#33, It's Complicated: Love, the Path Grows Ever Twisted
Originally posted here on March 11, 2022.
Do you/your fictomere have a complicated opinion of, relationship with, or history with someone or something? Does it often get reduced to something simplistic, or is it portrayed accurately, according to you?
I have finally sat down, finished drafting and deliberating, and written about Tremere. locketshoru knew this was coming, at the very least, and I imagine several of you did, as well.
I do not spend much time explaining myself, my world, my life, my place in it all, here. I don't have the time to talk about all of that. If you need a better understanding of my place in my source, I recommend checking
my noematapedia entry. If you need a rundown of my life story,
my response to prompt #2 covers that nicely.
With that out of the way, I shall discuss Tremere. This tale discusses betrayal and murder, and alludes to worse, but only if you already know my tale.
How to even refer to Tremere, my love, my life, once? Calling him my "lover" feels too short, insincere, transitory. "Boyfriend" feels juvenile and just as brief. "Husband" is perhaps the most apt term, although we never thought of ourselves as such--back in the ninth and tenth centuries CE, marriage simply wasn't something that two men really considered, in love or not. I suppose, then, that he was simply mine, and I was his. This was universally understood, something that all of House Tremere, nay, the Order of Hermes, knew and accepted. We shared, of course--he was busy, so busy, as Archmage, and when he wasn't, I often was as one of the Council of Seven and our best alchemist. But our hearts belonged to each other, alone, even if our beds did not, and we were happy.
I had no choice but to love him, really. I often scoff at the implication of someone having "no choice"--usually, they did, they just chose the only viable option. But, here, loving Tremere... He saved me from the fires of prejudice. He opened up a whole new world for me, teaching me the meaning of freedom, of choice, of magic. He helped me to change my identity, my name, my very self and gender presentation. How could I do anything but fall in love with him? He was charming, genuine, kind--he legitimately wanted to help everyone around him, and it pained him to sit by and watch when injustices were inflicted. He was my hero, my savior, and I loved him, completely and absolutely.
I love more intensely (although not necessarily more) than most people. Tanix, the host of the system, has informed me that I am a "poster child" for something called Borderline Personality Disorder. Tremere, in turn, displayed symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This led to a dynamic where he wholeheartedly believed himself to be wonderful, perfect, stunning--and I believed every word. Oh, yes, there were ups and downs--my struggles with keeping my identity from molding completely around him, for one, and my paranoia and insecurities whenever he was too busy for me for long, for another--but I loved him completely and absolutely, blood on fire and skin singing for his every touch. I wanted him, in every way that a man can want another, and we were happy. I got jealous when he directed some of that shining, brilliant attention towards other people--who wouldn't be?--but for a long time, it didn't matter, much. I would have my fits of jealousy, but he would return to me, kiss me and hold me close, and reassure--you're all that matters, love. You and me. Don't worry. It was us who had a mental bond, a way to communicate with each other with only our minds across any distance--not anyone else. We were something special.
It seems juvenile, looking back, of course. Many of my symptoms have abated over the years, and even more have gone since I arrived in the system. But it all felt so real, every slight and extended absence, every word of praise given to someone who might be able to compete with me, outstrip me, be better than me, most of all my rival, Etrius.
Even with all of that, our relationship wasn't complicated. Not until 980 CE, until the botched consecration of Ceoris, with its failed ritual and the accidental death of Ponticulus. I was blamed, accusations flew, things were said that could never be taken back--and Tremere left me.
He left me.
I think he regretted it, in time, but it was too late to go back. I broke that day, already permanently mutilated and weakened, and he shattered my heart by calling it off, feeling as if I had killed Ponticulus, my friend, in my recklessness.
The only word I have for that is betrayal. For the next forty-odd years, I ran the Ceoris chantry, and he was often present, but we never spoke like we had again. He never again touched me with anything other than professionalism or disgust, left me aching and hating and loving, because even though he now had a bitter streak--one that only came out when he looked at me--he was still Tremere, still wonderful and perfect and vibrant, energetic and loving. It's not even as if he stymied my work or disrespected me--he treated me with cool professionalism, and even through my pain, I fought to do the same. Our mental bond was closed on both sides, totally ignored, and it felt like a weight on my soul.
Even betrayed, even abandoned, I loved him dearly. Loving him felt like needles in my heart, blades through my ribs. The warmth that used to suffuse me when I thought about him was replaced with something burning, desperate, like the flames that had been intended to consume me the day we met had returned and, this time, were never going to let me go.
