Shadra was restless again. Several days had passed since her initial meeting with the dark sorcerer. She didn't know his name - not yet - but the image of his face still burned in her mind's eye.

Many times she had considered booking passage on a boat to Nordmaar and finding Frazen. She knew he'd protect her - even if it meant his death. She thought of Maegwyn, the stirrings of life within her, and knew she could not risk her friends' happiness. Shadra had no way to gauge the magician's strength against Frazen's, but he seemed very powerful.

Besides, Frazen would feel honor-bound to seek out the threat to Shadra's life. Battle would ensue. Strangely, she didn't want the mage to die, either. Someone would die - she was determined it would be her if anyone. How could she bring the mage - no more than a human child, really. A fledgling - out of the darkness? Battle was not the answer.

When he finally summoned her, Shadra's heart was filled with trepidation and her stomach churned with fear and uncertainty. Should she be meek? Strong? Defiant? Shadra felt her manner was as important as what she said. She would be herself - without masks - and hope to unveil his as well.

"What did you want to ask me?" The elven girl asked casually.

It was the key to what she knew, what he had to take from her. But how could he access it? Never before had he seen someone so strong-willed. But now he knew what might work. He would break her.

They were inside of a nondescript inn room, a place where nothing would be suspected. He could kill her immediately, should he decide it was the most beneficial course of action.

"What is your secret?" Evelar asked, mostly to buy time. Time would lower her guard, then he would hurt her.

She denied having other secrets, of course. This one she guarded more closely than her origin, when being a former dragon could mean her death. It had to be a bigger secret, bigger than her origin.

It was time to begin.

It would be light, first. Discomfort. The elf floated into the air, yelping in surprise. She looked around herself, frightened.

"You act as if this is your first time," Evelar said mockingly. It was a mask, one that would cause her pain. Inside, he did not care. But these tools were necessary.

She slowly began to rotate, and stopped when she was upside-down. She had flown before--she must have--but her wide eyes gave no impression that she did.

And she talked, and he talked, and it was all very boring. So he released her. It would perhaps not be so boring soon.

"Tell me what you are hiding," Evelar demanded quietly. It would not work. She claimed not to know what he was looking for. Then, she did something unforgivable.

She looked at him with compassion.

And with that, she damned herself. There was no question that she would never leave the room now.

No, that statement was not completely accurate. Some of her would leave the room.

Suddenly overwhelmed with compassion for the poor, misguided child, Shadra looked at him, her expression plain on her face, and asked him what he was searching for. Oh, she knew he claimed it was something magical, something he believed was inside her, but Shadra sensed it was something more than that. A lack that gnawed at his soul, even if he wouldn't admit it.

He glared at her, one of the first emotional responses Shadra had gotten out of him. He had let his guard down - a step. Shadra returned his gaze calmly. The moment passed and he returned to his obsessive questions about magic, abilities, power. Shadra sighed internally.

"You are playing games." He accused.

"If I am, you hold all the cards." Shadra stated simply. She knew that he was dangerous, frustrated in his search. Wishing she could just spell it out for him, give him what she knew he lacked - he had to realize what it was, first. Hoping he wouldn't need to prove his superiority if she agreed to its existence, she continued, "How could I dream to play with such odds? What game would I play?"

"You're right." He snatched the dragonscale out of the air and his hands began to spark. Shadra had judged wrong. "Here's a game for you." He watched her shudder calmly, quietly. The sparks intensified into arcs of blue energy.

The lightning prickled Shadra's soul as if it were dancing along her skin but there was no eventual numbness that the skin can develop when too long tortured. No, this torment was far worse, it couldn't end. Biting her bottom lip to keep from crying out, Shadra closed her eyes and tried to find a corner of her mind to hide from the pain. But she couldn't, it was everywhere. It filled her mind while it tormented her soul. A whimper escaped her throat.

"Is this fun?" He said quietly. Shadra didn't answer.

"Here, I have a gift for you." He continued as he walked calmly over to her and produced an amulet out of his robes. It was small black disc covered in strange runes and attached to a silver chain. He dropped it carelessly on her.

"If you think it is too much pain, push it into that. But remember, all magic has its price." He said with a smirk.

Shadra dropped the amulet, shaking her head. She didn't trust him and wasn't about to put her faith into another device of his with Kadiya only knows what demonic purpose.

Displeased, Evelar intensified the lightning. He returned to his spot across the room and sat calmly on the bed, watching his prey. Crying out softly in pain, Shadra clutched her head with her hands, as if she could contain the pain!

"This is not even a tiny breadth of my power. You are still playing, Shadra."

"I'm.. Not.." Shadra hissed.

Without blinking, Evelar focused more lightning on the dragoncharm. Her soul racked with agony, Shadra curled into a ball and her whole body shook with the pain. Tears escaped her eyes, but still she refused to make any noise. Perversely, she didn't want to give him that satisfaction - that power.

"Pick up the amulet." He commanded, then, changing his mind, said "No, don't. Stay there." He smirked, perhaps realizing the irony of the statement. Shadra wasn't in a state to appreciate it. She moaned incoherently. Squinting with hatred, her tormenter doubled the size of the arcs. It started to buzz.

"You do not know what the amulet does. It could be something small." He whispered, voice both seductive and dangerous.

Ruthlessly, he doubled the energy once again.

Shadra was incoherent with pain. She screamed.

"If you do not use that amulet, Shadra, I will begin to try to hurt you." He sighed, though there was no regret in the noise. He was enjoying this.

And then he ended it. Evelar knew that if he tortured her for too long at once, she might begin to become accustomed to it. It would effect her less, and the mage did not want that.

And so he ended it. She was on the ground now, panting for breath.

Evelar felt like kicking her.

But that would not be so satisfying while she was already so hurt. In a moment, it would start again. She would suffer a long time before she died, if she continued to hide what he needed to know.

