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He didn’t have his crown when he awoke. It was the first thing he noticed, and it had confused him as he blinked back flashes of fighting, desperate and vicious as cloaked figures, all too familiar yet made strange and unknown, locked him away. Relying on ancient magics and powerful spells, the traitors had been unable to defeat him properly, as warriors, and Pariah curled his lip at the memory.
But he’d still had his crown then and it took him a moment, having stormed away from the accursed coffin and it’s nauseating sleep, before he remembered the first time he’d awoken. There had been a child, incredibly powerful and with the kind of support Pariah hadn’t had since the peak of his reign’s popularity. He’d been the one to defeat him in the end, alone, in a battle that no ghost could say was anything but fair.
It settled something in him, almost. It was frustrating, naturally, to be defeated by a child. But in the Infinite Realms such things were rarely as they seemed, and it was unlikely that despite everything the one who had defeated him was truly as young as he looked. And he had defeated Pariah, unlike those before, in a proper fight.
The loss of his crown was only a natural progression of such, and while Pariah knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he would have reacted differently had he awoken earlier in his sleep, or even with the crown still atop his head, it was clear there was little to do either way. His ring was gone as well and there would be no commanding of armies this or any day.
Instead, he decided to work on himself. To stretch out half formed and aching muscles from their prolonged and unnatural sleep and to walk once more throughout his own keep.
There was much to be done, frankly, the castle itself had fallen into a horrible state of disrepair, and the grounds had become entirely overrun with all kinds of ghostly and dangerous plants.
Once, just to see what would happen, Pariah had tried calling upon his skeletal army, but no matter how much power he pulled into the spell or how much he strained his core to its limits, the ground slept beneath him. It was almost freeing, knowing there was nothing to be done but to work and ready himself.
He spent the mornings getting reacquainted with his form and its abilities. The ectoplasm of the zone felt cleaner than he remembered it, and it helped energize him. It wasn’t long before he slipped easily back into his previous exercise routines and the strain was pleasant after so long sealed away.
There was so much he missed, in the little things. Taking the time to prune and shape the weeds and vines around his grounds helped him to feel accomplished, like he was finally doing something after so long doing nothing. So much so, that going into his castle, using the energy he had to restructure and rebuild where it had started to decay and fall apart, felt worthwhile.
It was nice, learning how to exist all over again. Without the need for conquest or dominion, there was a focus on the mundane and simple. Pariah had hardly remembered what that was like. If he had ever known at all.
The feelings and moments of quiet, by himself in his own keep brought back memories. Memories of certain people, certain events, things he’d lost long before. But like everything else that caused pain or bitterness to build back up within him, he pushed it aside and got to work, releasing the feelings out into the realms and focusing instead on what was before him, what he could touch with his own two hands.
One day, as he was carving a particularly sturdy vine into a new possible weapon design, he was interrupted. Rather rudely in fact, by someone who thought it somehow acceptable to storm into his keep.
Fortunately for the ghost, Pariah’s isolation had gifted him an unusual amount of patience and he’d let it live, if barely.
That had, naturally, been a mistake.
It turned out that ghost was only the first of many, many, ghosts that thought to challenge the great Pariah Dark for his title and crown. A title and crown, Pariah thought with no small amount of annoyance, that he’d already lost.
The ghosts were rare and few between at first, a momentary interruption in the mundane rebuilding that had become Pariah’s world. As such, he took those moments to remind himself what it was like to spar again, his core humming in his chest at every cross of blades, seeking challenge.
Rarely though, did the ghosts that had the blind courage to attack him, Pariah Dark, the first and only High King of the Infinite Realms, also have the strength to back up their bravado. So he’d held back.
Another mistake.
It led to some of the more foolhardy ghosts returning to challenge him again, barely any stronger than they’d been when they first attacked. It was pathetic truly, to be so constantly accosted by those so clearly weaker than him. Then again, someone strong enough to match his strength would know better than to challenge him, would know better than to want that crown on their head.
Pariah sighed, he was expecting the dragonling to arrive at any minute now. She was excitable and easily riled in a fight and Pariah had been using it against her in an attempt to desensitize her for a true battle. Soon, he’d move on to teaching her how to block more quickly and then how to use her powerful transformation abilities more smoothly in combat. It was a beginner’s mistake to think that the larger you are the greater your advantage at all times.
After he defeated her he’d have enough time, he thought, to start exploring the far tower. He’d been avoiding it so far, the memories present in that place were strong and could be overpowering, but there was only so much more work he could do on the rest of the castle while leaving it untouched as it was. Pariah disliked leaving a job undone, it itched under his skin, grating.
“Behold Pariah Dark! I have come once more in my eternal quest to defeat you!” ah, there she was. He unsheathed his sword, it was time to see how much she had retained from their last bout.
Pariah was cleaning the tower, starting with the bottom and working his way up. Not avoiding anything, just… prolonging the moment where he would reach that room. The one that held enough memories to start a flood, dammed only by Pariah’s firm refusal to open the door just yet.
He should have known that wouldn’t work.
“It seems out of character for you,” said an achingly familiar voice from just behind him. Pariah didn’t turn around, he didn’t know what he’d do if he met those eyes, and he couldn’t risk it. Not against this fragile peace that had formed in the time outside of his coffin, as short in comparison as it was.
“You sent them to me didn’t you?” Pariah realized, pulled a particularly stubborn purple weed that had been growing through the cracks of the elegantly carved stone that made up the inner walls of the room. “This is another one of your schemes.”
It had been some time since they had last spoken and longer still since they had done so with no swords or weapons between them, and Pariah refused to allow it to affect him. He’d felt the burn already that came from trusting that voice. It was better, certainly, to keep the door locked.
