things, glittering gems that threatened to pierce his throat with each shallow breath. The troupe sported all sorts of sumptuous costumes to best accentuate Lucian’s natural allure, but it was the first time Shalem had seen his infection up close. This was the weapon that Lucian used to bewitch unwary souls and sink them into despair, the source of Shalem’s nightmares. Bared on vulnerable flesh that he could easily drag a blade across.
For the moment, Lucian’s voice has returned to its subdued state, nothing like the enrapturing aria that echoed through the cavernous halls of the castle.
“Mm. That's good.” Shalem nods. Lucian has the semblance color in his cheeks again, no longer deathly pallid from blood loss. The forced rest has rid him of the deep shadows under his eyes as well. “Doctor Folinic told me to make sure you change your bandages. I’ve heard you’re being quite the difficult patient without Doctor Whisperain around.”
One of Lucian’s ears twitches at the pointed jab. Shalem did not entirely fault him for it. Operator Phantom preferred to slink off to an obscure corner of the landship to lick his wounds in private instead of being kept on display like a caged bird. He was likely reluctant to let others poke and prod him so freely after escaping his role as the troupe’s puppet. Whisperain was one of the few that he trusted, but she was tending to other patients during her shift.
Shalem is patient, receiving Lucian’s childish reticence with grace. He waits until Lucian wordlessly offers him his arm.
Shalem deftly unwraps the bandages on Lucian’s arm, unveiling a deep ridge of ruby. Lucian does not flinch when his wound meets the air. Perhaps there was residual numbness due to the paralytic agent used by one of their operators. Indeed, Lucian danced beautifully through the agonizing pain and twisted pleasure, never once falling out of step until the very end.
“You must know why I asked for you,” Lucian says lowly.
Shalem does not hesitate from where lithe fingers apply healing ointment to the semi-closed wound. Playing the part for this long has made this facade of ignorance natural.
“I’m afraid I don't.” If he pretended to be blind and deaf to the specter looming over him, would Lucian cease to beckon it closer?
No such luck. “What happened in Calais-Blason both past and present is more than I can atone for. Nevertheless, I have pledged my loyalty to Rhodes Island in an attempt to outweigh these sins…” Lucian pauses, searching for the right words.
“But?” Shalem gently prompts him, dread coagulating in the pit of his stomach.
“It was foolish of me to seek them out. Yet… I still feel drawn back.”
It seems Shalem’s intuition had been correct. It would be naive to think anything changed once they left the castle. To simply let them go would be a poor offering to the arts. The troupe was fond of intricate designs, of allowing their puppets to think they possessed a modicum of freedom before tugging at the strings once more. Shalem had been on edge since then, waiting for something, anything to give. The playwright’s grand unveiling, slowly unraveling and biding its time for the right moment just outside of Shalem’s periphery.
Shalem read the reports. Lucian’s behavior became increasingly erratic prior to his disappearance. Oripathy could affect the nervous system and cause a number of symptoms to impair one’s perception, but Shalem knows well the curse laid upon them.
He remembers his time amidst the troupe in shades of dark red, wine-drunk on the scent of fresh blood and the siren call of eerie lullabies. It was a home, when they had nowhere else to go. In moments of weakness, Shalem felt the same pull, craved the comfort in routines no longer afforded to him. There were famous artists and musicians across the nations that Rhodes Island passed through if he ever wanted to indulge in the arts. But it would never be the same stringent perfection that he always searched for, everything a pale imitation of the unrestrained reverence and devotion impressed unto his very being.
Shalem, at least, could take comfort in music. Lucian could no longer sing.
He meets Lucian evenly. “That’s quite selfish of you, Mister Phantom. Rhodes Island led a squad of volunteers into that den of demons, and you have the gall to ask them to do it a second time?”
Lucian’s gray irises sink downward until he is fixed on the crisp, white sheets of his bed. Guilt, Shalem idly thinks, at making grand declarations yet being tempted still to gaze into the abyss. Shalem has no reservations about rebuking him. Thoroughly quashing any lingering attachment was the only way to survive.
The Phythia offers a bitter smile as he holds Lucian’s arm. Its warm weight is grounding. The flecks of dark blood and scarred flesh are a painter's careless strokes on the canvas of his skin. “To be honest, I didn’t want to bring you back in the first place.”
Curiosity nearly killed the cat. Shalem should have left Lucian to his fate. If the vaunted Blood Diamond returned to Calais-Blason and took the plague of memories with him, who was he to chase after him? It would have been a blessing in disguise, if not for the assignment that appeared on the screen of his terminal.
Lucian raises his head. “Then why…?”
Why, indeed. Shalem chooses his words carefully. “I knew I would regret it for as long as I lived if I did not try. It was but a matter of time before the past caught up with me, I suppose.”