"Tell me why you refused to use it," Evelar demanded quietly. Calmly. She whispered something, but it was of little consequence. If he engaged her mind, he would know exactly when he could torture her more.

And with that in mind, he asked, "Would you like to know what it does?" The question prompted her to say some things, to which Evelar responded without paying attention. Waiting was beginning to get dull, but the mage was patient. It would pay off, soon enough.

But his logic was beginning to see now that this waiting was a waste of time. He could hurt her before he killed her, but there was no gain from it. The only thing keeping him from killing her now was his want to learn her secret.

He methodically processed his thoughts. Perhaps he was looking from the incorrect perspective; perhaps he was approaching this the wrong way; perhaps it is something unexplainable.

But he knew she knew. And for that, she would suffer.

"... And you pretend to pity me." Evelar realized what he said a bit too late. It was a hole, something he should have been able to easily avoid. A hole which she could grab onto and use if she so wished. He would not be toyed with that way.

She would not use him. It would be the other way around.

She wiped her eyes and looked up at the mage from her position on the floor. There was still compassion. As long as there was that--something Evelar could not understand--she would be shielded from his efforts. It was a crutch for her. She was the type to use this crutch. The crutch would be taken away.

And the moment she was ready for more torture rang more clearly to Evelar than a gong ever could. Ecstacy flowed through him, but he trapped it. It welled up inside him--growing, expanding, coalescing--and suddenly burst out of its bonds. Lightning flowed throughout his body for one instant, meeting at his outstretched palm, and slammed forcefully into the dragonscale.

She finally screamed. One wall into her fell.

She was on the ground again, fallen from the sudden lightning bolt, eyes closed painfully. Evelar knew that the girl felt the emotional injury he had just dealt upon her more than the physical one, that she was trying to heal it again. And so he opted to confuse her, to direct her attentions to himself instead of her collapsing defenses.

But it would be hard to use this mask. Even for Evelar, it would be hard.

He wanted to kill her so much.

Evelar smiled. It was not supposed to look sincere; he could not make it look sincere if he tried.

Well, perhaps if he tried, but he had no intention of it now.

Her eyes just now opening, she looked at him with the look of confusion he had anticipated. She was unbalanced now, precariously placed in a state of indecision. In this state, she could not heal the damage he had done to her. Perhaps. It would have to do for now.

Calmly... Very calmly, soothingly, he said, "We can be friends, or we can be enemies. Which do you choose?" She looked frightened, which was part of the objective, but she also looked resolute. That resoluteness was not.

"I would be your friend," she whispered, "when you learn what friendship is." He was not being soothing enough. He was not being kind enough. He sat down next to her, engaging her more.

"Friends do not keep secrets from one another," Evelar said in a kinder tone. He did not know this for a fact, but it was a logical interpretation based on what she had already revealed to him concerning her definition of "friendship."

She seemed more receptive to this type of deception. Confusion obvious in her now, she quietly replied, "You know my secret." The resolute defiance she upheld earlier was obliterated completely, replaced by curiousity. Curiousity, Evelar knew, was a very useful tool.

A brief mental search produced the elf's name from his memory. Names were more personal, and that was what the mage needed now. "How about we trade, Shadra?" He said in confiding tones. "A secret for a secret." She would not be able to resist. She was curious.

Evelar mentally prepared himself for when he breached the second wall.

"Do you want to know mine?" He tried to make his voice soothing, friendly. Shadra was almost fooled.. Almost. All she had to do was look at him. Nothing could change the emptiness in his eyes. As long as it was there, she knew he was incapable of change, incapable of being anything other than what the world had already made him.

"If you wish to share it." Shadra responded softly, mostly to keep him talking. When he was talking, he wasn't hurting her.

"I think this will help you... Understand me more." He smiled that sickening, insincere smile she had grown to fear - almost hate, but she still did not have it quite within her to hate him. She nodded faintly, though even such a slight movement caused her pain. "My brother thinks that when we conspired to murder my father, he was the one who drew that old fool's life blood. But, I was the one who stabbed him through the back and finished him off."

His face remained utterly blank, devoid of emotion, while he spoke. Shadra couldn't help closing her eyes at the horror of it - the fact that he spoke so easily and so calmly of it as disturbing as the act itself.

"This is an act you are.. proud.. of?" Shadra whispered.

"Whatever pain I have caused you, that is a pittance to what he did to me. He deserved it."

Shadra opened her eyes, suddenly softened by the compassion for this poor child that washed over her. This was part of the wound that gnawed at him. "What.. Did he do?" Shadra whispered softly, at the same time reaching out slowly, as one would with a rabid animal, to touch his hand.

He laughed to himself. It was a chilling, ugly sound. "You are such a glutton for punishment, Shadra."

She ignored his words. "It pains you, doesn't it?" She tried to sooth.

"Pain? This pain you speak of, this fire and lightning, is that pain to you?"

Shadra shook her head.

"Then can I do it again?" He asked, taunting.

"That pain only affects the body. Your pain digs into your soul."

"Soul.." He whispered, his expression turning ugly again. "You have foolish beliefs. Tell me things I have not heard you say." There was danger in his tone.

Shadra glanced up at Evelar, nervously. She shuddered inwardly at the promise of his words. Grasping desperately, she said the first thing that came to mind:

"Have you ever had a friend... A real friend?" One of many mistakes.

"Something else." He said, waving his hand dismissively.

"Are you afraid?" Shadra pressed on, regardless.

"Now, Shadra. I am trying very hard not to become angry with you." After a pause, "very, very hard." He repeated. "Tell me something I have not heard about magic."

"There is magic in friendship." Shadra said quickly, an idea forming in her mind. She would have to use his own terms of understanding if she was to change him. Magic seemed to be all he understood, all he trusted.

"Friendship is a method of control, Shadra. It is a device of using one another in some poor assembly of an alliance. The magic of it is when you can get a big gain by stabbing the other in the back."

