Trizelle's creased brown eyes flicked quickly from the cowering young boy in the middle of the floor to the self-satisfied gaze of the middle aged male before her. Without moving a single muscle, the older woman simply thought of the spell necessary to rid the Human messenger of the illusory images of nipping black imps that had so terrified him.
"You know, he could have been spared this treatment," the well-dressed male smiled.
"Begone," the woman spat at the boy sharply. Unable to get his balance and run as quickly as he wanted, the boy suffered some stumbling before he was able to follow the command. Once he was gone, however, the grey haired female mage crossed her arms before her chest expectantly.
The male, for his part, tilted his head slightly like the impudent child he once was. "No courtesies for your son? No time for the mage who is fighting for the freedom of all magic practitioners?"
"It's impractical to demand freedom by demonstrating why you shouldn't have it," the court mage said simply.
It was a criticism he had heard before. The fact that she was the source of the criticism did more damage than the words themselves- and because she was who she was, there could be no doubt that she knew it.
"He wouldn't do as he was told," the man replied, smoothing a hand over a bare spot in his mouse brown hair that seemed more like a tonsure with each passing year. "What use is a servant who won't do as he's told? Whose is he, Mimsa's? Has to be Mimsa's; you'd have never-"
Not a single muscle in the woman even threatened to move. "I said afternoon, Dresan."
He shrugged with a sheepish smile. "No sundial."
The court mage dropped her chin so that the shadows around and beneath her eyed deepened- while the glare wasn't as withering as it had been when its focus was younger, it still had a marked effect. "So you decided to torture Gimago into interrupting my class?"
"Gimago," the man smiled wickedly, a sudden streak of crimson intruding on his naturally brown eyes. "He wouldn't tell me his name, you know."
"He can't defend himself against you. I can." Trizelle walked to one of the cushioned benches that braced the walls of the hall and sat down with a small degree of difficulty. Once there, she pulled a letter from one of the pouches at her side and held it straight out in front of her. The two locked eyes, the unspoken battle between them begun. However, with much more experience and determination than he, Master Ranclyffe was assured of victory. With rolled eyes, Dresan walked to her and took the letter from her, breaking the seal and flipping it open casually. It took only a few minutes for his face to cloud with distaste, but he at least had the sense to read the infuriating missive more than once before he began to speak.
"Why didn't you tell me about this before?" he began, looking up after the third pass at it.
"You should rather thank me for showing this to you now," the woman replied, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned back onto the cold stone of the wall behind her.
"I, thank you!" Dresan barked, the sound of his voice as sharp as a sword. "Why should I thank you for telling me what I should have known-"
"Unknown unknowns are unknowable," came the icy reply. "A Shadar-kai slave learned that wisdom in one hour. You've spent three ungrateful decades without it."
Dresan resisted the urge to throw the letter. "I've spent more than three decades without a family. Should I thank you for that, too?"
"Considering the wealth of opportunity afforded you by infernal heritage, yes, you should," the court mage stated flatly. "But you waste time with those worthless stage strollers, instead."
"I am the only Human ever to be in the Phoenix, let alone lead it!" Dresan hollered back.
The older woman raised a vaguely unamused eyebrow at him. "I would have been the first Human. And instead, I left for Thultanthar."
The man seethed with indignation. "You must regret that even more than you do my existence."
There was a short, quite harumph from the woman before the actual answer came.
"I cannot regret."
"Everybody has regrets," Dresan snorted impishly, drawing close to her as though he would soon strike her.
"You're not listening," Trizelle warned, very aware of his nearness. "You may regret destroying that holy shrine, however badly you wanted to demonstrate your point at the time you did. Your beloved probably regrets killing a few innocent bystanders in her raids, or allowing people to suffer in one way while she takes care of others in another. My mother likely regrets allowing me to become an apprentice of someone other than my father, and my father undoubtedly regrets allowing me to even demonstrate an interest in demonology, but I cannot regret anything. Especially anything that has to do with you."