Just writing about it, now, it feels like they've coalesced into a hot, burning lump at the base of my throat, pouring smoke up and into my head, down into my lungs, and I have had to stop to pace on multiple occasions. This was one of the most painful periods of my life, and it only got worse after the Ritual of Usurpation, where I, ordered to find a new path towards immortality for us, transformed us into vampires. When the ritual went wrong, again, I was blamed, again. This was a repeating pattern, as our mistakes and desperation compounded: something would go wrong, I would be asked to help, and I would, then something would go wrong, and I would be blamed. On and on it went, until eventually, Tremere had enough and sent me away, taking Ceoris from my control and passing it off to Etrius. This was after the diablerie of Saulot, to be fair--he was no longer entirely himself, but still, to know that he did not even wish to look upon me, to know that I was running our headquarters... it stung.
We had not been together in nearly two centuries at that point--longer than we had been together in the first place. Yet I loved him, still, even though he surely loved me no longer.
To be sent away like that... the rage was indescribable. I was angry, despondent--I schemed against Etrius, trying to take him out, in some desperate gambit to force Tremere to take me back, bring me back to Ceoris at least. What else could I have done, in my desperation? In theory, many things, and this was the wrong one, but at the time, it felt like the only action I could take that could give me any power over my situation. I felt boxed in, redirecting all the hate that I should have felt towards Tremere to Etrius. I could not hate and love Tremere all at once, and I would not let myself hate him alone--so Etrius took the brunt of my fury, although he was not, and never will be, undeserving, given all that he did to me.
During all of this time apart from Tremere--both before and after he sent me from Ceoris--my struggles with my identity grew worse. I now know that individuals with BPD have a difficult time reconciling who they are with who they want to be, and I was no exception. I remember spending dozens, perhaps hundreds, of hours staring into my mirror, desperate to catch sight of what was wrong with me, what I could change to get him back. I hated Etrius, I hated myself, I hated some small part of Tremere, even if I wouldn't admit it. My love became an obsession, a desperate effort to take the best pieces from the people around me that Tremere did approve of to become someone he might allow to slink back into his good graces. Nothing ever worked, of course, and he remained ever-distant, but that period of time did irreparable damage to me, taking my love for life and my light, my idealism, right out of me. I am a survivor, now, and I am jaded--all I am is the pieces that survived, rugged and pockmarked, but alive, and the idea of changing any of them out for anything more vulnerable is abhorrent. I am bitter where I wasn't before, and while I am not better for it, I am more hardy.
However, as some of you may know, it got worse. So, so much worse. Tremere heard of my schemes against Etrius and recalled me to Ceoris for punishment--something that, by those days, often meant something extreme, occasionally death. All of my plans, all of my solutions to his problems, had damaged him irreparably, too. Vampirism ruined Tremere, draining his own enthusiasm, energy, and love for life right out of him, leaving him a burned-out husk with empty eyes that gave the orders he knew he had to in order to preserve the Clan, damn the consequences, with no regards for the lives of anyone outside of it. I wish I could have offered him any other solution to any of his problems, now--perhaps he would have kept some small piece of himself, instead of burning it for fuel to keep the Tremere going.
I fled.
I could not, would not, face him--I did not want to see the look in his eyes, his willingness to kill me. I was a survivor, and that's all I was, and I feared that I would lose that, too, if I looked at him and saw desire for my death on his face. I feared I would allow it, bow my head and take my execution, because he had willed it and perhaps that was the only way to please him.
It took years, but Calderon, another member of the Council of Seven, a man I had once called my brother, caught up to me. His orders were clear: he was to bring me back to Ceoris, dead or alive.
His orders, from Tremere.
Tremere wanted me dead.
What hope I had left in him shattered, and I was left hollow. Angry, yes, but mostly empty. I would never return, and when I told Calderon this, he said, fine, he would bring me in dead, then. I warned him that he could not defeat me, but he didn't listen. He never listened. Under Tremere's orders, the man I had once called my brother attacked me, and I was forced to choose between letting him kill me and defending myself.
Killing Calderon is one of the closest things I have to something that I regret. I wish it had not had to happen, but it did, and I left his corpse in the grass with his sword on my hip, heart empty, eyes dull, blood screaming. Like flipping a switch, most of my remaining love for Tremere boiled over into hate, and I was quite suddenly glad that he was in torpor most of the time, slumbering the centuries away while he battled Saulot for control over his body. I was glad that he'd have to find replacements for both myself and Calderon, I was glad that I could inconvenience him so and be a thorn in his and Etrius' sides for as long as they knew that I lived but they could not find nor stop me. What would they do, risk another Councilor? Come after me themselves? I welcomed the challenge, the test, but they never did, and I was left to my own devices for centuries upon centuries, continuing my experiments on my own, or with a small group of sympathizers that slowly grew into what became known as House Goratrix, the core of the Sabbat Tremere antitribu.