"You are wrong." Shadra stated, boldly, simply.

"Yes? Tell me the magic, then." He commanded.

"You are not ready to believe." Shadra drew on what she hoped was curiosity, teasing, taunting him. Like a carrot, she wanted to hold the magic in front of him so he would pursue it, willingly embrace it, and learn of it. There was no other way for him to see the light, he was not ready to embrace it willingly.

"I believe in magic. Tell me the magic." Shadra considered her answer, but took too long. The dark sorcerer took the dragonscale again in both hands and they began to glow a dull red. "The magic, Shadra?"

"Friends can accomplish so much.. More.. Than puppets, minions, or enemies." Shadra struggled against the distraction of pain.

"If I wanted you to say that, I would have asked for a fairy tale."

"Not.. A tale.."

Evelar sighed, his expression a mockery of sympathy. "Where is the magic?" He released the scale. A small reprieve.

"True friendship is not about control." Shadra insisted.

"Tell me, Shadra, what a true friend is, then. Would a true friend kill for you?"

"Someone who has seen your darkest, most pained secrets and forgiven you. Someone who loves you despite your faults and respects you even when you are stricken low." Shadra said, smiling slightly.

"You set the bar so high, Shadra. All I wanted to know is if a friend would kill for you."

"No. Killing in your name would do you no good service." Shadra stated with conviction.

The magician smirked. "So a true friend would let you die?"

"There's a difference between defending you and killing 'for' you."

"If your friend were dead, you would not take up his cause?" Evelar pressed.

"If the cause were just."

"For shame. The lowest thug is at least capable of that, Shadra." Evelar smiled cruelly. "I do not think I want to be friends with you."

"A truer friend you could not find." Shadra said softly.

"I know how to make someone my friend with two words and some sand. --"

"That is not a friend." Shadra interrupted.

He continued without regarding her words. "--and this friend would jump in front of me were an arrow shot at me. Would fall off a cliff instead of me. And ask nothing in return. But that is not friendship, is it? No.. True friendship does not offer such advantages. There is no magic in it." His final words sounded almost accusatory. Shadra's heart sang within her. Something in him thirsted for the magic of friendship. Wanted to believe. She would show him.

"A haven from loneliness, a shelter from the harsh winds of the world.. A guide when you cannot find your own way."

"All these things can be bought or created."

"But they will not appease your soul. You will feel empty with such stolen goods." Shadra assured him.

"Empty?" He asked.

"I've seen it in your eyes."

"There is one thing which is not empty, Shadra, and that is your bank of secrets. Won't you tell me what you are hiding? I have plenty more of my own secrets I would be willing to share. I promise you mine are more interesting than yours, in any case." As he said it, Shadra thought the spark was gone, she had lost her chance. Not only that, but he had gotten bored. When he got bored, he got dangerous.

The second wall collapsed. She was no longer repulsing his questions.

But now there was another matter to deal with, one Evelar had expected to be less significant than it was. She was trying to manipulate him now; she was unpracticed at it and her attempt was transparent. Her main failure was that she expected him to be vulnerable like she was, to have the same holes. He did not. But this was well; she was showing him exactly what he could do to her to make her suffer.

And so he humored her for the moment.

Her third wall would be transcended when he made it clear that she had no alternative, no way to have the upper hand: No way to survive this day. The best way to start would be to show her ruthlessness, cruelty. Hurting her did not seem to have the same effect as talking to her, and so he chose his method of attack. He would tell her a story.

She was taking up a conversational tone with him, but her eyes told him that she was still frightened. Good, he could use that. He would begin by crushing her emotionally, and then wear her down with pain.

And then perhaps she would tell him. Most likely not. It did not matter.

"I had a sister once. Her name was Alira," Evelar started out. The story unfolded in his mind as he told it. He had ended up feeding her to a colony of spiders. The elf watched him, looking sympathetic the entire time. He hated sympathy. Mentally, he raised the degree of pain she would suffer for each second she looked at him like that.

"Would you like to see?" Evelar asked casually. There was no way to show her a memory of his, but sometimes there was more powerful magic in trickery than in power. She would undoubtedly believe him, as naive as she was, and he would hurt her.

She responded quietly that she wanted to, if it would help her understand him. Her response was so unexpected that Evelar almost found it amusing. It did not matter what she was trying to do to him here; he would be torturing her again soon, and she would forget what she was trying to do.

"Tell me, would showing you make me your friend?" Evelar asked mockingly. She replied, with no inflection stating otherwise, that she already was his friend.

That was it. She would suffer a very, very long time.

"I sense that you need one." Shadra continued, her eyes flickering for only a moment when he grabbed the dragonscale suddenly. His attention was only half on her as he asked her if it was with magic. He didn't really care anymore - it seemed - his attention had moved onto something else. Shadra suppressed a shiver and responded as he pulled a spell-book from his robe.

"For my friend," He said the word scornfully, "I will have to think of a special spell. Do you have any preferences?" He started to open the spell-book. "You would think fire and lightning are somewhat old, now. Do you know what acid feels like?"

Shadra couldn't help shivering as she answered she did not.

"How fun." Evelar said, his tone revealing none of how much he was enjoying her discomfort. He suspended the dragonscale in the air saying, "this is just for you, Shadra, because I care." Laughing to himself, Evelar summoned a large ball of acid and flung it directly at the dragonscale.

As it hit, Shadra felt intense pain eating away at her. It felt as if all her bones were melting within her skin. The pain was so sudden and so intense that Shadra screamed. Loudly. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pain stopped. The memory, however, remained.

Evelar sighed his displeasure. "Can't you be more quiet? I am trying to concentrate. Be more quiet this time." Evelar blasted another ball of acid into the scale. Shadra screamed again and collapsed, sobbing, when the pain subsided. Her body shuddered violently.