“What makes you think I had anything to do with it?” his uninvited guest said. His voice was closer and Pariah flinched, quickly turning around only to see him there at the door, Clockwork.
He was, unfortunately, still achingly beautiful. His features fine and chiseled, though his hair was hidden entirely by his hood, a practice he’d kept up after one too many comments about his unnecessarily alluring appearance. Many times he’d contemplated simply cutting his hair or doing something else equally horrid, but every time Pariah had talked him out of it, mumbling soft compliments as he combed through it in the mornings or tangled his hands into it at night.
Had he cut it then? Since Pariah was locked away?
Since he locked Pariah away?
“It’s always one of your schemes” Pariah hissed. He walked deeper into the tower to get away, but it was useless. Clockwork simply glided along behind him, not acting at all like the bitter enemies they were, “you conniving, backstabbing pawn of those who watch and never act.”
Clockwork rolled his eyes, they were red. When had they become red? They used to be a deep purple, soft and mischievous and full of knowledge that even Pariah would never hope to match. Pariah had thought, once, that they were equals. He wondered now, if Clockwork had ever thought the same.
“I am simply visiting an old friend, surely my leash is long enough for that?”
His leash. So it was true then, Clockwork had been tied to the Observants’ will, just as the rumors suggested. It explained, Pariah supposed, why he had not been there when he had woken up before. “Is that what I am then? An old friend?”
Clockwork took mercy on him and shifted forms into his older self. His eyes were just as sharp, just as keen, but the urge to touch, to take for himself, lessoned as he watched muscles deteriorate and a beard grow long and knotted from the other ghost’s chin. “How would you describe it then, Pariah? Enemies?” Clockwork chuckled, “no, of course that’s how you would describe it.”
Heart of the Realms he needed to get away, there was too much between them and the small moments of interaction he’d had sparring with random ghosts or seeking out current knowledge of the realms were hardly enough practice to deal with someone like Clockwork.
But he didn’t stop following Pariah further into the tower and the familiarity of walking these halls, Clockwork at his side, was enough to force him into a stop. Why was he here? Just to make Pariah miserable? That seemed something he would do, conniving as he was.
“It’s rude, you know, to enter a ghost’s lair uninvited,” he tried.
Clockwork smiled, tilting his head in the way that meant he was being obnoxious on purpose. Pariah had, foolishly, assumed it would not be the kind of thing ever aimed at him. How bitter, to be proven wrong in such a way.
“I was under the impression that I had a standing invitation,” because he had. Because if anyone, Pariah had trusted this bastard the most and had not wanted even a day separated from his side.
“I am not the one who betrayed his King.”
The time around them stilled, the realms silent in their entirety for just a moment. Clockwork’s expression was sheltered when Pariah had turned to look at him and he smiled bitterly, “The realms were never meant to be tamed Pariah. Not even by you.”
A familiar argument, one they’d had countless times, one that Pariah had thought unimportant in the scheme of things. He’d thought at the time, that if he could get the entirety of the realms under his control, infinite and expanding as they were, he could make Clockwork understand. It was his duty, it had been entrusted to Pariah. Just as the time stream had been entrusted to Clockwork.
He should have known better really.
“Then I rescind your invitation, you can leave now.”
Clockwork bowed, deep, formal, and it made Pariah grit his teeth. He’d never bowed to anyone but those pathetic eyeballs and Pariah knew what it truly meant to receive formalities from an Ancient. “Then I shall take my leave.”
Finally. Pariah refused to watch him go, and instead turned back to the walls he’d been so studiously clearing of their overgrowth before he’d been interrupted.
The weeds had returned, covering every single inch of the room, just as they had before Pariah started clearing them away almost a week prior. Damn him.
Pariah had finished the entirety of the tower’s first floor when he had returned, entirely unwelcome. “I don’t recall inviting you in,” he said, focusing on his work. He was restitching a cloth that had once been beautifully embroidered. Pariah’s own hands were hardly any good for delicate details but he made do through endless trial and error. He had all the time in the realms afterall, and it was in his nature to complete a task in its entirety.
“No?” Clockwork said, his voice dry and purposefully pitched to piss him off, “so you don’t have an open door policy? You seem to have so many ghosts that come and go.”
He scowled, “they are fools, young and easily excited. They hope to defeat me and earn the crown for themselves. I am simply teaching them the error of their ways.” This stitch was particularly difficult, and in order to do it properly he’d need to focus. Something unlikely to happen with his current guest.
There was something uncertain in the ambient ectoplasm around them. A gentle wave gliding back and forth between a tentative hope and a deeper, darker mistrust. Pariah ignored it. There was no reason he should be so intune with another ghost’s moods, especially not this ghost.
Unlike Pariah, who wanted this conversation finished and to be left once more to his peace, Clockwork was an instigator, clearly here only to frustrate. He floated closer, just out of reach, “teaching them? It’s been some time since you bothered to take an apprentice.”
Pariah set down his work and stood up properly, Clockwork had shifted into an adult form since showing up and the mischievous tilt of his lips left Pariah frustrated and frazzled. There was no reason for him to be here, except to torture with his presence, precise and devastating.
“They aren’t apprentices, you of all ghosts should know better than to think I would ever be so patient as to take someone under me.” as King, he‘d always been too busy, too easily frustrated, too stressed. Clockwork had been there, the nights where Pariah had wished he could give it all up, had spoken in whispers about what could have been if only he’d refused the crown.
Clockwork smiled, a show of his fangs, and Pariah clenched his fist to stop from reaching out. If he tried, he could close the distance between them quick enough to pull Clockwork towards him entirely. Perhaps he’d end this game if Pariah called his bluff. Pariah wondered how many futures he saw, where Pariah did just that. He wondered how confident he was that those futures would not be his own.
