They are still dancing watch how they twist and turn, see how they laugh and smile, cry and frown.The the steps they are different and the music is not quite the same yet we have seen it before, haven't we? The dance is always a facsimile it begins like so and ends like such. So why do I twist and turn, laugh and smile, cry and frown, moving as they do. Pick up a coin and you'll see, see how only one side can be looked upon at a time, see how although its the same it couldn't be further apart. This dance... it will move me like few others have, leave me gasping amd panting to the rhythm, I know it will, I have seen it before.

Once upon a time.

A powerful slap struck Kael across the cheeks. The sudden pain woke him up with a start, shocked he tried to stand only to be pushed back into a chair by a firm hand. He twisted his neck to glare at the person who pushed him down and almost choked when he saw the face.

He had never seen the person with his own eyes before but he sure as hells had heard about him. Rodrick, the leader of the Blood Staves. The man wasn't particularly tall but he had a thick build that made him appear large. His head was bald and his entire body covered in a mixture of warts and purple veins.

He apparently detested shirts and went about bare chested regularly, giving Kael a clear view of his rather unique appearance. It was all Kael could do to stare at man blankly. His whole body felt clammy and wet. Oh gods he stunk, he was dimly aware that there were other people in the room but he was too frightened to look away. This man had sworn to kill him no matter the cost and here he was, his prisoner.

"Yes he is rather unsightly, isn't he?" a chipper voice questioned.

Finally Kael looked away. Gerald was seated as well, his face set in a scowl, he looked about as bad as Kael smelt. His father was there too, looking smug and very pleased with himself. Not all the look of a man who had lost it all. It was the last person that Kael's eyes came to rest on. A stranger, Kael had neither seen nor heard of him, yet he sat on his father's seat and Carl stood beside him, content. A boy, rather attractive though not handsome, delicate, pale skinned with intensely black eyes that reminded Kael of his father's only they looked good on him, thin almost sickly, his lips were parted in a mocking smile.

"Forgive me, where are my manners? The name is Avin, Avin Crow and you must be Kael the GodMarked boy or rather the Marked deviant and of course Gerald. I have heard all about you both. Did you know that besides me the two of you are the youngest deviants in the building? You know, I think we are going to be great friends"

This time when the boy smiled Kael could see the outline of two fangs beneath his lip.

"Fuck you, you uppity cunt!" Gerald growled.

"Well if you've nothing but insults to spout, I suppose our friendship should commence" the leapt kid of his seat and over the desk with a fluid swiftness that rivalled Carl's.

Kael panicked, his mind was still reeling from what he had just heard and seen. He was a deviant? This kid had somehow seized control of two of the three forces in charge of Tenlight? With what army? Why was everyone here being so weird? What the fuck was going on? His father wouldn't serve under anyone, he'd die first. He needed to buy some time to think.

"How..., how did you take over? I mean you'd need an army. I don't see an ARMY!" Kael shouted that last bit, frantic.

Even as he said words understanding was coming and it painted a scarey picture. He was a deviant? When did he trigger? When did he get here? The last thing he remembered was jumping of the roof alone. Then black..., endless tunnels within the black. They called him, he answered and they surged forward. All of a sudden he knew, he feel his deviation like a pressence at the back of his mind. He had shied away from it because... Kael bowled over, seized by the urge to vomit, the acrid taste of bile stung him but his stomach was too empty to retch up anything else. A flood of images hit him all at once. He had killed Rufus. The memories felt alien, as if he was a spectator and not the one in them. His body felt so dirty and wrong, there was blood on him and not all of it was his. The kid had taken his time to compose an answer. Not at all in rush and why should he be, they were prisoners and he was King.

"I guess you say I make armies with what's at hand"

"Motherfucker!" Gerald hissed barely staying in his seat.

For the second time that day Kael understood. The boy fucked with minds, he had heard about abilities like that and he heard something about the Crows he just couldn't place where or what. His father... his father was dead. What stood before him was a twisted facsimile and if he didn't do something the same would be true for him. Yet what could he do? Two uniquely powerful deviants had lost to Avin in the prime of their lives. What could he do?

Kael laughed bitterly, was this really it? Was he going to spend the first portion of his life Carls little pet and the rest a puppet to some kid? Where was his share of the pie? Huh! When did he get to go after what he wanted. Fuck them and fuck the world, if he had to go, then he would go in flames! Painful and agonising, just so he could burn those around him even just for a moment. It wasn't bravery, it was bitter spite and an ancient rage that gave him strength. Just like that he felt his deviation stir, rising from the corner of his mind and wrapping itself around him. He shivered for a moment, then he realised it was all in his head, that it wasn't just wrapping him it was holding him up. That it wanted something, blood! The memory of killing Rufus came unbidden. He could do this, he would leave this guy a bloodless corpse and maybe get his dad back. Avin was looking at him, very obviously amused by Kael's inner turmoil.

"Yeah? Well fuck him!"

Kael lunged with all his might, suprising everyone including himself. Avin answered with a measured leap back, landing on the table so silently it seemed he was weightless. Then he shot forward with terrible speed, Kael couldn't even think of stopping him. He fell on his butt and began to shuffle backwards desperately. His pants now wet with urine. Yet Avin did not take advantage of his pitiful combination of cowardice and inexpertise. He went for a now standing Gerald.