Shadra watched in horror as Evelar created a disc in the air and shaped it into a small bubble. When he created a ball of acid and flung it casually at the bubble, instead of fading away as it had with the scale, it filled the bubble with a bubbling bath of acid. He suspended the scale over it and Shadra whimpered softly, inaudibly begging him not to do it. Not that it would have made any difference if he'd heard her.

When he dropped the scale into the acid, Shadra was ready for it. The pain assaulted her instantly but she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She was hardly aware of Evelar's movement as he paced across the room and sat, watching Shadra nonchalantly.

"How does it feel? Not even I have bathed in acid before... It must be joyous." Evelar mused. He waited for an answer. Shadra clenched her eyes shut and didn't dare try to speak. The pain filled her, consumed her, ate away at her, but it was never finished. There was always more places in her to hurt, because it destroyed nothing, not like real acid. It didn't burn away the nerves so they ceased to hurt. It just burned them and burned and burned...

"What are you thinking right now, Shadra?" Shadra lie huddled on the floor, shivering violently. Unconsciously, she rubbed her arms. It didn't do any good. There was no way to relieve the pain except to remove the scale.

More time passed and Evelar continued to watch Shadra. He grew impatient, the entertainment fading. "Shadra, I asked you a question. In fact, I will add 'please. ' Please tell me what you are thinking right now. I would like to know."

"No room.. For thought.." Shadra whispered raggedly. She bit down harder on her lip, she felt the pain bubbling up inside her, to be released in screams. Not that it would make the pain go away. Blood trickled down her chin.

Evelar's mouth twitched slightly, almost smiling. Rising, he picked up the amulet from the ground and sat down next to Shadra.

"Take it.. Out.. P.. Pp.. Please..." Shadra begged, turning her eyes to watch him.

Evelar didn't even acknowledge her words as he pressed the amulet into Shadra's hand and closed her fingers around it.

"That will make it go away," He promised. "Push it all in there."

She closed her fist on the amulet and she began to focus the pain on it. She was so close to doing what he wanted - feeding her energy into it. Her mind could focus on nothing but the pain and Evelar had promised...

But Evelar could not be trusted, something in her whispered. Through the haze of pain and anguish, she managed to remember.

Shadra hurled the amulet at Evelar's feet, but she could not stop the strong burst of pain-filled energy from also breaking free.

It was something altogether unexpected, something that forced him to drop his mask for a moment.

It was pain. Produced by her.

The energy he felt was like nothing he knew of. It was pure energy, pure force; it was like an unshaped magic. It was the essence of magic, unformed and pure. A dull pain throbbed somewhere inside of him, but it was easy enough to ignore. What made it especially easy to ignore was the sudden flood of questions: What was this power; where did she learn to use it; how would it be taken advantage of?

In a moment, it was logical that this elf could not die. Not yet. There was more to learn from her, after all. But was this reproducable? Perhaps it was. First, he would isolate the conditions that created the power.

Standing up to hide his surprise, Evelar calmly said, "I am so proud of you. Do you hate me?" She shook her head, her discomfort obvious from her tightly shut eyes and her meek posture.

Retrieving the amulet from the ground and placing it cruelly around the elf's neck, Evelar chose his most friendly mask and said with affected sympathy, "Do that again, please?" She shook her head, tears leaking from her closed eyes and sliding down her cheeks.

Still with a sympathetic voice, Evelar continued quietly, "If you want to run away from the pain, then you can use the amulet. But, it will be one or the other." As the acid relentlessly bit at her skin from across the inn room, she suffered. She was breaking. The next wall would come down.

To stir her fear without losing the progress he had made with his last mask, he put an arm around her and held her close to him, whispering into her ear, "I have a confession to make. This is not as high a concentration as I can create. I may have to make it more potent, hm?"

She began to sob, shaking her head meekly. Brokenly. She begged him not to in a small, frail whisper, tears coming more freely now down her face.

But was she really broken? Was this another trick? Perhaps she was healing herself again. Evelar would not let that happen: He would grind her to dust first.

And he would find all of her secrets, the dull pain in his bones a distant reminder of her secrecy.

"No.." She begged quietly. Evelar ignored her pitiful whines, watching her blankly.

"Does it hurt?" He asked casually. It was mostly to buy time, to allow him to think about what to do next. It would not matter so much if she did not rest this time because he was sure that he would eventually kill her. Any rest he gave her would mean wasted effort later. Wasted effort was not something Evelar approved of.

"I will concentrate it more," the mage announced quietly. The elf began to cry again, but it was of little consequence. She would do more than quietly sob in a moment. He moved slowly to the floating disc, knowing without looking at the elf that her eyes were following his every step with dread. She quietly begged him to stop, and suddenly Evelar saw a hole he could use to collapse another wall.

"Beg?" He whispered quietly, as if to himself. He carefully made sure she could hear him, though. With a gesture, the floating disc collapsed on itself and faded away. Walking to the window and looking outside of it, Evelar said, "What were you thinking? I want to know."

Panting softly for breath now that the pain was gone, the elf responded, "I was... Thinking... How sad... It is that you have been... So alone." Evelar narrowed his eyes, still looking out the window. He would punish her for that comment later, but for now he had more important things to consider.

After a moment, Evelar asked quietly, "Do you know what you did?" The ache in his side had intensified significantly when he stood up and walked to the window, but he still considered it insignificant. He was fortunate that his ribs were broken, because it had given him the hole.

She was still talking, he realized, and he searched his mind to see if she said anything important. No, he realized, only more of her bravado, more of her pitiful attempt to control him. "My pain is nothing," she had whispered, "compared to what you must have felt, to have made you run away from it." He would not punish her for that, because that was clearly what she wanted. He would not be controlled by her.

"Do you know what you did?" Evelar repeated, a bit louder to interrupt her. She shook her head, confused. When the mage asked what it felt like, she said, "It felt as if my skin was dissolving... Without end." So she is pretending not to know, Evelar thought. It might be a sign that she was beginning to break.