“I just thought to inform you,” his smile only stretched wider and Pariah wondered what had him so delighted, for surely it meant nothing good, “that I have taken on an apprentice myself.”
That had not been what Pariah expected at all. Clockwork was rarely around children or younger ghosts in the time Pariah had known him, and while many of the more powerful inhabitants of the zone spoke often of their desire for children, he had not heard such from Clockwork in the times they had known each other.
Was that simply another truth that had been hidden from him, was the ghost he’d known nothing more than a lie, perfectly catered to Pariah’s own desires in order to trick and to trap him?
He looked over at his unwanted guest, unease threaded through his core. The mischievous smile had yet to fall and as much as Pariah wanted to bite it, he turned away instead, “are you hoping for us to meet? I should think you wouldn’t be so foolish to bring someone you care for anywhere near me.”
“Not at all,” Clockwork answered easily, floating closer once more, “besides, you’ve already met.”
Already met? Surely Clockwork wouldn’t have taken one of the foolish, eager ghosts that thought to challenge him in his time awake as an apprentice. They were hardly suited towards him and his subtle manipulations.
But he hadn’t met anyone else since waking, few ghosts that remembered his reign wished to meet with him, and there was little reason for someone that had caught Clockwork’s discerning eye to seek out a failed king. Unless he had come to spy on him? No, there was little Clockwork did not know, and even less that he could not simply discover for himself using those accursed mirrors.
Clockwork tilted his head, a mischievous smile still in place, “you don’t want to know his name?”
So it was a him, that narrowed it down marginally, “I wouldn’t know it either way.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t have known the name of the ghost that defeated you, too busy getting stuffed into that coffin of yours.”
Pariah reached out, a blast built in his palm, to attack. But Clockwork, as always, had expected it and floated easily out of his reach, dodging the ectoblasts Pariah released after him as he fled the keep.
Good riddance.
The next visit, Pariah had been the first to speak, “where is my crown?” he asked.
Clockwork had shifted into his older form and gently stroked his beard, pretending to think about the question Pariah had asked. As if he didn’t know the answer, as if he didn’t know everything.
“Would you really like to know?” He didn’t. Not truly, but he had wondered, if he asked, what Clockwork would say. He should have known it would be something cryptic and aloof. He’d never once bothered with straight answers before, it was unlikely he’d start now.
Pariah walked over to him, his steps steady and measured. He stopped just out of reach, as Clockwork had been doing to him in their visits and wondered, fleetingly, if it affected him at all. Surely not, as aloof as he’d been. If he felt as tortured by Pariah’s presence as Pariah felt by his, there would be no need for these games. They would simply avoid each other and that would be that.
He grabbed a book from a nearby shelf, they were in his study, private as it once was, and Pariah had been reading with the intention of catching up on the things he missed. Such as Clockwork’s new ward, the Half-ghost child that had been dead hardly a year before defeating Pariah.
“Does your ward have it? Has he been claimed king? If so I’ll be sure to tell the fools that still visit to go after him instead.”
Humming, Clockwork floated over to Pariah’s desk. It was freshly carved, intricate designs by Pariah’s own hand. “There are some that do so already, but no, Daniel doesn’t have your crown Pariah. No one does.”
So there is no king.
“I see,” he said, opening his book to a random page and feigning interest. It was difficult, to be sure, when the most interesting thing in the whole of the infinite realms was here, sitting on Pariah’s desk. “You haven’t gotten any better at answering questions.”
Clockwork laughed.
And Pariah left the room.
The next time Clockwork came to visit, it was just after a spar he’d had with one of his regular guests. It had been an improvement on her part, her control of her natural abilities was getting better and she had actually attempted to use technique instead of her admittedly limited brute strength.
But it had also been one sided, as all these matches were, and Pariah found himself itching for something more exciting. For a fight worth the effort of keeping his core lit.
“Your teaching methods could use some work,” Clockwork had said, his voice smooth with an echoing touch of gravel, as he leaned over Pariah’s shoulder to see the weapon he was sharpening.
Pariah almost knocked him away, but as always, Clockwork was a moment ahead. Somewhere in the future. Never truly there, where Pariah was, always waiting instead where he would be. He growled.
“Then it is for the best I was not teaching.”
Clockwork smiled, “my mistake.”
There was little doubt in Pariah’s mind that Clockwork had never made anything as simple as a mistake. There was too much that he knew, too much he could see. The decisions he made might not always lead to exactly what he wanted, his obsession unwilling to compromise the free will of others, but Pariah had no doubt that each and every one was perfectly calculated to the smallest minute detail. Mistakes were off the table.
He grabbed the weapon he’d been working and felt the weight and balance of it in his hand. His core, fresh from an unsatisfactory fight just moments before, hummed with energy.
It would, Pariah mused, be enjoyable to catch Clockwork in a fight. But it was not something he did lightly, his powers, as grand as they were, were rarely suited for battle, and Pariah found himself wondering if he attacked now, would Clockwork fight back? Or simply stop time and flee, coward that he was.
“The scar suits you,” Pariah said, stepping closer. Clockwork didn’t back away, but his expression twisted into something cruel. Pariah didn’t think about how well suited his features were for it, didn’t think about other expressions Clockwork might make and how Pariah had once made it his mission to see every single one.
“Admiring your handiwork?” he said, his tone brittle and biting.
Pariah was within an arm’s length now, “I had aimed for them both. I suppose it’s fortunate that I failed, seeing that you gave as well as you received.”
There was a tense silence and Pariah felt it almost like a physical barrier built between them. If he lifted his sword now, would it shatter?