By the time I joined the Sabbat, and the main Clan began to say that I had "defected" from them to join the Sabbat--an organization that did not exist when I left--I was totally numb to their words. They had no effect, they meant nothing. They were liars, betrayers, and backstabbers--the fact that they titled me Goratrix the Betrayer only mildly irked me. How much they could twist the truth. How wrong people could be about me.
I avoided mirrors, to an extent. No need to tear myself apart and piece myself back together; I knew what I was. I knew that I was willing to commit any crime, allow any atrocity, in the name of keeping myself safe. I gathered up the shards of my heart and locked them away, threw my conscience and Humanity by the wayside, and set about making myself as safe and powerful as I could manage. Some thought this was a simple hunger for power, for control, and it was, in a way--but, ultimately, at the end of the night, I...
I just didn't want to be hurt again.
There. I said it. Is that such a difficult thing to understand? Is that such an evil motive? Is it deserving of the masses that would call me betrayer, murderer, monster, or is the fact that the mighty wizard Goratrix could be reduced to a simple don't hurt me again enough to absolve me of what I've done?
No. This isn't about that, but it's core to it, so I have mentioned it anyway. I know what I am, and I have long accepted it. I am not a good man, and perhaps I was, once, but I never will be again, because of the things I am willing to do to avoid being hurt again.
And when Krusa Giovanni and his friends, the Myriad, came to me in 2008, seeking my aid and assistance, and for some God-forsaken reason decided to try to understand me and, in some cases, care about me, it became increasingly obvious to them that the stories didn't add up, I couldn't be solely responsible for my exile, and after much talking to myself and other Tremere, Krusa said something to me that changed everything.
Tremere wasn't completely himself when he ordered my death, and chances are, he was trusting everything that Etrius, my hated rival, a man that I know wants me dead and always has, said.
Tremere may have ordered my death, but it was based on exaggeration and lies.
Tremere was being manipulated.
And, God damn it, no matter how much I locked up the shards of my heart, hid them and tried to forget about them, Krusa's piercing look and my Beast and what fucking minuscule shreds of humanity I have left set my heart burning, twitching, pounding, because perhaps, perhaps, Tremere had not done the unforgivable thing, perhaps he hadn't wanted me dead, or wouldn't, if he knew the truth, maybe he would want me back.
I shut down that line of thinking, quickly, but still, it haunted me, consumed my every waking moment, and yet--when I looked into my mirror again, really looked, all I saw was a ragged, scared survivor in the cloak of a confident master wizard, a man who just wanted to be loved and had been bitten and beaten at every turn.
It scared me.
And then.... I was here. August 2021, in a system of, at the time, eight. To be able to step back and see my life laid out before me in terms of NPC backstory for a tabletop game... if I'm honest, it didn't bother me as much as it let me reflect. It let me take a more objective view of everything, step back, get out of my own head and life, and breathe. I am in no danger here--no one to kill me, scheme against me, try to hurt me again, and I let myself slowly begin to trust my headmates, Tanix especially. I watched as the tabletop game continued, stepped in to help "run" myself, and found myself gaining... memories, as time passed. Memories of both moments that happened "on screen," but also the time between, and I realized that I had been given a rare gift, in some way: a parallel life, where I can have some effect on myself "back at home" while also having a more objective view of things. It's not complete, not exact--I cannot make myself behave in a way that seems too wrong, or it makes me feel physically ill, but I have able to perform minor shoves. Deep breaths. Consider Tremere in a more objective light--one given to me by insights granted by Tanix, who, in his own mind, had just developed us both as characters beyond what canon ever attempted and made us more interesting, complex.
(I will not delve into the implications of that now.)
As events in-game would have it--or, as fate would have it, back at home--a reunion was in order. This is an event I will write about in detail later, as it had not happened yet when I wrote my response to the second prompt and thus is not covered, although it was be an excellent addendum. In short, the Myriad, the Council of Seven, a pack of werewolves, and I attempted a ritual to separate the souls of Tremere and Saulot into separate bodies, and against all odds, it worked. They called a truce and we separated them, repaired them, and for the first time since 1133, Tremere was alone in his own head, able to walk about and live his life.
In Ceoris for the first time in centuries, I avoided him until I was sure that he was in good condition, and then... God damn me and my cowardice, my desire to protect myself, I tried to leave. Leave without speaking to him. How could I face him, after everything? After all he and I had done to hurt each other, after all I had done to the main clan, his people, the people he would break the world for, after all I had blamed him for that might not have been his fault? Even if he was restored, energetic, wonderful--and he seemed to be, thank God, some of his joy restored--I was changed, forever broken, after over a thousand years of emotional separation from him. No matter my reasons, I was--am--a villain, a monster, a creature undeserving of looking upon him, nevermind experiencing his love.