It would almost be a pity if she really was breaking so soon. There was so much Evelar could do yet to hurt her, and he wanted her to hurt for a very long time.

"... Where did you learn it?" He asked insistently. Shadra's pain-fogged mind couldn't comprehend what he was driving at. Breaking bones? Inanely, she thought he must have meant her bones. How could she have done... She must have said something aloud, because he responded with:

"Mine are. Tell me how you did it."

Pained as realization dawned on her, Shadra struggled to sit, picking herself up from her awkwardly huddled position on the floor with a great deal of effort. "Kadiya forgive me." She breathed softly.

Evelar smirked. "Answer my question. Is it reproduceable? We can set up another experiment..."

"I.. I don't know.. Let me.. Heal you." Shadra tried to move towards him but could only manage by crawling on her hands and knees. Something about that image disturbed her, even in her current state, so she repressed the urge to go to him. Maybe he would come to her.

"No." His voice was determined but so was Shadra. She stood shakily, leaning against the wall for support. As she thought over her next move, Evelar spoke again, his tone menacing. "You will destroy what I need to study."

Shadra took a few wobbling steps and was grateful when he ordered her to sit down, for she was certain she could walk no further, anyway. She sank to her knees and clasped her hands in front of her, quietly begging Kadiya's forgiveness. How could she strike out at him? Where were her ideals of peace and healing? She was exposed as a hypocrite - yet perhaps he was too occupied with the power she'd revealed to consider what it meant.

"Answer my question." He said again, interrupting her thoughts.

"I won't do it again."

"I can make you do it again." He said softly, then abruptly changing his tactic, he appealed, "You can do it because I am asking you to. Are we not friends?" The dark mage couldn't quite hide his scorn for the word as he said it.

"No.. I won't. I can't." Shadra rubbed her face with her hands and feelings of self-loathing and revulsion stirred up stronger in her. How could she?

"You can. As for "won't," that is quite easy to deal with."

Shadra sobbed a word in response.

"If you do it again, I will allow you to heal me." Evelar offered, "I will know you can duplicate the results."

"Please.. No.. I didn't want to.. To hurt you.." She whispered, half incoherent.

"It is too late for that. You have shown me your power again, why did you keep this from me? What other secrets are you hiding?"

"If it was a secret.. It was kept from me.. I didn't know, I'm sorry.."

"What else can you do? Can other dragons do this?" Shadra didn't respond. "Then I am sorry," though he didn't sound as if he meant it, "there is only one option left. We will force you to do it again."

Shadra moaned softly as he picked up the dragoncharm with a smirk.

Almost sauntering, Evelar came over to where Shadra cowered and squatted down beside her. He fished something out of one of the many mysterious pouches hidden in his robes and held it in front of her. It was a strip of leather.

"Open your mouth. You cut your lip last time and these are expensive carpets." He waited for her to open her mouth and placed it between her teeth. "You make sure that stays in there, okay?"

Shadra spit it out in disgust, saying, "it is animal flesh." A mistake. Evelar was not pleased. He watched her coolly and made threats. More suffering. Resigned, Shadra opened her mouth again. She'd hardly notice what was there once he started with the acid. He replaced the strip, pleased.

"Good girl." He called her.

Again, the disc, fashioned into a bowl. Again, acid was created in it. More acid. It turned purple before Evelar was satisfied. Toying with her, he still held the dragoncharm in his hands, letting the anticipation torment her. It worked.

Instead of submerging the whole scale, he put in only a part, calling it another "test." Pain shuddered through Shadra's body, echoes from the intense mixture of fire and melting she felt in her legs. Evelar removed the charm, studying the tortured girl.

"What did you feel?"

"Pain." Shadra stated the obvious.

"Where?" Evelar pressed for more information. Always for more information. He was insatiable.

"Why do you hate so much?" Shadra asked suddenly.

"Hate?" Evelar looked genuinely surprised for a moment. "You misunderstand me. This is all research."

"No," Shadra told him, shaking her head. "Your eyes, they are full of anger and hatred. You cannot see anything without it being clouded by hate."

"It is called realism, not hate. I do not live in your fairy tales."

"No. You live in a world of your own making, cowering in fear."

"There is no one more unafraid than I," Evelar told her, still a little amused by her words. "You, I can see fear in your eyes. And tears." He smirked.

"I am not so afraid that I must hide from it. I am not too cowardly to admit my feelings."

Evelar narrowed his eyes dangerous and Shadra glanced at him, suddenly nervous, knowing she had over-stepped the limit. How would he punish her?

"You will not admit you hate me, when you could not possibly harbor any other emotion towards me."

"I do not hate you."

"Your lies are transparent. I saw in that brief window of time your hate and it was glorious. The power you had, unfocused.. It was able to break my bones--"

"I struck out blindly.. In pain, not in anger or hate." Shadra tried to explain.

"--and again, you nearly killed me when I tried to take you." Evelar continued as if she hadn't interrupted him.

"Kadiya will forgive me that."

"Justification?" He smirked. He wanted her to prove herself a hypocrite.

"No. There is never justification for causing another pain." Shadra was naive, often fallible, but not stupid.

"Am I unjustified?"

"You are misguided." Shadra told him, reluctant to answer his question truthfully, fearing he would take it as a signal to torment her more. He pressed her further and she was forced to admit that he was, indeed, unjustified. Evelar responded by telling her he was justified by virtue of the fact that he owned her.

"Taking by force what could have been yours in friendship does not make you an owner."

"With your power, you could rule Algoron."

"I don't want to rule anything." Shadra assured him. Power, was that all he thought about? She wondered if he was really human, or some sort of animated creature that had been given only one instruction: Search for Power.

"You could own it." Evelar offered.

"I don't want to own anyone." She insisted. "Why do you want me to hate you?" Shadra tried to change the topic. Whenever the topic of his control came up he inevitably wanted to perform some torture to prove his superiority. She dearly wished to avoid that.

