March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

THIRTEEN (I)

DEMITRI

Once we stepped outside of Phrer's home, the creature, who still had yet to introduce himself to me, grabbed both my hand and Phrer's. I desperately wanted to pull away from this guy's grip, but I thought better of it since he would probably have taken that as me trying to escape. I locked my jaw, feeling a vein in it tick just slightly, to refrain myself from telling the guy to fuck off. Instead, I focused on not freaking out as the world in front of me melted, twisted, and warped before it suddenly snapped back into place as quickly as it had melted. This time, however, we were no longer in front of Phrer's home. This part of the realm had quickly turned to night, and the moon and stars lit the path up to this new building we were dropped in front of.

No, this place was far different from Glitnir; it reeked of power and oozed royalty, the aura surrounding what I would definitely classify as a temple was so tense that I felt that I was choking. This place reminded me a lot of the building I had come to when I first arrived in Glitnir, but on a far grander scale. It was obscenely tall, towering over many of the trees that were present around it, and it was all constructed of marble and stone. There were wooden accents near the ground, and there were many arches of which were inscribed with runes. The roof was, yet again, domed, but the outside was not shades of blues and gold as the temple in Glitnir was. Instead, it was a mixture of silver and black, swirling into each other in intricate patterns with several coming together into knots every so often. The light of the stars in the sky made the silver shine even brighter, making it seem as if it were simply streaks of light that flowered and bloomed in an abyss.

I was extremely hesitant to move towards it when I realized that this place seemed a lot more familiar to me than its resemblance to the temple of Glitnir. Something about this place was eerily similar to something I had seen before, somewhere where it felt like I had been before, but the largest part of me wanted to brush it off as paranoia. Besides, I didn't really get an option about whether I was going to move forward or not as the creature, who still had a grip on my hand, yanked me forward. He was far taller than I was, even at my six-foot height, and I struggled to keep up with him; even Phrer was having a difficult time keeping up with this thing.

We reached the entrance of the temple and the creature knocked once on the giant black door before he pushed it open as if it weighed nothing despite its size. And the enormous amount of power that blasted me from the inside made my heart pound, my guts twisting into giant knots. I was on the verge of vomiting.

The creature seemed to have no issues with the ridiculous aura emanating from somewhere in the enormous building, or if he did, he didn't show it. Phrer, on the other hand, visibly flinched, like someone had momentarily frightened him. I knew who I was facing, I had been told several times, but I was not, nor would I ever, be prepared for the beings I was forced to now meet.

We walked for what seemed like an hour, turning down several hallways, the aura becoming more unbearable the closer we got, before arriving at a massive set of doors. These were painted a deep blue, like that of the night sky outside, with a silver rune right in the middle; the rune itself looked like an F, but the two side tails were longer and slanted downwards at a sharp angle. 

The creature turned to us then and spoke for the first time since we had left Glitnir. "You are to wait here until you have been instructed to enter. Lord Forseti should be here shortly to escort you both inside." And with that, he walked away, leaving Phrer and I alone yet again.

I rubbed my wrist gently, wincing as the joint popped back into place. Neither Phrer nor I said a word for a very long time; I think he was trying to give me space, and while I looked stoic and probably bored on the outside, I was panicking very heavily on the inside. I had my mental barrier up, barring Phrer from looking into my thoughts, hoping he would think that I was perfectly fine, even if though I knew he knew I wasn't. I was suddenly embraced, something that caused me to stiffen before slowly, very slowly, relaxing into Phrer's grip. I let my head fall on his chest as he slowly ran his hand down my back before repeating the same motion upwards.