Lex's Story: (Trigger warnings.)

[revenant_trash]

[[Triggers for sexual abuse, and general hellish things happening to an innocent.]]


1: The Newborn. (600 years before the Hell War.)

It's called, simply - and unimaginatively enough, a birthing-place.

Conception, if it can be called that, takes place in the rifts. Great gashes of light and energy between universes, are the wombs for these new beings that so fascinate The Mother.

The harsh rocks of Guln are merely the birth canal. There are many such areas here in this realm. Jagged volcanic basins among the mountains, on the frozen plains, or in the volcano caverns themselves. All that is required by mother Danaë are a few crevasses, sizeable enough to morph and be shaped into the required slots. The spaces become filled with small boulders, sand, pebbles, even lavaflow. Over time, the shape is compressed, rearranged, sculpted and twisted into a golem-like living form. Evolution-wise, Mother Dana’s birthing process is achieved in a remarkably short period. Merely one century sees the Wraith, and some species of Demon, from idea to womb to crib, in adult form.

Only there are no soft blankets waiting. No medical care. No loving arms, or cries of joy.

...Lexis Brierley...little defender... The voice that whispers his name around his mind is his own. The voice that carries the strange title... is not. Lex gives it no more thought as the first dawning of coherence brings him to open his eyes. The rocks are hot around his bare skin. As a creature impervious to fire, it is simply cosy. Both comfortable and comforting.

As he stirs slowly into existence though, as he becomes, the environment becomes gradually less comfortable. There's little light in Guln, but what there is burns his newborn eyes, the air hurts his lungs as he takes a first, shallow, almost sobbing breath. Lex huddles in the crevasse, forced to learn how to breathe without it hurting, because how can he not breathe?

As a supernatural creature, lack of air will not kill him, which is a good thing, because no mortal kelde can survive in Guln. But despite the still heart in his chest that will not beat for about two decades, his lungs do work, and insist on taking in whatever atmosphere his surroundings have to offer.

Learning slowly how to wake, and how to cope with the heat in his lungs, the newborn wakes. He's cocooned in rock for the most part, but can lift himself up and out of the Lex-shaped gully he was born from. This he slowly does, unused to his newborn body. The wraith sticks his head above the layers of rock and blinking a little painfully, he looks about.

This birthing area lies on a small flat plain in a volcanic basin. Lex's nook itself is at the very edge of the basin, at the foot of the cliffs that surround it; and obscured by a landslide, miraculously occurring some ten years before his wakening and shielding his position from would-be predators.

He lifts his head on stiff, sore new neck muscles... Then grits his teeth and winces, ducking back down as a shrill sound rents his newborn hearing.

It's the unnatural scream of something horrific, being slaughtered by something even more horrific, and much larger.

He can't see out, hidden as he is among scattered landfall. He has little wish to. The newborn instinctively recognises the sound. Then another. Something is hunting. And when something hunts. Other things die.

He lays still and silent. Lex really doesn't want to know the full details of the creatures that inhabit the basin. He just wants it to stop. To not come in his direction.

Trembling, he tries to curtail his own whimpering.

And waits.


2: Respite.

For ten days, or what passes for days in this deadlight world, Lex has found his way out of his birthing-gulley, and lies in a new-found nearby cavern. Ten days merged in the shadow, lying silent, still. Doing what newborns do all over the universe.

Sleeping.

Dreams still come to him. Of waiting an interminable length of time in his birthing-nook, too terrified to move. Waiting for absolute silence. Waiting for more screaming, footfall, for anything bad or anything encouraging. He knew not which. He dreams of finally crawling out of the hot stone birth-channel. Half stumbling, half climbing. Up, and up and up again. Creeping into the cavern, eyes wide with the expectation of some terrible, bloodsucking, head-ripping death to fall upon him.

And finally. Peace in the arid darkness.

On waking, the newborn's atoms gather together, giving the slow appearance of shadow becoming thick black cloud, until pale skin and bright blue eyes become visible in the dim light. Lex stretches each limb. For now relishing the energy his slumbers have given him. He yawns. His belly growls. And he knows he must leave to find something to fill it with.