Lucian’s lips flutter helplessly, his delicate mien becoming mournful. Here, he is bereft of a script, forced to draw upon the fractured shards of his soul. “I… still seek the truth. I know it’s there. I…”
A tenderness akin to pity tugs at Shalem. He had been indignant to be subjected to his humiliation again, to be reminded of all he fled from. And yet, watching Lucian mired in his nightmares still - it becomes clear that he was just as much of a victim as Shalem.
Lucian’s quiet gaze pierces through Shalem with the precision of an assassin’s blade. “If I succumb once more, can I rely on you to bring me back?”
Any budding sympathy vanishes into the cold chill of Shalem’s blood. He keeps his neck bowed, focusing on the flayed flesh in his grasp. Shalem ignores Lucian’s question in favor of treating his wounds.
If this was a play penned by the troupe, Shalem would say, of course, every time. He would be the thread that guided Lucian back to the land of the living until tragedy claimed them both.
But this is not a play, and Shalem was never one given a leading role. He’s already written himself out of the script and smudged out his name as best he could. He finishes wrapping the last of the bandages and sets Lucian’s arm back onto the starched sheets. Shalem rests his elbows on the edge of the bed, leaning forth in his seat.
“I’m sorry. I’m not that brave.” Shalem says softly, staying the tremors in his clasped hands. The mere thought of returning causes a unique faintness to tug at the back of his mind.
There was no glorious triumph once he left the castle and all its horrors with his colleagues in tow. Just an overwhelming relief that nearly compromised the strength in his legs. If nothing else, it was a confirmation that fleeing had been the correct decision all those years ago.
Shalem cannot promise he would be able to put his fear aside again if the occasion arose. It was simply too much to bear the first time.
Stinging disappointment makes itself known in Lucian’s composed features. Shalem can only hope he does not think less of him for it. “Know you would be sorely missed if you left.”
If not by Shalem, then by the comrades that searched for him without hesitation. Isn’t that how it always was? Lucian - untouchable and ephemeral, but beloved all the same?
Lucian regards him with a meek sense of curiosity. “You truly do not wish to know?”
“I don’t.” Shalem firmly replies, annoyance seeping into his tone. “And why me? Though we’ve never spoken, you would not stop haunting me. I stayed far away and treated you with nothing less than revulsion, yet you…”
Followed me like a stubborn shadow, no matter how far I ran. Lucian’s face is calm in contrast to the lump of conflicting emotions Shalem silently quaffs down.
“I found myself drawn to you.” Lucian says after a long moment of deliberation.
Shalem nearly barks a hysterical laugh. Of course he did. That was why Shalem could not be rid of him. He holds his tongue and keeps his biting remarks just behind his fangs, prompting Lucian to continue.
“You and I were both taken in as children, raised under the Crimson Troupe’s guidance. Though we never spoke, I considered you and the rest of the troupe as dear as family. When you left, they condemned you… but it was the first time I yearned for the same.” Lucian briefly closes his eyes and knits his brow together, struggling to reminisce through the thick fog of a dream. “You had the strength to break free of this curse. I was desperately envious.”
Strength! Was that how Lucian saw it? It was cowardice!
If Shalem had any bravery, he wouldn’t have run from the judgement that befell him. And to insinuate he was free of the troupe’s curse? It was laughable - Shalem is keenly aware of its suffocating vise with each turn of the heavens. In his waking hours, ghosts guided his hand. In the dead of sleep, nightmare and memory coalesce. At times, he thinks of rest eternal as the only place beyond the reach of his past. But Shalem is too much of a coward to carry the deed through - he has no choice but to endure this torment without reprieve.
“I fled. There is no strength in that.” Shalem weakly protests, shaking his head.
“But there is,” Lucian insists. It does not feel like praise of any kind. “That’s why you should be the one to…”
A strange fervor enters Lucian’s muted expression. It is a sight spun from Shalem’s nightmares, pinning him in place like a dried insect for study. Lucian’s hand - the one that Shalem just rebandaged - swiftly closes around his bony wrist in a vise, burning like a brand.
It takes but a moment to realize: Shalem is caught in the snare of a practiced assassin. A cold sweat breaks out across his skin, beading on his forehead and making the thin material of his shirt stick to his back.
“At the castle - you saw it too, did you not? We had come so close to pulling back the curtain.” Lucian’s tone is beseeching, his eyes clouded and glassy. Illusory phantoms dance through his irises, wresting him back into the abyss.
Shalem grits his teeth, his jaw stiffly locking together. Damn it all. He knew it was the wrong decision to bring Lucian back. He shouldn't have accepted the mission. He shouldn’t have foolishly stormed the castle. And he shouldn’t have let Lucian live after such a gruesome performance, lucid or otherwise.
