#Soleil is a freak with a ton of aether

[stalwart-spirit]

for the one word prompt list: "confusion" for soleil!

Okay, I thought the last one went out of control but this one REALLY did.

It's a long one, starting on confusion and spiralling from there. Not proofread, we die like men at almost 3am. Mature language, general bastardry and void stuff.

"I don't know how you slept through the night with what happened! Isn't House Delacroix not far from you?"

"It was only by morning when I saw all the guards posted up and down the street that I found out!"

--

The state of the room could only be described as utter chaos. Desk chair toppled, drawers pulled and contents scattered across the floor, it wouldn't be hard to believe if this was the result of a robbery.

But no, the culprit was there, haggard and exhausted. Nothing more than a noble man at his wits end.

Soleil grips his hair in his hands, normally so well kept and maintained, now a frazzled and near tangled mess. Through gritted teeth, he curses. Frustration based in raw, unfiltered confusion.

"Fuck! Who was last in here? The maids? No. They're forbidden from the study-"

It's cold, freezing, that pit of dread in his chest.

Normally there it laid, a filigree lockbox upon the desk. Once containing jewellery, probably some collection of honestly worthless gifts from some previous admirer he didn't bother remembering, now used to contain something that Soleil in his own eyes deemed of much more value.

Years of study, leveraging what good carrying his father's name as the only son to House Delacroix, to get what he needed. Worn tomes that at a glance would seem nothing more than textbooks well past their prime, written by some long dead and deluded scholar. A cluster of bewildering writing, honest to gods ramblings of a madman. To the young lord however, each was worth their weight in gold.

To be caught with such studies would be heresy. Thus, each would be committed to memory, put immediately to practise, before the tainted scriptures were burned on the pyre. All this, accumulating in a summoning from the void, the entity brought forth by the stench of blood-candles and swiftly contained in a crystaline vessel imbued with his own aether.

A vessel now missing.

No one else could enter here. A study passed down to him from his father, his to do as he pleased. Somewhere intended to work on the house's trades, though repurposed into his own refuge of void related studies. There were only two keys, his and-

It's a whirlwind. Door thrown fully open to its hinges to slam against the adjacent wall, hurried footsteps thumping on the buffed wooden floors.

Blind rage is what sends Soleil running to the parlour room.

--

"To think, the Lord of the house slain in the night and his son not in any better condition."

"Oh please, I really try and not think about it, it's just so ghastly!"

--

Muffled words through the rushing of blood in his ears.

"Should have kept you on a tight leash, knowing how much of an arrogant boy are."

Head hurts.

"To think my worry was placed in thinking you'd be off gallivanting and shirking off your duties to this house, spreading your seed in whatever peasant whore took interest in you that evening."

Nails digging into his palms.

"I'll be reporting this in the morning, I can at least show you a modicum of decency by letting you know. Far more than you've ever given me."

Something snaps.

It takes time until Soleil noticed the deafening sound was coming from him, voice tearing through his throat in an enraged scream as he lunged forward, going to grasp for the crystal only to send it toppling downward.

It's as if all light is sucked out of the room in an instant, removed of all warmth and life as both men are thrown to the other side of the parlor from a sudden force, the empty space previously between them now stood a figure; abnormal, oddly proportioned and tilted at an angle, draped in what appeared to be shifting fabric made from blackened, necrosed flesh. An eyeless face takes in its surroundings and finally lay on the two men gaining their bearings.

A hungry maw salivates.

One man stands, one hand rested against a toppled table, the other raised forward, palm bloody from deep gashes from his nails.

"Remember. I brought you here. I wasn't ready yet, but I am now. I can get you what you need."

Soleil's hand now gestures towards the petrified figure of his father, a man barely able to comprehend the sight before him.

"First with him, then more. I know how. If there's none to feed you, you are free to take some of my own aether."

The creature stays silent in contemplation, the passing seconds feeling like hours. Eternity. Until a voice of no discerning source breaks through, surprisingly warm, wrapping around the young lord like lush exotic silks.

"A veritable wellspring for me to drink from... For a lifetime."

--

"Look! There he is now!"

"My, what was it you were saying about him being no better off than his late father?"

"I'd imagine he afforded only the best chirurgeons to look after him!"

The young lord steps out into the snow covered streets, long hair blowing in the blustering wind. All things considered, it looked nothing more than him losing on a night's sleep.

Found unconscious, bleeding beside the body of his father. With the state of the study and parlour, it was assumed a theft gone wrong, nothing more.

In the passing days, he'd take up the mantle of Lord Delacroix, attending to assets left by the deceased, and not long after setting his sights to travel outside of the Holy See of Ishgard, to the adventuring lifestyle not befitting of a lord. Turbulent, necessitating violence at times.

A hunger for bloody battle, insatiable.