Climbing out and further up the basin, he reaches the top and looks down at the birthing-grounds. He sees figures, some evidently grotesque, despite the distance, some larger, some small and fast. He knows they are a combination of demons and hell beasts, and now he understands why they wait in the basin. There will be more of his kind. He doesn't know how he knows, but he is the first. Birthing grounds must make for easy suppers.

It's a miracle he was hidden away, and it is certainly something that saved him. But miracles don't happen in Hell.

(Many centuries into the future the wraith has friends. Friends of the kind of power the newborn wraith could never have dreamed about. How could he know, being born into this literally gods-forsaken place, that the kayori themselves would take him to their hearts? And that at least three of them had attempted to lay plans to travel back in time, and somehow help him without affecting his future. It had been to no avail, as the gods didn't possess the abilities required to effect change whilst maintaining the integrity of the timeline.

One of them though, Maeridia Gaimar, stubborn of spirit and a determined protector of wraithkind, had defied the other chieftains, and for a few short minutes had stood overlooking the birthing grounds feeling utterly helpless, and utterly furious. There was little she could do. The volcanic basin was completely exposed. Anything rising up out of the cracks and crevasses was easy pickings for the hellish predators that roamed the vast area.

So she did what she could, and found that first, single, golem-body that in ten years time would be born as the first wraith life. At least The Mother had tucked it away close to the basin's edge, so that the newborn might more easily escape by being able to crawl up the cliffs; without having first had a long walk over wide-open terrain. Mae raised a hand, crumbling the heated rocks of the cliff face, while shielding the birthing-nook with her power. It had created a barrier. One that would keep him hidden, and at least give him a chance to stick out his head, without it being bitten off.... and then, sadly, she had left.)

Reaching the summit, twisting and turning on his belly in the still-hot sand, Lex's hand is brushed by something cool and smooth. Flinching, he freezes and examines it.

It's only a ribbon of a creature. An arm in length, and a few fingers in width. It remains still, looking back at him, but does not attack.

This is the time Lex discovers he has an empathy for the least horrible creature in Guln. Comparatively sweet, if one considers what else lies in the rotten realm. A humble snake. The only patch of bright colour in the dusty sand regards him with quite a personable little face. Curious, Lex picks up the little creature. It merely curls around his wrist, the tiny double pointed tongue ghosting over his skin, intrigued, tasting, testing.

He takes it with him. Unable to bear slaying and eating it. It will at least be be a companion, and they might share any small prey it kills.

Although it will take a great amount of rats to produce enough leather for any decent body-coverings. The wraith has no sense of his own nakedness, save the fact that his body is scraped and cut from the rocks.

He needs to find some kind of wrappings to protect such new flesh.


3: Survival.

More weeks pass. There's no sunlight in the hell realms, merely the sickly grey cast from the suffocating closeness of The Mother. Once beautiful and glowing, but now damaged, hanging like a pall over the worst war in Keldra's history. There is also the faint orange glow from the fires and the lava fields. It could be beautiful... or at least breathtaking. But there is no beauty here. Guln is a cosmic dumping ground.

It did not come into existence to be marvelled at.

There is distant footfall, grinding, whirring, and shifting. As demonic troops and hellish machinery are assembled and moved.

Lex learns a lot in this time. To keep to the quiet areas, far away from all the activity. That his snake has a voracious appetite, biting and eating many small forms of revolting life. That he can take half the disgusting prey animal, and that she doesn't mind sharing. That he can, with practice, cease retching when he eats them. That the toxic water he manages to find gives him belly cramps and fever for fewer and fewer hours every time he drinks.

There are several near-misses when he's hunted by various predators. Large ones, smaller ones, tiny ones in swarms and packs. The one advantage of a shadow-world is that a shadow creature may swiftly disperse his atoms in any nearest dark gash in the rocks.

Lex travels, still naked, and hoping to find some kind of sanctuary, somewhere. His feet beginning to toughen with hardened skin, the snake wrapped around his wrist, arm, or coiled gently around his neck. It never attempts to harm him, and he learns to love the little orange-green shape among the monochrome terrain. It has a most attractive little face, in Lex's eyes, and its coils around his limbs give him a sense of comforting, living, contact.

Over this time, he finds old shelters, bones, rags and other evidence of the condemned, forever lost in the rifts and passing into this place. He gains a sharpened rock and an oily sheet of cloth. He learns to use the rock to take the skins off small prey before eating it, The cloth... he sort of tears up a a bit, and wraps it around his waist, and some around his feet.