“I like to think I gave much better,” he said, nodding at Pariah’s eyepatch, “seeing as out of the two of us, I succeeded.”
He lunged, but by the time the blade struck the ground, Clockwork had long disappeared.
“Sever yourself from the observants,” Pariah demanded once he’d seen Clockwork again.
There was a beat, a moment of time, and then Clockwork sighed, “and what, put myself into your less than merciful hands?”
He was in his youngest form, by all rights he should look vulnerable, weak, but he only looked tired. An expression Pariah had grown all to familiar with in the twilight of their relationship. Pariah scoffed, “better I than those useless snakes, they know not what they have. I’ve heard what they call you now, pet, attack dog. It’s demeaning.”
Clockwork looked up at him, his eyes deep and endless, “you are no longer a king Pariah. You hold no sway over the realms any longer.”
Said as if it were a gift, a token granted to him for his service. Then again, in the eyes of one such as him, it may very well be. Clockwork had always been bound in core and form by the duties required of him.
“What hold do they have over you?” He asks, in need of an answer. Of something. Why would someone so powerful, so immeasurable, bend to the yolk of another? Especially those slimy optical wastes of ectoplasm.
But he wouldn’t get an answer, not from Clockwork, and they both knew it. “The realms exist as chaos, those who seek to find order, or try and force their will upon it seek to destroy chaos. Everything that exists, exists with a sense of its own self preservation.”
Yeah, in no way was that an answer, and judging by the soft smile on Clockwork’s youthful face, he knew it too. “Yet you ally yourself with those things?”
Clockwork hummed, “everything is the way it’s supposed to be.”
Because of course it was.
“If you take a picture it will last longer,” Clockwork said nonsensically.
Frustratingly, he was here, again, in Pariah’s keep, his personal lair, floating just an arm’s length away from him. Out of reach. “Is that supposed to make sense?” Pariah growls.
But Clockwork remained aloof, “you’re staring.”
Of course he was. Clockwork was in his adult form, all well-formed muscle and casual strength, soft skin blemished only by the scar Pariah had given him that fateful night. The claim he had carved.
“I’m admiring my handiwork as you said.”
Clockwork tensed, “are you now? Looking to repeat the performance?”
He had been reading a book. Just, casually there, near Pariah in his own lair, reading a book. As if he owned the place himself, as if it were his. As if he were welcome here, to sit there carefree and out. of. reach.
“Perhaps, if you wish to spend all of your time in my keep, I can leash you here.” he said, taking a page from Clockwork’s own book and ignoring the question. He stepped closer.
Clockwork floated away, casual as ever, infuriating as ever. “I’m afraid I do have duties to attend, outside of babysitting you.”
“Is that what this is then?” Pariah growled, “your new masters sent you here to keep an eye on me? To make sure I am truly beaten, unwilling to rise again?”
“Something like that,” Clockwork drawled, “are you, Pariah?”
He crossed his arms, “Beaten? Am I not?”
Clockwork frowned, Pariah wanted to grab him by the chin, tilt his head up towards him and pull that infuriating hood away so he could no longer use it to avoid Pariah’s gaze. He held himself back, the other ghost was too far out of Pariah‘s grasp for now. Reaching for him too soon would only cause him to float away.
“You exist still,” he said, ignoring Pariah’s scoff, “you exist . Is that not what matters?”
Yes, he existed. He spent his days sparring with ghosts too weak to give him proper challenge, fixing a crumbling castle one single brick at a time, and waiting, with unwanted anticipation, to see if the ghost that had taken it all from him would bother to visit.
“And what a glorious existence indeed,” he spat.
Clockwork was a child again, floating around and above Pariah’s head. He’d asked him once, if the changes were voluntary or natural, and Clockwork, true to himself as he ever was, had given a vague answer that hadn’t actually answered the question at all.
“How is your ward?” Pariah asked, his eyes never leaving Clockwork as he circled above him.
He hummed and gave a noncommittal answer, likely unwilling to speak too much about the young phantom, unwilling to place him in the line of Pariah’s sight. It was an unnecessary caution, Pariah held no interest in the boy outside of his relationship with the Ancient.
The crown held little interest either, with how much Pariah had lost to keep it the first time.
“I’m sure your new masters are thrilled you have taken in such a powerful ward,” he had meant it with mostly dry sarcasm. It was clear, in all the actions of the observants before, that they disliked things that were different, things that didn’t fit neatly in their pathetically limited labels.
He hadn’t expected Clockwork to growl as if it were a threat. It caught him off guard. He'd known Clockwork was hardly loyal. It was, if anything, the most predictable aspect of who he was. A being created in chaos was not going to ally itself to any one doctrine for long, and especially not to the doctrine of another.
It was why, Pariah thought, the observants kept him chained so thoroughly with responsibilities and rules, unable to go against what they demanded and busy with pointless, petty tasks. Had he been wrong?
“He is my responsibility,” Clockwork scowled, aging into an adult, “as he is meant to be.”
So they didn’t know. It was likely, knowing Clockwork and his propensity for twisting language to his advantage, that they had said something threatening or demeaning towards either Clockwork or the boy and he had simply taken it to mean what he’d like.
It also meant that it was something he was keeping hidden from them. An advantage, Pariah thinks, that a better man would refuse to take advantage of. But Pariah was no king anymore, there was no proper way to get what he wanted, no code of honor and chivalry. And what he wanted, was kept tantalizingly out of his reach.
Why shouldn’t he grab what he could, to pull it closer to him?
Pariah had not slept since he awakened the second time from his slumber. The idea, while once a pleasant excuse to ignore his responsibilities for the sake of rest, was no longer appealing to say the least. He would not admit, even to himself, the fear that crept upon him at the thought.