There was a quiet moment during which Dresan almost felt something. His deep brown eyes met his mother's, and for a brief second, an urge rose up within him. Trizelle watched his entire visage darken with gathering energy, utterly unmoved and unafraid. To her, he was little more than a toddler on a tantrum.
"What?" he said at last, unable to raise his voice from a raspy whisper. "You feel it?"
Trizelle merely shook her head.
"You're lying. It's stronger now."
The court mage firmed her lips, and Dresan watched her gaze change as the all-too-familiar emotional wall begin to rise between them, as impenetrable as the darkness that held the Eastern Quarter in its inky arms. The desire to overpower and destroy her grew within him, checked only by the pragmatic awareness that he could not yet do so.
"Mother! The only prestigious title you don't at all deserve! You belong in the Hells; you do. With Baalzebul and Belial-"
Master Ranclyffe scoffed so quietly that her son almost could not hear it at all. Only the movement of her upper body betrayed her.
"-you watch calmly as Baator claims your only child! You proudly draw the line between your ability and my inferiority! You have absolutely no shred of actual motherhood, no scrap of conscience, no drop of Human kindness-"
"There is no such thing," the older woman proclaimed, finally standing up. "Humans have, in every documented age of their existence, dined upon each other, sold each other as commodities, offered each other up to spirits and destroyed each other for entertainment. I know of no other animal that will treat its own kind in like manner."
"And I know of no right-minded woman who would give her only son over to the demons themselves to win herself freedom."
Master Ranclyffe leaned her head back for a few seconds, as though in surprise. "You were never mine to give."
Dresan's focus of his dark energies was shaken immediately, and the shadows that had gathered and darkened him moved away momentarily. "What, you're saying you're not my-"
"This is the trouble with not listening to people when they talk to you."
Trizelle watched in silence as a strange look crossed over Dresan's face. While she was fully aware that it was detestable to enjoy his discomfort, she was also aware that he would not be able to sense that she was. The best she could do was keep her inner entertainment away from her face.
"You said that there was a demonologist-"
"Aleth; an insufficient mage. He tried to summon a demon in the effort to document infernal magic tendencies."
"You used to tell me the demon appeared. That it manifested over my cradle."
"He did."
"Why would it come if the summoning failed?"
"When I found that I could neither contest the demon nor kill its child while yet in the womb, I warped the summoning ritual in the attempt to kill you. The lesser demon was unable to break through planes, but Asmodeus was unhampered by my efforts. Nowhere in Aleth's agreement with that lesser demon did it say that I had given my body over to Aleth for negotiation purposes, and Asmodeus's affinity both for complicated plots and contractual detail is legendary. He killed Aleth. I lived- but unfortunately, so did you. You do not have the knowledge that Aleth asked for, but the Infernal Underwriter gave you a heightened ability to decipher it. It is time that you inherit that birthright."
Dresan walked a half circle around his mother, staring holes into her.
"I have always known that other Humans would rather you simply be a possessed mage than a Tiefling mage, especially one with such close, clean ties to Baator. It is now up to you whether or not you would like to openly be what you are."
"This man- this Terezio Ranclyffe-"
Trizelle turned her back on her son, preparing to leave for the courtyard. Her winded son found he could only take hold of the back of her cape as she passed by him, but at his touch, she stopped cold.
"He will not be fooled. He will also cry the matter from the highest parapets of Suzail, as it is no doubt that Asmodeus has not spared either of us due to any real mercy."
The light brown haired man finally found the strength to stand up, even though so many memories and ideas were crashing down in his mind. With the back of his mother's cloak still in hand, he walked around her until he could see her face. While other women would have been in tears, Master Ranclyffe stood emotionless, distant and reserved.
"I'll see you in ten days, Mother."
Trizelle nodded shortly, stepped to the left of her son, then walked straight past him.
"Don't refuse food in that house. My mother is a better cook than I am."
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