This current moment - he never truly understands if it's day or night – finds Lex in a large, low-roofed cavern, the snake curled up under bits of oiled cloth, Lex's own atoms lying dispersed in the shadows, after a rather good dinner of what was an actual mammal. Probably some kind of large ugly rat.

After some peaceful hours, sounds invade his consciousness, harsh and barking, guttural, some the high notes of female keldenoids; others, the lower gruff echoes of males. An instinctive sense of panic sweeps through his Wraith awareness.

Demons.

So Lex does what he usually does when in a blind panic, and remains pure shadow. Pressed to the warm rocks and unable to hide the physical evidence he's left.

Cloth. The precious sharp rock, and leftover bones.


4: The Mongrels.

Lex is dragged back to his corporeal form with such suddenness, that he's unprepared for the light that burns his eyes. Demons do not survive by failing to notice the bits and pieces that any prey animal might leave lying around. All it has taken is for the demons to wield torches, thrusting them into the shadows of the cavern, lighting every corner with flame in their search for droppings, bits of bone, or nests.

When the light forces Lex back into form, there's a victorious yet confused jubilation among the group. There is nothing in Guln remotely like Lex, save the mortal souls so evil, they are condemned to the lowest level of hell.

No mortal soul can make itself shadow, however. And the sweet pale skin of their prey sends a ripple of surprised discovery.

Lex scrabbles back on the harsh rock, hands grabbing at him, voices threatening and triumphant all in one. He lashes out with hands and feet, still unable to escape the pain in his eyes. There's pandemonium and confusion in the chamber. While he's held fast in clawed hands, poked, examined and groped, the meagre possessions Lex has, are picked up and rifled through.

Arms pin and hold him, as a small ribbon of colour is pulled from the cloth. There's a snarl from its captor, and a brief flash of green and orange across Lex's pained vision – as the only gentle thing he's ever known is swung against the chamber wall, its brains dashed out on the unyielding stone. Lex screams himself hoarse and goes limp in the hands of his captors. Disbelief, denial.. and inexplicable grief ...wash over him. He has no point of reference,. No way to understand how something he sees can hurt so much.

No clue why the sense of loss and anguish can almost be worse than the terror of being caught by such monstrous beings.

“Little point wasting a meal...” Someone hisses among murmurs of assent. He doesn't know if they refer to him, or the dead snake.

As he's dragged from the cavern among some fifteen demons, Lex passes out with sheer terror for some hours, before he's woken. Finding himself in a dank shelter, the space brightly lit with orbs, and his clan of captors, the youngling learns more things than he ever wanted or wished for.

That demons don't despise innocence, they crave it. That they tear and claw at it in their efforts to possess it. That they have no redeeming features whatsoever. No kindness, no mercy. That all it takes is few light orbs to keep him in corporeal form. That he's considered beautiful beyond words.

That beauty is the worst possible curse one could carry, in Guln.


5: Another Miracle in Hell

The majority of demons and vampires of the Nebula world, Keldra, are incubus types. They take their feeding on the victims sensations of sexual pleasure and desire. However, the demons of Guln are not true incubi. Those are but fables in these lands, beautiful creatures, despite being steeped in evil. A true incubus relies on the pleasure of their donors, often to the death. The creatures now housing Lex, are half-breeds, they lack the beauty and finesse of the true incubi. They greedily feast on pain and fear, slaking only their own desires on their prey.

Lex is denied sleep for days on end, although he is fed. First, forcibly with a strong-smelling fatty gruel the mongrels have made of the snake. He vomits it up again, how could he keep it down? How could they possibly expect that? He's punished for it harshly and without warning.

After that, he learns to devour all that he's given, not that it's much. Driven only to survive.
When the incubus half-breeds choose to move on, Lex discovers that all good fortune in Hell relies entirely on the misfortune of others.

He's at least given clothing. Dark pants and a loose black tunic, along with a thick, musty -smelling rope around his neck. Another rope is looped through that, and Lex is forced to follow. Two light orbs hover over his head, to prevent him from melting into his shadow form... Even if he could, they now know how to force him back again.