He was not scared to sleep, he did not lie awake, staring at the swirling mist and ectoplasm of the realms around him in fear that if he closed his eyes they may never open again.
“You should sleep Pariah.”
“Clockwork,” he greeted, not bothering to stand, “you of all people do not get to tell me that.”
There was a soft shuffle of fabric and Pariah felt the subtle change in the ambient ectoplasm of the zone as Clockwork sat beside him on the ground of his once grand courtyard. It had taken some time, but Pariah had managed to tame the plants and vines that had claimed the land for their own.
In his impatience he had sheared more than was perhaps necessary, leaving much of the ground barren and lifeless entirely. There was nothing to be done, but to keep the plants tamed and wait for the rest to grow again.
“It was supposed to be the merciful option,” Clockwork lied, “You always liked to sleep in, if I remember correctly.”
Pariah refused to look up at him, he didn’t know what he would do, should he see him, softly glowing and silhouetted against the sky, close enough to touch, and he was unwilling to test his own resolve. “I had a reason to stay in bed then, if I recall correctly myself.”
Clockwork didn’t rise to his bait, “if we had planned instead, to take your core… we would have failed. You would have won and gone forth to take more of the realms as your own.”
Because of course he would have, fresh from Clockwork and the other Ancients’ betrayals. He would have been angry, vindictive, the scar he had now would have been nothing in comparison to what Pariah would have done in retaliation for such betrayal from those he’d trusted so thoroughly.
“You would have lost your resolve. And without it, the others would have fallen to my blade.”
Clockwork didn’t answer, of course. But he didn’t need to. One didn’t need the ability to look into the branching paths of the future in order to know someone else well enough to predict. And Pariah felt the truth in his words hit as Clockwork hesitated.
Without thinking, Pariah reached towards him. His hand had gotten almost close enough to grab the edge of that damned cloak before Clockwork was once more out of his grasp.
The weeds around him had grown back, his work entirely undone. Petty bastard.
“Fright has yet to bother me as you do.”
Clockwork floated towards him, grabbed the book from his hand and floated away. Pariah didn’t resist, any hope of actually reading had fled at the other’s sudden appearance.
He hummed, flipping carefully through the book. It was on gardening, Pariah had read through to the section on encouraging natural growth, methodical as always in any task he undertook. “You can hardly blame him, with the pumpkin and all.”
Pariah scowled, “he can’t still be trapped by that.” It was rare, quite frankly, for his royal knight to be trapped for long at all in that thing.
There was always some foolish ghost or other entity that wanted to test their courage, and it only took one before Fright would be freed to roam the realms under his own power. The sorcerer that bound him in the first place had learned that lesson quickly and was now spending their time trapped in a tailor made dimension of their own.
“He’s not.” Clockwork answered easily, then he paused, mused something over, and said, “he’s been training with Daniel. But he won’t come see you after your last time awake, not after what he and Vladimir did to trick you.”
That was a new name, “Vladimir?” Pariah asked, voice deceptively soft, “am I supposed to know who that is?”
“You are,” Clockwork smiled, never a good sign, “he was the one who woke you up after all.”
Frowning, Pariah walked over to grab his book back, Clockwork let go of it easily, not having read a single passage and for some reason this frustrated Pariah further. Why grab the book at all if he wasn’t going to even pretend to read the damn thing?
“I suppose you were behind that as well then?” He asked.
But Clockwork just shook his head, that infuriating smile still on his face. Pariah could have fixed that once, wiped that damn smirk away with naught but a touch or a well spoken word. He held his ground instead.
He was clearly enjoying this somehow, basking in Pariah’s torment, “not every aspect of your existence is meticulously planned I’ll have you know.”
“I’m sure,” Pariah said dryly, “there’s many decisions I’ve made in my time that have led you in unplanned directions.”
“As was your goal,” Clockwork floated back, away from Pariah. He stepped closer in response, unwilling to allow the distance.
Pariah forced his posture to relax, it wouldn’t do to look the part of predator stalking prey. The goal, after all, was not to scare him away. And Clockwork had always been skittish, in moments like this.
It had taken time, in the beginning, to get as close as he had. It would take time again.
He had all the time in the realms.
“It gave me great pleasure to see you flustered,” he was almost within reach, almost close enough to touch.
Clockwork’s back pressed against the wall, Pariah stepped forward, caging him in. “Surely there were easier ways to seek your joy.”
Humming, Pariah stepped even closer, naught but a moment between them. “When has a challenge been anything but enticing to me?” He reached up to finally pull away the horrid hood that had been obscuring the other’s face, but his hands closed around empty nothing.
Clockwork had once again slipped through his fingers. Damn.
Vlad Plasmius.
A stupid name that reeked of a grandiose sense of self importance and naivety. And, knowing that he was the one to wake Pariah in a foolish, short sighted attempt at his crown, it was likely apt as well.
He’d turned one of Pariah’s most loyal against him. Stolen what was Pariah’s and had yet to see due consequence.
“I’d warn that your face might become stuck if I wasn’t so sure it already had, is a scowl the only expression you can make these days?”
Pariah’s scowl deepened, “what is this Plasmius to you?”
Clockwork blinked, a moment of genuine surprise flickered across his expression before it melted back into his typical neutral expression.
“A nuisance mostly. His exploits tend to disrupt the flow of the realms and he rarely thinks about anything as dull as the consequences of his actions,” he tilted his head, allowing his gaze to wander, “and his determination to steal Daniel as his own has become grating.”
Pariah’s scowl lessened, he’d thought for sure, with the Half-Ghost’s penchant for chaos, that Clockwork would have a more favorable opinion of him. Often, it was the most obnoxious, frustrating, logic defying, gremlins of the infinite realms that caught his eye, and his affections.
