#1 Envoy
Mentions of: Silvain, Sui, Edarien, Isolvar, Lyrin'a, Helios, and The one character of Jae's that I forgot the name of.
Priarch was a place where many things happen. For one of those things that happened to be someone looking for their lost family was not unusual. Edarien took on all sorts of jobs and put them up to all manner of odd jobs in order to fulfill the company standard. Had it not been for the work of the company, he would have never realized he was someone else's missing son.
The more this man spoke, the more Inwa could feel a sense of dread. He knew this incident. His family went missing after a party at Isolvar Ravendarke's manor. Now he was facing persecution from the Inquisition under suspicion that he may have been his family's murderer in order to inherit their name and fortune.
This man was not at fault for the disappearance of his family. If anything, it was Inwa's fault he was in this situation.
---
It was a masquerade and Inwa had decided to wear flowing white robes. On paper, it was an event Edarien was invited to, but he had passed it on to the others. They were to attend this party and that was all they were told. Their allies The Covenant of Ash would also be there among many of the nobles of Ishgard that evening.
Priarch didn't know much about the evening going in, but they did know that the noble holding the party had a connection to the ink. That was all Inwa needed to know as he stood by himself, hands gathered in front of himself politely and looking at the grandeur of the hall. It was as gilded and opulent as the books he had read as a child described. The sweet scent of perfume filled the air as bodies swayed and spun with the music that felt like it was coming from everywhere.
Inwa felt like he was suffocating.
It was as if every person of status was in that very building. It set his nerves on end. The ink was a formidable and night unstoppable. If this party was being run by their infectious enemy, every person in the manor was in danger. What's more, Inwa was the only one for malms with the unfortunate power that could counteract that toxic substance.
Inwa had a mission, he had a hope and an intention, and that was why he stood alone. At least, he intended to be alone. It would have been safer if he set out to find the danger in the building and handle it on his own.
When Sui and Silvain walked up to him and began conversing with him, it was almost maddening. The Flame had done nothing to stop the suffering of those with the ink. He shouldn't have needed to stand alone, but there was no other way, wasn't there?
Yet he was getting distracted by Sui's sweet, innocent desires. Inwa should go with them, and so Inwa did. Despite the darker feelings dwelling in his heart at the time, he found himself bending far too easily to Sui's wishes. He glanced at the two mysterious figures by the library in passing and continued on with going upstairs with the couple as if it had been the idea the whole time. With every second that passed with them, that feeling of suffocating had grown. It was like the ink was everywhere and nowhere and only he seemed to feel as if ink-soaked cotton had filled the hall.
The Flame was a curse more than it was a help.
Everything had changed in an instant. People were clamoring up the stairs. The ink was being filtered out into the hall through the perfume and had become pouring from everywhere. No wonder it felt so suffocating. Silvain instantly became protective of Sui and Sui in turn of Inwa, pulled him along towards a side room. Some of their allies made a deal with someone and a portal was summoned to get them out before things got worse.
Once they got to the grand staircase, Inwa broke away from the couple, watching them rush for the portal and off to safety. Pushing down his hood, Inwa turned for the staircase, taking a few steps to look down the steps to the darkness below.
He intended to stay behind. He was the only one infected with the flame who would risk their life for something like this, and that was exactly what he ended up doing. Down those stairs was Isolvar, The Thorn that was in control of everything that had caused the troubles and murders they experienced.
All he had to do was go down those steps and burn what little he had to at least see the other patrons out of this situation. He could feel the fire within himself begin to burn hotter just to stave off the strength of the ink in the air, threatening to consume him.
A hand caught his arm, stopping him from going any further. When he turned his head, he met Lyrina's concerned gaze and insistent pull toward the portal. At this time Lyrin'a was just the medic of The Covenant of Ash; a keeper that shared a similar position to the one Inwa held in Priarch.
At the moment, his care and concern were getting in the way, and Inwa wished he could have screamed or pulled himself away. His anger was as hot as the fire in his chest and he wanted to fight with the other miqo'te about why he should leave him there.
Biting his tongue the number of people trying to usher him to the portal grew as the others noticed Lyrin'a and Inwa by the stairs, Inwa bid the downstairs one last look and then turned, heading for their exit.
If he had been braver, he would have taken his arm back and gone down those stairs, ignoring the cries of anyone else.
---
Now, all these years later, Inwa could look across the room at the consequences of the choice he made that night. He no longer held the flame. That power was given back to its proper owner and everything set back to normal. The ink was no longer held by Isolvar. It was now owned by the man who used to master the flame, a man that Inwa knew too well.
The desire to tell him the truth of that night sat in the pit of his stomach as heavy as stone, but he held back. How could a layman understand such a vast concept? He might as well tell him his parents were whisked away in the middle of the night by fairies and the outcome would be the same.
So, Inwa tells him they will look into it. It wasn't a lie. They would do their best to find out what happened to all of those people. If he had to appear before Helios again for the sake of a stranger, he would. It was his hesitation that night that led to this situation and Helios' poor handling of a power he never intended to use to help the victims of the ink.
Inwa and Helios were inexplicably linked, and even if it drove him to insanity to attempt to squeeze responsibility out of the unfeeling monster Helios could be, he would.
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