He's stiff, aching. So weak he can barely stand, let alone keep up with his despised captors. The pants are torn and cling to his rear. On the back of one thigh, blood has dried, sticky and uncomfortable, that has trickled from his passage... which is humiliating painful, and it's all Lex can do not to cry out with each step. His body is cut, burned, scratched, and bitten. His beauty is marred by a split lip, purple marks on one cheekbone, and a nasty gash on his temple.

If he ever gets out of this, Lex seriously considers self-inflicted facial scarring as a legitimate means of repelling would-be attackers. If he cuts himself to ribbons, the scars may surely make him less... palatable.

The attack, when it comes, is swift, knocking him down with over half of his captors in one fell swoop. The large male demon holding Lex's rope screeches, as he disappears under the snout of something enormous and stinking, then is lifted and crushed in giant jaws housing too many rows of teeth. The rope slides loose, no longer held... and the light orbs are sent spinning to the ground, where they shatter on the rocks. Another miracle. Lex skitters away to one side, yelping as his skin is further torn on the rough ground.

There's more chaos. More screaming as the demon clan turn their attentions to deserting their family members and saving themselves from the beast – as quickly as possible. Lex is not forgotten, however, and another demon grapples for the end of his rope.

Only barely quickly enough, Lex slides into a hollow and is instantly nothing but shadow, leaving the scant clothing behind him. Now he's thankful for the near misses he's encountered thus far. He can do this so quickly now. The jaws of the beast snap around what was once a wraith, but is now scattered atoms. As a youngling, he cannot move in this form, but at least he has no nerve endings. His injuries don't plaque him, and he can rest. He can sleep until the demons and the predatory thing are all long gone.

He can only sense the activity in this form, unable to hear properly any further screams or roars. Another mercy. One doesn't always require ears. Being eaten, for demons, and other immortal denizens of hell, isn't the end. Death is a providence for living mortals only, those who have been sucked in via the rifts. They alone can choose to die, perhaps finding themselves in a lesser hell realm, or the paradise of Chion, or the Nebula herself.

The wraith envies them above all. It has to be a better option than slow decomposition in the belly of a beast.

It takes many days of resting in the tall, broken rocks, for most of his injuries to heal at least enough for him to travel on. It's the loneliest time of his short life, without even his small companion for comfort.

Eventually, driven by hunger, Lex crawls out of the shadows and rifles though the debris left behind by the demons. He finds the loose clothing the demons had given him and sifts through what's left of their posessions. He manages to pick up a hunting knife – this will compensate him fully for the loss of his useful sharp rock.

Nothing will ever compensate for the ribbon-snake.


6: The Rifts

Lex wanders through the changing hellscape, catching what he can, drinking whatever he finds, and passing out for ever lengthening periods in the shadows.

Once he awakes to find three snakes coiled close to his body. One large and long enough to inflict damage upon him. Though he does not fear it, and it does him no harm. Another a sickly white thing. The kind of snake that looks blind and well-adapted to living in utter darkness.

The third is a pretty green and orange ribbon. Smaller than his little companion, but just as agreeable.

Lex stands and leaves them to their rocky shadows. If there's one thing he's learned well, it's not to have his heart so badly seared again. Not to love means not to hurt.

From the hot, arid volcanic basins, Guln changes slowly to humid and mildewed swampland, through to cold wet almost complete darkness. On the horizon, Lex makes out a shimmer of low light. This, in his understanding, is the beginning of the rifts. Each realm of Keldra occupies a different dimension. Each dimension is not as large as the planet. At the edges of each dimension, its borders, are the rifts. These can be travelled through, at great risk. But if it was that easy to get out of Guln, surely everything would be taking that risk?

He finds an outcrop and huddles, bone-weary, pained and hungry; and watches dim silhouettes moving across the damp black plains.

They look very much like people and beasts, together. So many of them. Troop movements, if the wraith but knew it. More preparations being made by the demon god, Solus Kaelen to invade the upper realms.

How does an army get out of Guln? Not for six hundred years yet, but Lex doesn't know that.

Lex waits for any creature present to move on. His instinctive Knowing tells the young wraith that the rift energy is thin here. It may be the border to the next Hell realm. Jesaurek... The name whispers through his mind, and oddly, he realises he hasn't spoken one single word aloud yet. Not in his entire, short life. Not even when the mongrels had him. Oh, he screamed plenty. He snivelled and cried... a fact which now makes him feel deeply shamed. But he had never once pleaded with them.