Things that existed beyond the simple calculations of his sight, wrenches in the works of otherwise well laid plans. They were Clockwork’s favorite, his desire for mischief surprisingly genuine for one so ancient and omniscient. Though, perhaps that was why. The Ancients may not be chaos themselves, but they had certainly been born from it.
“You haven’t thought to share custody?” Pariah asked, curious. It was uncommon amongst ghosts, as obsessive as they were, but not unheard of. Especially when obsessions were involved, it was difficult after all, for a ghost to let go of something their core had claimed as their own.
Clockwork’s smile was tight, “I don’t think I have it in me to share.”
Pariah looked over at his companion, the ambient soft blue of his glow and its contrast against the shadows of his hooded cloak. He watched as the watches, clocks, and other time keeping devices embedded and decorated throughout his form ticked, discordant from each other; each one a slightly different pace from the others.
He watched as Clockwork’s face, as handsome still as it was the day he locked Pariah away, softened from sardonic and annoyed to something more gentle as the silence stretched on.
“Neither do I,” he said.
“You shouldn’t seek me out, if you have any desire at all to keep what limited freedom you have,” Pariah warned.
He had walked down one of the winding stairs in the far tower only to see Clockwork there, halfway down and leaning out of the window. His legs were fully formed for once and Pariah had to bite back a remark involving just how long it had been since he’d last seen them.
It was novel, to see Clockwork in his entirety.
“I have little choice, my duties as they are,” he lied. It was unlikely the Observants had any desire for him to leave his tower, poised at their beck and call. If they had demanded he keep an eye on Pariah at all as he claimed, it had been with the intention of using his screens. There wasn’t much that could be hidden from them after all.
Pariah stepped close, just enough to look out of the window beside him. It was like standing beside a lightning storm, as static and electric as the space between them had become.
“They do not fear I’ll steal you away from them?” He folded his hands behind his back, held them there, clenched tightly in restraint.
Clockwork’s smile was bitter, as it often was nowadays when he was reminded of his bindings, “there is little you can do.”
“There is little I would not do,” he countered.
He stepped away, his legs fading once more into a familiar tail and Pariah bit back disappointment.
“You assume I would return here? Should I be relieved of my duties?” Clockwork asked, snide.
“You assume I would not chain you here myself?” He would, with no hesitation at all, if he thought it would hold. If something as simple as chains and binders could keep something like Clockwork.
He walked towards him, internally rolling his eyes when Clockwork kept level at his height even as they descended. It was a small, petty thing, him not allowing himself to be vulnerable in any way, and it was very Clockwork.
“You could not hold me.”
“I could try.”
Pariah, finding more and more time to himself as the Castle’s restoration saw its completion, was looking into the observant’s laws. And their prisoners, and their actions after Pariah himself had been locked away.
It was boring, tedious work to shuffle through the information given to him. The countless detailed notes of the Observants countless boring meetings were beginning to blend together in his mind. It would be easier, he knew, if he simply skipped to the parts that were important to him. The ones that involved Clockwork and their claims to him.
But that was against his nature, so he read, and read, and fought down the rising urge to simply fly over to their courts of judgement and raze it to the ground. It would be quicker, and more enjoyable as well. But it wouldn’t give him the answers he needed, and it wouldn’t guarantee Clockwork’s release from his duties.
He continued reading.
“You’re calmer now, without the ring,” Clockwork said, once more stating the obvious.
Pariah put down the papers he was staring at, the words had long blurred together and there were more pleasant things here now to keep his eyes occupied. “I should hope so, with all the trouble you went through to separate me from it.”
His companion nodded, the hood shifting slightly with the movement to cover his face even further and Pariah frowned.
“You would have been more successful in your conquest had it never been gifted to you,” Clockwork said, “it is perhaps for the best, that you fell to its charms and lost your patience.”
Pariah doesn’t know why he brought this up. It could be to agitate or remind him of their animosity. It could be one of those strange roundabout explanations Clockwork used instead of apologies, or it could be his attempt at distancing himself. A reminder of how far Pariah had fallen in the end.
“Carefully planned no doubt,” Pariah said, his voice light. “A gift given to disrupt what goals I had, to speed up my fall and more quickly end my reign.”
“A necessary evil, to lessen the cost.”
Pariah smiled, sharp, “are you saying I’m a larger threat without it?”
Clockwork turned his gaze away, “you're certainly more meticulous. It’s terrifying really.”
“What do you see in those futures of yours?” He asked, not expecting an answer.
He didn’t get one, “many things. Different branches and paths, some brighter than others, some barely there at all…” Clockwork floated to the window and looked outside, “it would be easier, Pariah, if you bothered to be predictable.”
Ha, Pariah smiled, “If you truly struggled to predict my actions, we would not be here now. At least not as we are.”
Clockwork gave a hum of agreement, “it is what you are going to do next, I think, that I struggle to see.”
Pariah had taken the chance, with Clockwork’s back to him, to get closer. To crowd himself near without touching and spoke in his ear, “I disagree. There is no doubt in my mind you see exactly what I am going to do, what I have planned. What you fail to see, my dear timekeeper, is how to stop it.”
He disappeared before Pariah could get his arms around him.
But no matter, Clockwork had been correct when he’d called Pariah meticulous.
“I’d rather you not call me your ‘dear’,” Clockwork said, appearing far enough away that it was a wonder Pariah had heard him at all.
They were outside, the weeds and plants of his courtyard finally, properly tamed and pleasant. He lifted the petals of a particularly pretty purple plant to his lips and kissed it gently before replanting it into the ground.