He had the perfect opportunity to banish the incarnation of his fears. Now, the hell of his own making was being pulled into reality. The shadows in the room begin to melt and warp into viscous tar, closing around them in endless night. Lucian’s voice treads dangerously close to melodious as he pulls Shalem closer.
“Just a little more and you would surely be able to find the truth-”
No, no! He does not want to speak of it. He cannot. A wave of nausea washes over Shalem, his vision swimming but still upright. Any strength has drained away, his legs frozen in place despite instinct telling him to flee. He can only give Lucian a strained look from beneath his bangs as he futilely tries to wrench his hand back.
Doesn’t Lucian understand? Is that not why he became a beast who turned on his masters?
“Lucian, enough.” The words are brittle, but sharper than he intends. The familiar spark of his Arts burgeons beneath his skin in retaliation, a biting flame to chase away dark.
The shadows recede. Lucian blinks at Shalem in surprise, his jaw snapping shut. As if he does not recognize himself.
Everything stills, then settles. The audience remains silent.
Lucian does not recoil. He releases Shalem’s wrist with one smooth motion. If the grip had been bruising, Shalem had not been able to tell. His sense of pain was already dulled by the time he was asked to take the stage.
Shalem rests a calloused palm over his own eyes, afraid of what expression has etched itself into his face. It was rare he lost his temper. Most knew him for his boundless patience. Fear, frustration, anger - all hidden beneath a veneer of pleasant blandness. He subtly stays his breathing with practiced exercises, mentally counting the number of times oxygen filled his lungs and escaped through his teeth.
This was why he did not wish to confront Lucian when he arrived at Rhodes Island. When he gazed upon this crimson diamond shining brilliantly in the night sky, his mask would inevitably fall. Shalem dedicated his entire life to performance. Even now, he knows not what lies underneath. Yet when the descending blood moon of Lucian’s presence fell upon him, it would inevitably reveal the sniveling child freshly plucked from the nadir.
Shalem sighs when they finally resume a cordial distance, keeping out Lucian’s immediate reach. “You’ve clearly been through much. Just rest. I should ask the medical team to administer more sedatives so you stop entertaining meaningless flights of fancy.”
“Forgive me. I did not mean to… incense you.” Lucian’s mask remains nigh unreadable save for slight droop in his ears that betray his growing regret.
“It’s fine.” Shalem replies automatically. Well, really, what else was he supposed to say? Lucian was the same as him, except he could not stop staring into the bottomless maw that nearly swallowed them whole.
“And please… don’t ask them for sedatives.” Lucian’s voice wavers near-imperceptibly.
Shalem feels a twinge of guilt beneath his sternum at his outburst. Even now, Lucian must question whether he is awake or still a thrall. “I won’t.”
Shalem drinks in the sight of Lucian again once the tempo of his heart has slowed. There is no scent of blood radiating from him, just the sharp tang of sterile chemicals in the room.
Lucian looks tangible here. Mortal. There is no telltale hum of Arts between them nor shadows stretching long against the walls. The Blood Diamond has retreated to the abyss for the moment. It emboldens him to seize this moment of lucidity ere it fades.
“Surely you must know that pursuing this will lead to ruin.” Shalem threads his fingers together pensively.
“And if I told you that for me, there is no other recourse?” Lucian returns, the languid confession leaving his lips in little more than a whisper.
Lucian escaped. Twice. Why not be content with that? Why not lay this foolish ambition to rest?
It seemed he could not be persuaded from this path so easily. Shalem is aware that all have their part to play on this stage. If this was Lucian’s fate, then who was he to deny him?
Shalem keeps his voice steady. “I can only promise this: should you succumb again… I shall not show you mercy.”
This would be the only thing within his power to grant. If he must immortalize Lucian as one of the phantoms that haunted him in deepest slumber on moonless nights, then he would bear such a burden without complaint. Let this sin stain him until his demise. It would be no different from the others that preluded it.
Lucian’s stoic features soften. His thin frame sags in relief as he leans back against the propped pillows of his bed. “Thank you.”
Shalem’s mouth fixes into a firm line. “That’s not something you should be thanking me for.”
“It would all come to an end, one way or another. And who better suited than you?”
This again, having roles foisted upon him that he was clearly unsuited for. Such was the fate he was resigned to. “Then I shall play the part when the time comes. Until then… if you find your recovery too trying, I can help alleviate your boredom.”
Lucian seems taken aback at the sudden proposition. “You don’t have to.”
“I insist. I have a few books I could bring, if you’d like.” Shalem falls back into the role of a polite, resourceful colleague. He rises from his chair, gathering up the used bandages to discard. “Get some rest. I’ll… if you need me again, you need but ask.”
Lucian quietly hums in affirmation.
With that, Shalem exits the stage with a sense of finality, unsure if Lucian would still be there if he glanced back.