"I want you to use your power. You are burdened and driven by such foolish notions as fear and love." He paused and Shadra shook her head in denial. She wouldn't use it again if she could help it. Now that she knew it was there... He continued, interrupting her thoughts. "That is why I own you, by right. You have too many holes for me to use as leverage. I have none. Do you want to tell me your secrets now?"

"What do you want to know?" Shadra asked wearily. He wanted to know how she used her power, of course. She didn't know and she wouldn't have known how to describe it even if she did. It was there, it responded to her, without her having to tell it to.

"How does it feel to know you suffered all of that for nothing?" Evelar asked her, clearly disgusted. "I learned nothing from it, gained nothing from it." When Shadra only responded with a shrug, it incited him more. "How can you not care? How dare you not care?"

"How does it feel to know you suffered all of that for nothing?" Evelar asked her, clearly disgusted. "I learned nothing from it, gained nothing from it." When Shadra only responded with a shrug, it incited him more. "How can you not care? How dare you not care?"

"I don't understand.. What you're looking for." Shadra said with an edge of panic.

"You," Evelar said, touching Shadra's nose with a fingertip, "Have something. That I want." He said it very slowly, and deliberately, for emphasis.

It was a given that he could kill her at any moment. He would, in time; but that was irrelevant. There were better uses for his mind.

It was a very precarious position he was in. This was a mask he had not yet created. He had simply had no use for one such as this before. She glanced down at his finger, nearly crossing her eyes, when he put it on her nose; but she did not jump back. That meant that she was not yet broken, but she was malleable. She was weakening.

"You have something I want," he had announced. Of course she pretended not to know; it was expected. But they had been through this before. He needed more time to prod her mind, to decide the best method of attack. The elf's ways of thinking were completely foreign to him, and that left him somewhat blind, he was beginning to realize.

It was not entirely foreign to find something that did not actively defend itself. But this one did not cower. This one did not seem to realize the impossible situation she was in.

He had not forgotten how much he wanted to hurt her. It had not subsided. But there were other things to consider: he was potentially very close to finding her secrets; he might have also been close to breaking her.

Normally he could gauge these things accurately enough to predict within five seconds of when the actual breaking would happen, but the blindness prevented him from it. He was sure that she was close, even with her unheard of ability to regain parts of her strength that he ripped to shreds.

But this was all trivial. When she broke, that was when he could hurt her the most.

But the look she gave him, with her big eyes still focused on him compassionately... It was making the wait difficult.

Again, Evelar changed tactics. Shadra had a brief image of his mind full of tiny gnomish gears that were grinding and winding, spitting out new tactics and new ideas. If not for the grim situation, she might have smiled at it.

His tone changed slightly. It was still chilly, but a little less impersonal, less sterile. It was almost as if he really was trying, but Shadra didn't believe for a moment that he was ready to try. Evelar was good at acting and good at lying, but she had seen too much to be so fooled now.

He reminded her how alone she was, how strange. He praised the circumstances that would prevent her from ever having a clutch of eggs. His smirk was never quite far from his face. This new mask was not as controlled as the others; the very fact that Evelar had to fake emotions which he was unable to embrace weakened it. But the loneliness... She tried not to focus on it, but it affected her regardless. She fidgeted with the edge of her shirt, no longer looking up at him, but avoiding his eyes. Shadra stared holes into the floor.

"Tell me why you want to belong." Evelar demanded, like always. Always demands, never questions. Didn't he understand she would answer if he asked? Maybe he needed to fool himself into believing he took these things by force.

"I have been lonely my whole life."

"Once you did not care whether you were elven or dragon."

"I don't fit in as either.. Does it matter which I am?" Shadra tried to keep the bitterness from her tone, but she couldn't. Her heart ached. The feelings of despair began to creep in again. She felt she would always be alone.. Always be estranged.

"Either would make you fit. You could be one of the masses." He smirked, repeating the word. "Masses." Shadra shrugged. "Why do you want to be one of them?" Evelar continued pressing the issue.

"I don't know." Shadra whispered, trying to avoid an answer.

"You know why." The sorcerer accused, perceptive as ever. It was useless to try and keep things from him.

"It is hard to have friends among people who regard you as an outsider." Shadra sighed.

"So you take me as a friend." He responded with a smirk. "As I make you wish you were dead." Evelar seemed amused by the notion.

"You don't make me wish I were dead." She wished to be dead long before she'd met him. He quoted something she said. His memory was good.

Shadra admitted to saying it, adding, "It does not mean you make me wish I were dead."

"I could." Evelar challenged.

"You would not be the cause of it." Shadra insisted.

"Explain." He demanded.

"What needs explaining?" Again, she felt bitter and hurt, "imagine that you suddenly became a gully dwarf with nothing of your former life left to sustain you."

"I would kill myself. You consider yourself a gully dwarf to what you were," Evelar smirked, again. "True."

"I am not now as wretched as that," Shadra explained. "I had to make an analogy you would understand."

"This is nonsense." Evelar declared abruptly, standing. "You have not shown me anything. I have now tried to be your friend. That has not worked."

The mask was very obviously ineffective. While she was gullible, she couldn't be _that_ gullible, and therein lay the problem. Standing, Evelar blanked his features once again, saying quietly, "I have now tried to be your friend. That has not worked."

She sighed, as if resigned. As if she knew all along. She would pay.

"Tell me what you would do if you were me," Evelar pressed, mentally toying with various methods of torture. It was not that he cared, particularly, what happened to her. That went for whether she was hurt as much as whether she was unharmed. However, there was little else left to do. He might succeed in getting an answer out of her this way; the chances were slim, but it would be a shame to waste such a great opportunity simply because the chances were slim.

Besides, there was so much he owed her. So much he owed himself for dealing with her. This would have become a phenomenal waste of time should it prove fruitless.