“I could,” he offered, “call you by the name of a flower instead.”
Clockwork clicked his tongue, “I do think pet names are beneath you. You’ve never used one before.” That was certainly true, but he’d also had an image to uphold before, and many other ways to see Clockwork flustered.
If he had known how well something so simple had worked though, he would have started using them an eon ago. Ah well.
“Perhaps I grew romantic in my forced sleep?,” Pariah said, his expression slipping into a smirk. Clockwork’s careful distance was a set back and a hopeful promise tangled together and he didn’t bother trying to move closer. He knew better than trying to corner a startled animal, trying to corner a skittish Ancient would unlikely end any more in his favor.
There was movement out of the corner of his eye, ah, Clockwork had shifted to his younger, child form. Was that a defense mechanism of some kind? Or did he do it out of spite? It would take some time, and likely some subtle experimentation, if Pariah ever wanted to truly solve that particular mystery.
But he was finding he didn’t mind the thought of taking his time, slowly unwrapping all of the things Clockwork had long kept hidden from him. The imperfections and jagged edges. Patience was starting to become second nature, in his dealings with the other ghost.
“Are you saying you dreamed, Pariah?” Clockwork asked, disbelief coloring his tone. Pariah wondered, if he refused to answer, would Clockwork ever know? He could not read minds, would he simply look at a branching path where Pariah was less inclined to be petty and seek his answer there? Would there be one?
Pariah was stubborn afterall.
The silence stretched uncomfortably and Pariah reveled in it. How novel, catching Clockwork off balance like this. He wondered if he could make it worse. If a gentle push would break the tension or heighten it.
“Afraid that you’ll fall for me again, if I should be endearing towards you?”
Clockwork made an incredulous noise, something between a cough and yelp, and Pariah had to bite back a smile. Much of the fun would be lost, should Clockwork realize he was being messed with.
His form aged as he started to rant, his low, deep voice colored with irritation and sang like music to Pariah’s ears. He didn’t even bother listening to the words, content instead, to feel Clockwork’s frustration in the ambient ectoplasm around them. Perhaps this feeling was why Clockwork had started these visits, marveling in Pariah’s own flustered discomfort. His mistake.
“-An obsession with conquest, control-“
“Obsessions change,” Pariah interrupted softly.
He was met with only silence, and when he looked over again towards Clockwork, the ancient had frozen entirely. His gaze was locked on Pariah himself, before he broke it away, looking instead at the keep around them. The rebuilt castle, the carefully manicured courtyard, the area set aside for his spars with the younger ghosts that returned so often, so ready to prove themselves. His posture softened.
“Yes, I suppose they do… if you allow it.”
This time, when Clockwork left his presence he didn’t bother to stop time and sneak away. There was no need likely, Pariah had not bothered to get close enough to stop him from simply flying away.
He leaned back into the grass, his core humming in satisfaction and anticipation.
It had been some time since Clockwork’s last visit. Too much time.
The visits had become regular, expected disruptions to Pariah’s rather dull afterlife, and their absence soured on his tongue. He tried not to let the frustration show in his lessons with his students, hitting one harder than necessary would hardly teach a ghost how to better dodge, and attacking faster than they could keep up with would hardly help them plan their next move.
So he put all of his frustration towards renovation once more. Sure, the castle had been properly rebuilt and looked as grand now as it ever had, but Pariah had learned of more modern comforts in his studies, as detailed and meticulous as they were, and desired to have some for himself.
He just needed to figure out how to implement the overly complicated designs to something that had long been simple. First he would start with an aqueduct of some sort. It would be nice to have regular access to more purified ectoplasm with which to bathe or shower himself, and the well in the center of the courtyard that dug deep enough to access the steady supply at the heart of his lair only allowed for him to pull up so much before it would be depleted.
If instead, he built some kind of purifier, something that could take ambient ectoplasm or even throwaway energy from the realms around him, he could imitate the water systems mortals had invented for their own homes. Perhaps he could create something similar to this ‘sauna’ he’d read about. A room packed full of purified ectoplasm for the sole gain of sitting inside to relax.
There was nothing more rewarding, Pariah thought, than working towards a goal and seeing that work bear fruit. Patience and perseverance were all a ghost needed to succeed.
Pariah worked as he waited for Clockwork to return.
“You seem to be in a bad mood, your majesty,” the dragonling said. She had long learned to use the most advantageous aspects of her abilities without fully shifting her form, but her speed at doing so needed work and Pariah had started leading her into Katas specific to each trick she had developed.
He glared at her, “I don’t have moods,” he lied. “But if I did, it only makes sense that I would be irritated to find my day interrupted by your foolish challenges.”
There was another young ghost there as well, a small dokkaebi that looked like it had once been a broom or something similar. He had attacked Pariah alone multiple times himself and had apparently convinced the dragonling to team up with him in their next attempt at Pariah’s nonexistent crown.
It had been nice, the extra bit of challenge it took to defeat them both without causing serious damage to either of them.
The dokkaebi scoffed, “if you really didn’t want us here you wouldn’t have this time in your day set aside.”
Pariah frowned and threw a gentle ectoblast towards him. It grazed his shoulder and he yelped in response. That should teach him not to sass his elders. “It is a foolish decision for a ghost to make plans when those around him seek to ignore them so entirely.”
The dragonling chuckled at the dokkaebi’s misfortune and Pariah snapped at her to concentrate on her own training. It was a poor showing of his self control, that even ghosts as young as they had noticed something off.
He was building a blueprint for the aqueduct’s filter when a feeling not unlike that of being covered entirely in slime settled around him. He scowled, “I don’t remember inviting you into my keep, watchers .”