It was the one small victory in an ocean of misery.

“Jesaurek.” He repeats quietly, surprised at the softness of his own voice. Especially compared to the howling and crying out he's been doing all this time. It may not be the most auspicious first word, but it's an aspiration at least. One to rise above Guln.

Many hours later, the tattered, bedraggled figure of Lexis Brierley approaches the rift-border, and walks straight in.

(And many centuries later, The Nightmare, though tortured and sick, with General Brierley at his side had been about to destroy the temporal rift generator, responsible for the unleashing of Guln on all of Keldra. He had spotted a blip at this precise time and location. As a youngling, Lex had been correct in assuming that most creatures would use the rifts if they thought they stood a chance of escaping Guln that way. But oh, no. The Mother would never make it that easy.

Realising that this was the only way Lex could possibly have escaped the realm, Lord Ravenhead had ... facilitated the youngling's passage safely through the rifts, and brought him forward in time to Ankaria. Just one tiny step in the wraith's arduous journey, but a vital one.)

He's literally sucked into the vortex, and then hurled about. He curls up, and waits to be flung against some jagged rock, or drowned in some vast ocean. Eventually though, Lex is regurgitated onto a noisy, crowded street. The smell is positively medieval, there are shouts, bedlam rules here for the ensuing moments. Any rift activity in a densely populated area brings about panic. The worst part of it all for Lex, is the brightness. His eyes have never had the chance to grow accustomed to anything but torchlight. Ankaria's orb street-lights, though low and demonic, are still brighter than anything in Guln.

Figures scatter and run. Horses, vehicles, demons, enslaved mortal souls, and vermin. Lex wrenches himself to his feet, throwing himself down the chaotic street, and around a corner. The light ceases. There’s a terrified silence punctuated by cries of confusion, anger. Even relief, as the inhabitants of Jesaurek's capital examine the area to see who's left behind and who's... missing.

Darkness descends, and Lex crawls under the supports of a dwelling, curling into the shadow and becoming it. Hiding is essential. He'd be instantly marked out as different and seized by the native demons. Though Lex has no wish to mix with other beings, whatever the race, even someone who might be kind. Others bring only pain.


7: Ankaria. (600 years later. The final year of the Hell War.)

For a demon, Jesaurek is very homey. For a wraith, it is only slightly less awful than Guln. There are at least built-up areas, ramshackle towns, foul, polluted cities. These are generally the areas habited by lost mortals, dead souls, lesser demons, and hell-natives from other worlds. Rifts are scattered through the cosmos, through the ages, and Danaë is after all, a nexus.

Born with an innate sense of whatever year it is. Lex feels strange here. Once he learns that the rifts have brought him over six centuries forward in time, he understands why they should be a desperate last resort. The wayward wraith learns he is in Ankaria, the capital of Jesaurek, a sprawling seething place governed by the higher demons, who dwell in relative luxury, as they bicker and fight for greater proportions of the soul-count.

There are a great many movements of troops here too. Lex isn’t sure if the demon god has been amassing his army for six centuries, or if the ones he's seen have found some way to moving in time, to the other hell realms.

His fortune improves some. There's food to be found or stolen. Usually the latter. Demons don’t always rely on food for sustenance, but the lower orders eat what they find, and the higher orders like expensive pleasures. There are times when Lex can actually lay his hands on bread, confections, and cake. A bottle of wine that makes him so violently sick, he resolves never to go near it again. There is clothing to be found and stolen from washing lines and corpses alike. His ability to merge into shadow seems unheard of here. It's an excellent bonus for a little thief.

It's taken a while, but Lex has managed to extend his energy when transforming. This is vital, as now he leaves no tell-tale possessions lying about whilst hiding, or resting. It is also greatly inconvenient to lose one's clothing every time one transforms.

Keeping to the shadows and hiding in any place he can find, Lex speaks to no-one, gets involved with no-one, is betrayed by no-one. A lonely existence, but better than the alternative. He never hears nor sees any evidence that his race are even known here. He's aware he's the first, but somehow knows there must be more. Most of the new arrivals must be being picked off at birth, right this very minute. Those who do survive those first few weeks, must be easily captured and enslaved.

Would his gods do anything to help? If he could reach them?

