Chapter 14: Betrayal
"And why not? Leave Bekka out of this, Kieriyu."
"You can't trust her. She doesn't want you to kill Jarith. You heard her. She wants you to stop fighting. She's on Jarith's side, Lord of Darkness. She is siding with the Guarding of Light. Light. -Are you even listening to me?"
"Bekka can do whatever she wants, even spend time with Jarith-JARITH! I will kill-but Bekka-but Jarith-Aargh! What's wrong with me?!"
"You're in love with someone you can't trust," Kieriyu said.
"I can't be in love. I am the Lord of Darkness."
"If you're not in love, than what are you in?" Kieriyu asked. "You love Bekka. But you can't trust her. She has to change. She has to stay away from Jarith."
"Right. She has to stay away from Jarith."
"So she doesn't get hurt."
"So she doesn't get hurt."
"It's for her own good."
"It's for her own good."
"Because you have to kill Jarith."
"Because I have to kill Jarith."
Corinn was repeating Kieriyu's words almost mindlessly, his eyes growing dimmer, clouding over...
"You have to do something about her."
"I have to-But I can't make her-"
"She WILL stay away from Jarith!"
"She will stay away from Jarith..."
Arysta and Jarith had teleported Bekka back to the city to find Corinn again. She was wearing the necklace he gave her last time they met and Arysta's teleportation ring.
"Corinn should be close by, if they teleported me to the right place?" she said to herself, looking around.
"Bekka!" Corinn called from behind her. She spun around.
"Corinn! I'm glad you could make it," she said. "Is everything-okay, with Kieriyu and all?"
"Everything's just fine, Bekka," he reassured her. "I see you're wearing the necklace."
"Of course."
"Can I see it for a moment?" Corinn asked. He reached forward and lightly touched the pendant, concentrating. It seemed to almost glow for a second. "All done, then," he said, smiling sadly.
"Corinn?" Bekka asked, confused. "What did you just do?!"
"I'm sorry, Bekka, but I can't trust you anymore. You're too close to Jarith. You understand, right? Please say you understand?"
"Corinn-I-" That was as far as she got before strands of darkness surrounded her from the pendant. She screamed weakly and collapsed.
"Bekka? Bekka?! Are you okay?!" Corinn asked as he knelt down to help her.
"I-my name's-not Bekka," she said fuzzily. She blinked a few times, trying to orient herself. Her eyes were slightly greener than the aqua color that they had been before, and her hair seemed to be a darker, sharper shade of purple. "I'm Corrina-you know that, Corinn, don't you?"
"Of course," Corinn said, although he was a little startled. "Corrina," he said. A nice name-if a little unoriginal. "Are you feeling all right? You fell and hit your head," he said. Maybe I put too much power into that, he thought. Her name shouldn't have changed, just her perception of Jarith. I hope she's not hurt... "Tell me, Corrina, what do you think of Jarith?" he asked nonchalantly.
"Jarith?! Why do you ask? Your enemy is my enemy, my love. I only regret that you get to kill him, and not me," she said fiercely. A confused look crossed her face. "That's...not right..." she said. "Corinn, what's going on? What did you do to me?"
"Corrina?"
"My name is Bekka," she said, backing away from him. "Stay away from me, Corinn."
"Bekka-"
"Look, I don't know what you did, but if you don't tell me now-"
"I can't trust you with Jarith! I had to do it!"
"Nobody made you mess with my mind, Corinn," Bekka said. "You said you can't trust me, but it looks like I can't trust you either." She turned to walk away.
"Bekka! Wait! Please! You can't just leave..." Corinn pleaded. He grabbed her arm. "I won't allow it!" he said angrily.
"Let go of me!" Bekka shouted. "You're not the person I used to know," she said. She twisted the teleport ring that Arysta had given her and disappeared in a shower of sparkles.
"Bekka..." Corinn said.
"So, it didn't work?" Kieriyu asked. Corinn jumped.
"Kieriyu! How long have you been there?"
"Oh, not long," he said. "Long enough to see her leave, though."
"She left me," Corinn said. "Just...left. She's gone. I thought-I thought she-"
"She didn't just leave you, Corinn," Kieriyu said. "She betrayed you. You loved her, Corinn, didn't you? But she loves Jarith. Your enemy. And that makes her your enemy too, doesn't it? She lied to you. And after everything you've done for her-"
"After everything I've done for her...she left me for Jarith."
"Arysta? Jarith?!" Bekka shouted as she rematerialized. "Are you here?"
"Back so soon, my lady?" Arysta asked.
"Corinn put some kind of spell on me or something," Bekka said. "He said he couldn't trust me anymore because Jarith-"
"What about me?" Jarith asked, walking into view. Bekka's eyes suddenly flared green.
"JARITH!" she shouted, lunging at him with her fingers held out like claws. She grabbed his throat and started trying to choke him.
"Bekka?!"
"My lady?!"
"Bekka, what are you doing?!" Jarith gasped, prying her hands off his neck.
"I am Corrina, and you will die for what you did to my beloved!" she shrieked.
"She's under the influence of Corinn's power!" Arysta said, and began to chant under her breath. The bright green began to fade from Bekka's eyes. She blinked and returned to normal.
"-because Jarith is-" She looked around. "Um, what happened? Jarith? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You really don't remember, my lady?" Arysta asked.
"No. What's going on?"
"Well, you came back, and said something about Corinn, and then you went crazy and tried to choke me," Jarith said. "If I let go of you, do you promise not to try to kill me again?"
"I did what?!" Bekka asked. "I thought it was over!"
"What exactly is it that happened?" Arysta asked.
"Well, Corinn was saying that he couldn't trust me anymore because of Jarith. He did something to this necklace that he gave me, and it started glowing. Then everything went blank for a second, and the next thing I remembered, I was saying something about killing Jarith, and he called me Corrina. He started making excuses, that he had no choice, and I told him that if he had to mess with my mind before he could trust me, I couldn't trust him, either, and I left."
"From what my powers can find, the spell is still within you. It is not fully active, but only because of your fighting against it. It appears to be a spell to change only what you think of Jarith, but you cannot hate Jarith and still be who you are. So the spell tried to create an entire alternate personality. It isn't strong enough to do that, so you are mostly unaffected. But, if you are caught off guard, the alternate personality can and will take over," Arysta explained.
"Corinn is going to regret ever thinking that he could get away with this," Jarith said ominously.
"No!" Bekka said. "I don't think Corinn's completely, well, sane right now. Arysta said that Kieriyu's probably twisting his mind; what if this was Kieriyu's idea, too?"
"Well, then, we'll kill Kieriyu too, okay?" Jarith said. "Is that your answer to everything?" Bekka said, frustrated. "If you two would just leave everything alone and quit bothering the poor universe, we wouldn't be in this mess right now!"
"It might not be a good idea to kill them now anyway," Arysta said. "I can't take the spell off Bekka, can you?"
"Well, um, no," Jarith said. "I can't undo anything that Corinn's done. I could try to counter it, but only by doing the opposite thing, which would mean giving Bekka another alternate personality, but exactly the opposite."
"Don't even think about it," Bekka said flatly. "So I'm stuck with this Corrina girl in my mind until we can get Corinn away from Kieriyu's influence?"
"Looks that way," Jarith said.
Image Gallery: : Characters: : Theme Song: : Link "Darkness and Light"