He stopped me from leaving. He said that he had spoken with the others--with Saulot--and had realized that he was wrong. Tremere never admits when he is wrong--he rarely even believes it--so to hear that, I...
My apologies. I am getting... fairly emotional, and I am attempting to remain coherent and professional.
I will write about this moment in more detail later. I will. But he apologized to me, said that everything was his fault, it was all his fault, and it wasn't, it wasn't, and it hurt me to see him put all of that weight on himself, and he said that he was sorry, he was so sorry, he'd take it all back if he could--and that he loved me, still.
He loved me, still.
Just as I had no choice but to love him when we first met, I had no choice but to break into tears, and fling myself back into his arms, because despite my best efforts, my anxieties, my fears, I loved him, still, too--even through all of that hate, there was still that deep, central piece of me that loved him, had been shaped by him, molded to fit, and to have him hold me, pet my hair, sing to calm me--fuck, God damn me, FUCK, I had no choice, no choice but to fall in love with him all over again, even though I'd never really stopped, not quite, no matter what I did, because he is Tremere and I am Goratrix and that's all there is to say, that's what we are to each other, mine and his and even a thousand years of anger and hate couldn't change that, even though I forged myself into a suit of armor, into a weapon, I still slotted perfectly beside him, a rainbow, a sunny day, a love for the world unmatched anywhere.
Slowly, slowly, we started to heal. I spent some nights in Ceoris, as he got his feet under him, as the Tremere restructured. I was their enemy, technically--the Libertani (as the Sabbat had come to be called) and the Camarilla, their allies, were still at war--but Tremere declared that I was protected, allowed to stay for as long as I would like. We talked, multiple times, and tried to reconcile who we are with who we were a thousand years before, the differences, the time and misunderstandings, Etrius, everything.
How I feel now is as complicated as the tale of how I have felt. I, and my heart, are scarred, even as we slowly piece it back together. I love him. Of course I do. I want... to make this work, again, and to have it work out, this time. I want to be his, and want him to be mine. But I....
I'm scared. I'm so, so scared of what could happen. Of how I could misstep again. Of how he could react, of what Etrius could do, of so much, because what broke us apart the first time seemed circumstantial, happenstance, awful but incidental--something we could have, should have, bounced back from, but never did, and we allowed ourselves to slip and spiral forever, only to land at the bottom, take each other's hands, and haltingly start the trek back up.
I don't know how to describe it any better than that.
But, it seems, fate--or whatever else--had one more surprise in store for me.
February 27, 2022, in this world, not back at home in 2009. Just under two weeks ago at the time of posting this.
Tremere appeared in the system.
Suddenly, I was no longer Goratrix-as-headmate guiding myself, Goratrix-as-I-was, through reconciling with Tremere--a complicated and emotional task for both of my selves. Now, I was that and Goratrix-as-headmate dealing with reconciling with Tremere-as-headmate, who also must guide himself in the same manner I do. Now, while we could always share thoughts, we have no choice, and are in closer proximity than we have ever been, and I do not know if I was ready for that, if I ever could be, or if I would ever have it any other way.
He's... quieter than I am. New headmates appear and can speak before they are totally "done," so to speak, like they have to go on a test run or two before they finalize, and he's still figuring himself out. And yet, he is, undoubtedly, Tremere, all fire and energy and enthusiasm, a dragon at heart and soul and Avatar but a man, my man, in body (more or less. Systems.), love and joy and here.
He's politely ignored most of my writing this, but he peers over my shoulder, now, smiling at my description of him, and he rests a hand on my shoulder. "You really feel like I'm as powerful as the goddamn sun, don't you?" he asks me, and I don't answer, because he knows, he can feel it.
I love him, of course. Of course. It consumes me. But, still--I'm wounded. I'm once bitten, twice shy, and he is, too, just less than I am. Most of his thousand years was spent in restless slumber, while mine was fighting tooth and nail to survive and make a name for myself in a hostile world that only wants to know me as The Betrayer. I am damaged, all sharp edges and concealed open wounds, fangs bared and monstrous, and yet, he wants me, still, even if I do not feel as if I deserve it.
Where we go from here... I do not know. His appearance in the system threw off my nicely bow-wrapped conclusion to this piece of writing in the original draft, and now, I suspect that the surprises will keep on coming, both in-world and in-system. Despite my trepidation about that, though, he calms me, takes my hand, a silent reassurance that I have him, here and there, and that he never intends to leave me again.
I worry, I ache, I fear--
But I love, too, and maybe that's all I need.