He grows a little less skinny, develops more strength, finds easy places to hide and is actually able to take small exploratory ventures at night-time to satisfy his own curiosity. It becomes easier to be passed by without notice, from the street-gangs, packs of rangy dog-like creatures, and any of the standard, dangerous nightwalkers of any hell city.


8: The Temple

It's astounding to discover there are temples in the Hell realms. Lex has spent time watching all manner of beings come and go. But here it stands. As he wanders into the darkened building, the entrance passageway is lit softly here and there with the odd candle, Lex supposes it would make sense if the downtrodden, the punished, and indeed the powerful, wished to make recompense to the Gods.

This particular temple is dedicated to Chieftain Drakus Kaelen. Well, that is less astounding. He may be The Dark Lord, presiding over all five Underworlds and Nadherna.... but he is still a god. Who else would hell acknowledge?

But then even the demon priests wear different liveries, representing different gods. Lex is careful to melt into shadow whenever anyone is present. As he finds himself in the body of the temple, he's surprised to see The Dark Lord's great altar has been vandalised, the accoutrements thrown to the side, broken or bent of the floor.

In their place, a makeshift shrine to Solus Kaelen has been set up, and as he walks around the alcoves, the shrines of most of the gods have been desecrated. The images on the walls indicating to which of the kayori the shrine belongs, are slashed or broken. Some have been marked as Destroyed by our Demon Lord, in battle.

Ever half the gods appear to be dead. It makes Lex's blood run cold. Battle. So there is a war. And it looks like many of the demon races are siding with Solus Kaelen, and like Solus is winning.

There will be no help for the wraith if he's victorious.

Two alcoves have been cleared and shrines erected to what Lex senses are renegade gods. The twins Versha Narumi and Vahlmir Ravenhead.

Lex understands the words on their images. On Vahlmir's, he reads Shatterer of Souls and Nightmare of the World. On Versha's is Our Hallowed Lady of the Arctic Realms, and Favourite of our Demon Lord. Vahlmir's titles seem rather to the point. Versha's strike Lex as trying a bit too hard. Attempting to stress her popularity.

He doubts that she's well-liked.

Every temple on Keldra, whichever realm one picks, has shrines to all the kayori. The appropriate respects must be observed. Lex passes through the quiet place, now bereft of the clergy, and of any other but himself. He regards the stern gaze of Chieftain Kaelen, no doubt angered at the desecration of his temple, wondering what the man inside is like. Is he even in any fit state to assist the wraith? Lex can't imagine that he is.

Although he hasn't learned how to read, as Lex's eyes fall on the images of the Kaelen clan, Solus arisen as Demon God, Drakus, his brothers, and his nephew. The wraith's Knowing brings forth their names and their place in Mother Danaë's hierarchy. He sees Phoenix, the angel, (Lex has never had the opportunity to look into a mirror, the likeness between himself and the lesser god is not even registered) Rowan, the boy king – now dead, killed by some... rift generator? Samuel, a child, son of the angel... The....

“The Riftling,” Lex whispers aloud, flinching somewhat at the broken silence. He stares at the beautiful little boy, Samuel Kaelen. The will-be god of the rifts and provider of safe passage... This may be his god. Maybe when he's grown. If his grandfather doesn't slay him.

He's portrayed as pretty, with perfect skin, glossy hair, and well-fed. The boy's image has a kind face, and a look of warmth, even serenity.

“You must surely be loved,” Lex whispers, sadly.


9: The Vampire General.

After some four hellmonths of age, Lex grows weary of the city. There's an aching hollow in his heart. It's something he knows not how too fill. The city is altogether exhausting, and there must be.... something other. The rifts still scare him after his first encounter, but after much standing on the ramparts of the city, staring out at the dark plains, and the bright horizon beyond, Lex comes to the conclusion he has little to lose. The Hell War is being lost by the gods who might care. There is, and will be, no help for the wraith.

There is nothing he can do for his people.

Maybe he'll just throw himself back into the rifts and see which world he's thrown into. The worst that could happen is a return to Guln. And as he's learned that rift travel is extremely unpredictable... Well. The odds are billions to one.

He steals some food, and a pack to stuff it all into, then gathers his only possessions. Two good switchblades, a pouch containing five pieces of stolen gold, a shabby but warm dark coat, and makes for the horizon once more.