Of course, if it did become fruitless, there was no doubt who was to blame. And the punishment she recieved would be ample recompense. Maybe. It would, of course, depend on how much she suffered. Evelar pondered what would make her suffer. Truly suffer, nothing degenerated or unwhole. Suffer to the extent that she could do nothing, nothing but curl up into a miserable ball and suffer.

But this was, of course, a very empty and detatched thing. Evelar did not really care, after all. That she should truly suffer simply made the most sense; it was logical. And logic was the rule.

She had said something, he realized. Something... Yes, "I could never be you." She had said that. She was blind, Evelar knew. She knew nothing of who he was. What had he asked her, anyway? Searching his mind, he remembered his original question.

"Before," he said. Before he had done all these things. She would not understand the significance: She was that blind.

"About?" She asked, obviously not understanding. Of course she would ask that. Of course.

Another reason for her to pay. That was all it was.

It was time to try something else.

There was no net, nothing to make her stay caring when he finally gave her all this pain she deserved. But exactly what she wanted was not clear. There was something she wanted, as was evident by her staying of her own will even as she was being tortured. But what, that was the problem. It was apparent that tests were in order.

"What would you have done?" Evelar prompted. It was a broad enough statement that she could interpret it any way she wanted to. He would use this interpretation, perhaps.

When she said a confused "About?" It was clear what she wanted. She pretended to be interested in him, even though he hurt her.

She wanted to pity him. Did she think she finally found someone more wretched than herself? She was wrong. She was very wrong.

"Forget it," Evelar said after a long pause. "I do not need your pity." This might be difficult to accomplish, he realized distantly. He would have to be nice to her, knowing it would earn him even more pity. It would string her to him and allow him to hurt her until she died, but it was almost not worth the price. The dim thought, "she wants to pity me," played across his thoughts.

No, not almost worth it. It was very worth it.

Her eyes softened at his purposefully pathetic words. He could almost imagine they did that in response to the net being snugly drawn around her. Soon it would constrict her, this net of her own making.

"Are you sure?" She asked quietly. This held some kind of an importance to her; he had thought correctly. She wanted to pity him. A small tingling of emotion touched him. Anger. He knew anger, though he had not felt it for some time. He pushed it back; emotions were both auxillary and dangerous.

It was almost time.

The dark mage seemed to have stumbled, somewhere. He was getting more agitated and more of his emotions were playing across the surface of his face. Not his false mask of friendship, but real anger. Everytime she caught a glimpse of it, the sorcerer blanked his face again almost immediately. Shadra felt all that was left to do was wait.

"How well can you see?" Evelar asked suddenly, changing the topic with his usual abruptness.

"Elves have exceptional eyesight." Shadra answered reflexively, accustomed to his tactics by now. She felt suddenly cold as the implications of his question presented themselves to her. Why would he care about her eyesight, except to do something with her eyes? To her eyes? Shadra suppressed a shiver with some difficulty and Evelar gave no indication that he noticed.

"How well do dragons see?"

"Their eyesight is very sharp, they must spot their prey from afar." Shadra didn't bother to try and lie; Evelar could see through her easily. Lying would only make things worse. It would only prove to him exactly what he wanted to know.

But Shadra was very afraid. The possibility that he might do something to her eyes.. He could scar them permanently, remove them.. Shadra didn't know how she could survive blinded. So far nothing he had done would damage her permanently...

And so he told her. He did not know why he did; she was too strong to be broken by such things.

But she wanted to pity him. She beat him and she could use him for anything she wanted. He had not yet given up, of course--he would most likely find a way to reverse her victory--but for now he had to pretend to be forthcoming.

"I have never met a creature so proud of his own depravity," she said quietly. He had predicted it perfectly. He knew what she wanted. But how would he take advantage of this? Pity was not an emotion Evelar could allow himself to induce.

She was still talking, he noted. "... You are not beyond redemption-" she was saying as he cut her off with "I seek no redemption." So she was not done, he realized. She intended to press her victory.

Of course, this meant that the battle was still in play. "Every soul longs for goodness," she said to him.

An idea materialized. "Do you think my soul longs for goodness?" Evelar asked in his most sincere voice. She responded how he expected her to, with unprovable nonsense.

"What are you willing to stake on it?" Evelar asked, reaching for the dragonscale which still floated in the air beside him.

The fear continued to grow as Evelar told his story. He had left that boy without the one thing he needed to achieve his dream. What could a mage be, without a tongue? And he had done it for no reason... No other reason than that he had the ability...

Why was he telling her this? Was it a warning? Of course, if he wanted to damage her, he'd just do it. So why hadn't he?

Anticipation is the worst sort of torture.

When Shadra told him that every soul longs for goodness and that he could find it if he only listened... It was more of a plea than it was an assertion.

She needed him to find goodness.

She depended on it.

When he grabbed the scale from the air, Shadra felt such profound relief flow through her that she thought she could faint. If he was going to use the scale, he wasn't going to do anything permanent. The wizard wasn't going to use her eyes for some unknown, arcane experiment. The scale couldn't ruin her.

"What would you do in my position?" Evelar asked.

"I would cancel the spell binding me." Shadra answered truthfully. It would probably make him angry, but what didn't?

"But that is not what I want. Do you know what I want to do with it?" Shadra didn't respond, knowing he would tell her. He wouldn't ask if he didn't want her to know, obviously. He just wanted her to say something which he could use to hurt her. "I am asking you." Evelar reminded her.

"I prefer to be prepared."

"I want to use it to hurt you so badly, that you will never dream of stepping out of your Shalonesti sleeping quarters or out of your bed, for that matter." Evelar said it seriously, completely, utterly. There was not even a hint of malice in his voice, no venom, no fire. It was chilling, how remote he could be, in his cruelty. He truly intended to do this to her.

And he could do this to her, Shadra realized with a sinking feeling.

He would do this for no other reason than he could.