In response to the attack Gerald lashed out with a stunning punch. His agility aspected physical War deviation, insanely fast in it's own right. Yet the kid side stepped briskly with but a couple of steps. His smile growing into a grin. Avin leapt at Gerald with grace of large cat and Gerald nimbly jumped out of the way. Unperturbed he made a dash for Kael who was only now rising to his feet despite his haste.

"Gotcha"

It was a miracle of clumsy footwork that Kael did not fall back on his behind. He raised his hands to shield himself in manner that would have made his combat instructor cringe. This was going to hurt... a lot. Perhaps it would slow Avin though, if fate was kind. Avin angled himself like a predator going for the kill and then a single black homogenous tentacle tore out from Kaels back. It struck at Avin, who did an excellent job of twisting himself out of the way, had not the tentacle corrected it's course and slammed point first in to his ribcage he might have gone unscratched. Avin had never expected the pitiful boy in piss stained pants, standing in a horrid defensive pose to launch such a decisive attack and now he would pay for it. Blood burst free, Avin fell on to Kael and the tentacle dissipated into nothing, with it the presence in his mind. Not the end anyone had in mind. The presence was gone, did that mean he was out of Despair? And if so how come he had any at all shouldn't he be empty after having killed Rufus. He remembered white tubes did they-

"Get back!" Gerald shouted at Carl and Rodrick, bringing Kael back to the present.

His old plan had involved killing Avin and freeing his dad but it didn't look like his father was planning on letting that happen and what happened if his dad wasn't immediately grateful or grateful at all? No, new game plan, it sickened him but he knew Carl would have done the same without a second thought, it was time to say goodbye.

"Come close and I'll shove one up his ear, see if he lives!" Kael yelled

This earned a hiss from Rodrick but only an amused smile from Carl.

"You can't, you are out of Despair" Kael wasn't honestly sure if this was true but everything seemed to point at that being the case. Fuck Carl!

"Yeah? Well why don't you fucking test me eh, see if this is a beefing joke yeah!" whenever he felt threatened and powerless Kael resorted to speaking like one of his fathers grunts. Gods he hadn't given them away, had he? Yet his father didn't know his own son.

"Fair enough" Carl said "A deal then, we let you go and you let him go"

The rest was painfully slow and suprisingly quick. Carl practically took care of everything, from passing Gerald a sword so he could continue to threaten Avin's life whilst Kael hitched a cart to Carl's own beast mount, a purple stallion. To insisting that 'Genneris' one of the two deviants Avin had brought with him remain in plain sight when Gerald voiced his concerns about having a woman who could appear and dissapear running around. The woman in question had protested vehemently but Carl brutally crushed her with perfect logic. Even going so far as to propose all the other horses be drugged to allay fears of pursuit, Kael wouldn't have thought of that. He also came up with how the exchange would go, Cleaves would follow them to pick up the young master when they released him, from off enough that he remained out of sight, Kael knew that just meant he would fly with the sun at his back, keeping them in sight but staying hidden. Yet concessions had to be made if this would work, Carls words again. All they had to do was race off far enough before dropping Avin that, Cleaves would be forced to rescue his master without retaliation but keep in mind that travelling so far as to make the young master expire would result in their untimely demise. For a moment Kael thought Carl was still there, no man's puppet yet when the time came he did not jump into the cart laughing at his enemies with them and that hope died. Perhaps he wasn't totally lost but he was still a slave and this was still goodbye.

Avin himself had been mostly delirious, Kael couldn't begin to imagine how much painhe was in not to mention the blood loss. For the most part the boy deviant rumbled about his invincible master, the one who taught him how to fight. He promised Kael a long and terrible death and repeated banned anyone from touching him. Talks of friendship were of the table it seemed.

Kael looked at the walls of Tenlight with mixed feelings. For the first time, he was leaving the clean zone and heading into the Despair morphed lands. Tenlight's safety didn't come from it's walls, no those were for the most part a decoration. It was safe because it was a clean zone, a place without ambient Despair, because beasts sought areas with higher concentrations of Despair to recover what they spent and increase their power. To them it was worthless, to humanity however it was their salvation. The last curse The Void imparted on them, cages they would embrace of their own choosing. An imprisoned race, a dead race.

Kael had always known he would step into the Despair one day, he bore the Mark, his father was a true blue guild leader but really it was just something he needed to do. Step out and pretend he had escaped the cage, life is the cage Iyrie had said once, the prison of our own choosing and Kael had known it to be true. Yet he had also said to live was to choose, in the death there were no choices, only stillness, so that was a cage too. He said I like pretty things if even it's just a gilded cage. Gods why was Kael so sad, thinking up all these depressing thoughts. He had won, he was leaving. True Cleaves might spend a second to obliterate them and oh what fools that would make them but he would have done what he always dreamt of, he would have stepped into the Despair, he would have fled the cage. If he did that then maybe death wasn't so bad after all, either way what came next would be a whole new world, a whole new cage.