The plains are risky. There's little cover but for the occasional group of standing stones, and fissures in the surface. These are sizeable however, despite being few and far between. Whenever Lex comes across a potential refuge, he rests there as shadow, until certain there are no predators in sight.

When he's close enough to the active rift-border, the wraith crouches on the last pile of old rocks he can find. He contemplates the brilliant light, remembers the sensation of being therein, and wonders if perhaps.. yes he might be losing his nerve... When the blazing light swirls and stirs some few meters from him.

He freezes, and shifts into shadow, as a horse and rider all but erupt from the rift-face. The energy swirls and dies down, as the rider tries to seek his bearings and calm the beast.

“Code zero-five-eight-gamma. Is it working?” The rider speaks to a small... box-like object. Lex has seen enough of the city to know this is a communication device, teleporter, and several other useful gadgets rolled into one. Something the wraith has never been able to steal.

Lex re-manifests, staying carefully out of sight. Unable to believe there is a vampire in Jesaurek. He's learned that demons and vampires detest each other. That demons and vampires are on different sides of the war, and this is a demon-occupied realm.

“Zero-five-eight-gamma. Confirmed. And congratulations. You're right on the Jesaurek borders. How's the weather?”

The horse paces a circle, whilst its rider curses, Lex understands the words to mean 'son of a pox-ridden whore, it's fucking hot'. Some of the curse is in Universal, and some of it in... Lex knows not what language, but it is in fact Terran. Italian to be precise. The vampire comes to a halt and slides off his mount. The disbelief on his face matches Lex's own. “I'm in. Fucking. Jesaurek? It worked?”

“Are you dead?” Asks the box, sardonically. “As you are clearly fucking not. And as you're still in the current timeline. I'd say, yes, di Lucca. It fucking worked.”

The voice makes Lex's instincts tingle. He's hearing the voice of The Dark lord himself.

“Wait... Hold. Something's here...” The vampire abandons his conversation, looking toward the rocks. Lex hunkers down, and transforms again. There are footsteps, a sense of closeness, and blinding light tugs Lex back into solid form. He falls from his perch, rolling into the dusty soil, yelping at the pain in his eyes, and trying to squirm as far away as possible.

“Hold!” Barks the stranger. Lex blinks back at him. Terrified. Shaking. “Huh. Not a vampire then.” Is the observation, as the stranger circles him.

“What are you doing here then?” Lex hisses. A Vampire in Jesaurek, of all things. If the Ankarian demons see him, he'll be ripped to shreds.

“Just got here, actually. I take it you know what a ...“ The vampire’s voice trails away. He stares at Lex, gaping. It's uncomfortable, but it doesn't look in the least like someone surveying his dinner.

Despite that, and just to emphasise that he doesn't want to be on the menu, Lex wriggles away a little more, twisting his legs under him, and bending into a squat.

“You're no angel,” the vampire - di Lucca - surmises, evidently confused.

“Oh, I feel so insulted,” is Lex's snarky comment back. He's hardened a little in the city, on the outside anyway. He's heard conversations, retorts, seen scraps. It's simply time he left before he ends up in a scrap himself, and winds up as the plaything of another pack of demons.

“That's not what I meant... Look, There'll be two thousand Libre warriors on top of us, in about, ohh, one minute.” The vampire advises, his voice less harsh. “Best tell me who.. and what you are, before I offer you a ride.”

“Me?” Lex narrows his eyes, almost snarling, tensing every fibre of muscle before his response. He is not about to go accepting horseback rides from vampires. “Revenant garbage. A hell-urchin, if you like. Nothing your precious Dark Lord would waste his time on.”

“Don't make assumptions about his Grace. Many who do find themselves neck deep in merda... Right. Okay. Can we just stop bickering? Get on my horse. Quickly, ragazzo.”

Something is happening. The rift, so close to them, is fizzing and crackling with energy. Maybe there really are thousands of warriors about to invade Ankaria. It is war, after all.

“I'm not your boy... and I'm not yours to command.”

The vampire General's response is lost in the tumult of rift energy. Lex has nothing left to lose. Nothing to stay for. His people are clearly doomed before they ever got started. Maybe some way, somehow, he can make it to a safer world. The wraith ignores di Lucca's shouts of alarm, as he leaps up and sideways, and flingshimself back into the maelstrom of the rifts.

_____