“We are the Observants,” Pariah rolled his eyes, “we have come to judge you for your deeds.”
Entitled bastards.
They likely thought themselves more powerful than they were, Clockwork having lowered himself as he did for whatever nefarious, long term plan he was no doubt biding his time to implement. But Pariah was not bound by contracts or schemes, and even without his crown a handful of inactive ectoplasmic waste such as these were hardly a threat.
An annoyance though, considering what would happen should he actually shatter their cores. The last thing he wanted was for them to send Clockwork in their stead, even if it would break the impasse he’d caused with his prolonged absence.
“I have done nothing worth being judged,” Pariah said, his knowledge of what was and was not mentioned in each of the Observants’ ridiculous laws was encompassing and complete. There was somehow, despite their likely efforts, no laws against rebuilding one’s own lair or meeting challenges set against oneself.
Even in the rules of their contract with Clockwork, there was nothing that confined him permanently to his tower. It was stated, quite plainly, that he could leave in the performance of his duties as given by the Observants themselves.
Clockwork had stated many times that one of those duties had been to watch over Pariah.
The Observants, predictably, disagreed, “you have left the realms in terror and abandoned your duties as King.”
“What I did as king is not under your jurisdiction, and you know well that I was dethroned. You wouldn’t be here now, attempting to threaten me otherwise.” He stood to his full height, towering over his uninvite guests.
They wavered, giant, bulbous eyes that never blinked, Pariah held back his revulsion in favor of allowing his fury to take stage instead. “The clause of the King, as I remember it, was right by conquest. The fate of the realms to be given to the hands of whomever defeated me under their own power. The crown is no longer mine, it does not heed my call. I have no duties to be found in remis of.”
“Your reign of terror-”
His remaining eye twitched, “I did as King. To whom such laws do not apply.”
It was tedious, dealing with their repetitive denials, their attempts at enforcing laws that did not exist to their standards. But Pariah calmly shot down every accusation, every mentioned offense, citing written laws and countless examples of other ghosts and their versions of compliance. He had done nothing since he awakened, and it was this nothing that both infuriated them and protected him now.
“How does it feel, I wonder, to have been so thoroughly outsmarted by a child? Less than a year dead at the time, as I’ve been informed. Did your council throw a fit, when he absconded, erasing the position of High King from the realms until someone else should attempt to take up the mantle from the start as I had? Did it affect your plans? Were you hoping, when I awoke a second time, that I would start once more on my trail of conquest, crown or not?”
One of the Observants glared daggers at him, a nerve clearly struck, “we had hoped you’d stay true to what we believed you were. You left the task incomplete.”
Pariah grinned, “I don’t know what you mean, are the lands of the realms not united now?”
It squawked, “in what way?!”
“Why, against me, of course.”
The conversation with the Observants had been long, tedious, and mostly fruitless for both sides. They could not make anything stick against Pariah, not without breaking their own vows as they stood and making themselves powerless entirely. Yet all the same, it would not stop them from attempting to pass new laws and regulations, with the sole intent of catching Pariah out on it.
They would fail, of course, he had painstakingly sorted through every record and law, every court decision ever made since the foundation of the Observants’ Order. There would be no ghost, Observant or no, as thoroughly knowledgeable as he, in what could and could not be done. He was meticulous like that.
It had been a flaw, in their eyes. Made him slow to action. And the reason, he suspected, he had been gifted that ring. They had thought to use his rage, to falsify impatience, to more quickly advance their plans.
Their mistake.
Taking a moment to relax and stretch his limbs, Pariah stood to leave.
“Pariah!”
He had opened the door to see a flustered looking Clockwork on the other side, easily within reach. His hood had been mussed, likely caused by him rushing over to Pariah’s keep after so long purposefully ignoring him, and Pariah could see wisps of long white hair peeking through, no longer completely hidden. He’d kept it long.
“Where- I- I couldn’t see-,” Clockwork’s eyes darted around the room, looking for something that had long left, before settling on Pariah, an embarrassed flush spreading across his cheeks.
Realization dawned quickly as Clockwork noticed just how close they were to each other and attempted to create space between them. Not quick enough though, as Pariah curled his hand around a gloved wrist.
He stepped close, Clockwork moved back, almost like a dance, until the stone wall of the corridor blocked his retreat and he had nowhere left to go but Pariah’s arms.
Marveling in the feeling of finally, finally having Clockwork exactly where he wanted him, Pariah purred. When he looked down to admire his prize, Clockwork had ducked his head further beneath that damned hood, avoiding his gaze still. Annoyed, Pariah lifted his free hand and tugged it forcefully away.
It was a view easily worth the wait, Clockwork’s flustered expression, framed beautifully by soft white hair, even longer than Pariah last remembered and tangled in a mess by the constant presence of his hood. Pariah longed to card his fingers through it, to gently brush away the knots and feel the silky strands beneath his fingers. So he did, drinking in Clockwork’s gentle shiver like fine wine as he leaned closer, trapping him against the wall.
Once he was done, he allowed his arms to lower, circling around a tapered waist and pulling the other ghost closer to him. Even stopping time, it would be impossible now, for Clockwork to disentangle himself and escape. Pariah’s grip was as gentle as it could be, but it was unyielding.
“You did not tell me they could block your sight,” he muttered gently into Clockwork’s hair.
“It is not my job to tell you things you already know.”
Pariah hummed, trailing his hand along Clockwork’s back, documenting in his mind every soft hitch of unneeded breath, reacquainting himself with the more sensitive places now available to him. “Once I destroy that useless council of theirs, I will have to find a way to cage you for myself,” he mused.
Clockwork bit him, fangs sinking into Pariah’s unarmored shoulder.
Well, he would at the very least attempt it.