"Why?" Shadra said so softly, it was more of a breath than a word. Her voice fled as the terror filled her. Her emotions were plain to Evelar, easily detected in her eyes.

"Because I can and you are powerless to stop me." Perhaps, had Shadra been less preoccupied with her own fear, she might have noticed the doubt in Evelar's own voice. He said the words, "powerless" in more of a pleading tone than a statement of power. The wizard depended on Shadra believing she was powerless.

But Shadra did not notice. She was too afraid.

She tried to reason with him. Perhaps she could appeal to his logic, his sense of purpose. He would obviously gain nothing if she were in such a state, he would not even be able to witness it. Surely....? But no, that line was futile as well. He didn't care about what happened to her afterwards. The satisfaction of leaving her helpless, useless, and terrified was more than enough for his purposes.

"You see," Evelar said triumphantly, "You are not afraid to die but you are afraid of being an invalid."

As usual, Evelar had seen to the heart of things. In a detached way, Shadra was amazed that he was able to perceive so well yet interpret so badly. It was, she realized, entirely due to his upbringing. He had been given a gift and but not the tools to make good use of it.

His insidious words re-asserted themselves, and all academic, philosophical thoughts fled in the face of the horror. Shadra closed her eyes.

"Are you frightened by this topic?" As if he needed to ask. But he wanted to hear her say it.

"A little." Shadra had to admit.

Actually, it scared her more than a little.

It was time to kill her.

Pressing his thumb against the dragonscale, he could see her shiver against the sensation.

"You are afraid," he accused. "Why are you afraid when you know it is a certainly, what will happen?" The ecstacy of magic was already flowing through his veins, his body. His fingers turned blue, a glowing blue. An icy blue.

She began to shiver violently, rubbing her arms fruitlessly. He continued to talk quietly. He knew what it was like to be cold. "There is no reason to fret," he said quietly, "because you know that fretting will do nothing. All that is left is to endure, and either rise above it or die."

He asked her what she was thinking. The expression on her face was illogical, given her condition. She said, trembling with cold, "It is too bad I didn't retain a resistance."

The ecstacy of magic continued to flow through him. He talked to her gently... Asking what it was she felt, asking what she thought of it. She closed her eyes, her trembling lips beginning to turn blue.

"Perhaps you might light the fire in the fireplace?" She asked, the words almost completely obliterated by her shivering, and attempted to smile at him. Did she think this a game?

"Shall I use this as kindling?" Evelar asked. The quality of magic flowing through him change as his hand shifted from blue to a dull red. The dragonscale began to smoke with a faint, gray mist.

Her reaction changed immediately. She screamed in pain and fall to her hands and knees, then onto the ground where she writhed in agony.

Fire is not so gentle as ice, Evelar mused.

His hand was on fire. The yellow flames lazily danced about the dragonscale, curling black smoke rising from them. The elf was sobbing, obviously unable to endure the pain. Unable, but not yet broken. She would be soon, though.

"Ssstop," she begged almost inaudibly.

"But this is only 34% of what I can do with this spell," Evelar said in a cold, flat tones. Sitting down beside her, he intensified the spell. Yellow flames turned blue, and then white. The smoke began to burn gray, and a scream reverberated off the walls.

Suddenly the magic surging through him battered against him. In this state he momentarily lost any sense of what was happening around him. It lasted moments, and when he opened his eyes, he thought out loud, "What did I do?"

He was not paying attention to the elf who, when the heat left her mind, lay numbly and stared up at the ceiling. One thought permeated every sense and wrested command of every logical function for a brief moment.

178%?

He stood up casually, ignoring how worn out the spell had made him, and sat in the single chair. There were many thoughts to process, and he would get to it soon.

"What did you do?" Shadra asked at length. Her words were soft and mumbled. Evidence indicated that she was tired from her ordeal.

Evelar explained the nature of refining offhandedly, processing his thoughts. Noting the blank expression on her face, he asked if she understood.

"No..." She whispered quietly, no more than a breath. She curled up on her side on the floor and, closing her eyes, murmured just as quietly, "Please... No more..."

Evelar stood from his chair and sat down beside Shadra. In an emotionless voice he said, "I told you that you can rest." A quick mental check had concluded that he had already given her permission.

"Do not think I am doing this for your benefit," Evelar told the elf in equally flat tones. "If you die, then I will not find out how I did that." She feebly patted his knee and nodded absently. Evelar did not know what to make of such an action, but he was too involved with other thoughts to develop what it meant.

"Do you have a headache?" Evelar asked.

"I have a whole body ache" was her slow, murmured response.

Perhaps it was the futility of the situation, the bleakness of knowing that he had lost. Or, it could have been a quiet challenge to reveal what he had sought, what he had lost for. It might have been the acknowledge of defeat that had, with white flags and surrendered swords, occurred time and time again in millenia past.

Whatever it was, the young magus found himself digging ecre herb out of a component pouch. The elven girl lay on her side, struggling numbly to breathe. She was so close to death, yet she had won. He was sitting, physically as perfect in health as before; but he had lost somehow. Lost. Lost to a pitiful creature ruled by emotion. He was supposed to be perfect, without holes.

But he lost.

"Keep this under your tongue. Swallowing it would be lethal," Evelar advised dully. He did not do this out of some miraculous or instantaneous change; he really hadn't changed at all. Not yet. Rather, it was just the lack of substance, and--since he no longer had the power to function as he did before--all that was left to fill the gap in activity was this: To relieve the headache of an elven dragon he failed to kill.

He noted with strange disinterest that the one feeling he had allowed himself to feel, the ecstacy of casting, had dwindled to nothing as he used a simple spell to create a spring. The girl was asleep now, on the floor as she had fallen during her screams of agony, and Evelar did the only thing left to him: He sat in the chair the inn had provided, and he waited. He would wait for two days before she awoke, and the water would be there for her to drink.