RP:A Rage The Likes Of Which Should Never Escape
“There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.” ― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Part of the Through The Looking-Glass: Return To Wonderland Arc
Summary: After discovering that Brand had been captured the first time they came to the Shadow Plane since learning of its plight, and finding that a treant-hybrid had been posing as him, Khitti heads from the quarters of the Prophet Cirice back to the Lake of Echoed Screams in hopes of finding that Captain of hers.
Lake Of Echoed Screams, The Shadow Plane
Brand || In all Brand’s years with the Daggers, he’d only been held prisoner twice. The first was brief: he went in knowing he was bait for a trap, and his capture didn’t last for longer than an afternoon. The second was more grueling: his cover was blown on enemy turf, and he’d only survived the following “interrogation” through grit and a lot of luck.
Brand || This, however, was something different altogether. The enemy didn’t seem to want information from him, so he had none to leverage. He wasn’t being held for ransom, not so far as he could tell. But then, there wasn’t much to discern from down here in the muck. Nothing to see by that single light but cold, wet stone and the occasional bush of seagrass. Nothing to hear but the distant song of water, just close enough to give him false hope for a way out. But there was no way out -- he’d determined that much. The enemy simply appeared when they wanted to, and disappeared once they’d finished with him. Finished doing what? He didn’t know the answer to that, either, but he knew his memory of those times had been… altered, somehow. The treant left just enough clues for Brand to know he was being toyed with. Just enough to know he’d had freedom dangled in front of him and then had it snatched away, again and again. Enough to know he couldn’t trust his own senses, especially if they were telling him something he wanted to hear. He could remember that much. Everything else was a haze.
Khitti || It was safe to say Khitti was pissed at this point. Her hands ached something fierce from those wounds and her head was pounding from the pain and the surprise of Not!Brand being just that… -not Brand-. She’d step through that portal that the Shadowseers conjured up for her, both tikifhlee following along behind her. So cute and small they were, until they weren’t anymore. Both cats returned to their full size now that they were out of that big city and back in the forest and neither of them were very happy either, if only because they could sense Khitti’s agitation. Khitti clicked her tongue twice to get both felines’ attention, one hand motioning one way for Brand’s cat to go, the other taking the other way, each one going to opposite sides of the lake. “Find them. Find any of them. -Now-!”
Khitti || “You have something of mine!” Khitti’s angry words filled the air as the cats went to sniff about for Jessamine, James, and Brand. “This place isn’t my home. I don’t give a damn about this place at all! I’ll burn every inch of the Shadow Plane until I find him.” Some of it was a lie, of course, but that wasn’t on Khitti’s mind at the moment. Her line of sight fell from the area itself down towards the hand that’d been mark as ‘putrefaction’. Was she actually able to use her dark magic again? She hadn’t -felt- any different. Nothing had felt off or changed, inside or out, albeit except the wounds themselves.
Brand || The treant was back. Brand knew this was true because he didn’t want it to be true -- so there was no reason for his senses to lie to him. Furthermore, the treant was angry. Quite angry, if treant body language worked anything like human body language. He heard the stomping long before the creature rounded the corner and wagged a charred knot of a fist in his face.
Brand || “So close this time, so close.” He heard it in his head, and he heard it in the rumbling groan of the treant’s branches. It didn’t talk, or at least he didn’t think it did. The treant thought, and Brand received the thought as easily as if it had been sound. Alongside the thought came a vicious pain, as if he were a twig being snapped in two. The treant was ripping him apart -- no, it was another trick. No, he could see it now: his exposed entrails slopping out onto the cavern floor, the stretch and tear of skin and sinew, the breaking and smashing of bones. He heard himself scream, but how could he make a sound when his lungs had been so thoroughly crushed? And with that thought he was suddenly quite intact, and in fact not in any pain at all, and the treant stood before him with a fire in its eyes. “I’ll find a use for you, yet.” And the haze of forgetfulness washed over Brand once more.
Khitti || If Khitti could endure the pain of childbirth, surely she could endure the pain that shadowfire might bring on her oh so recently injured hands? Sure. Yes. Definitely. The redhead needed a bit of psyching up before she attempted it and then… she did. Shadowy flames flickered to life after a few moments of nothing but wispy smoke, much like it had the first time she conjured it nearly two years ago. That first time she’d willed it into being because of happy thoughts of Brand. Things had somehow been much simpler then, despite the dragon’s cave… despite the long road to her vampirism cure. Now, her thoughts were filled of Brand yet again--though these thoughts were not the happy sort; Khitti’s mind craved nothing but revenge--as her trusty shadowfire returned, first on one hand and then the other. The fireballs burned her hands as expected, but the adrenaline brought on by the fiery anger in Khitti made the physical pain pale in comparison.
Khitti || There was no place safe nearby her that was safe from her fury. Black and purple flames clung to the corrupted trees, searing their way through the pulsating veins, boiling the strange blue liquid within. Fireballs were tossed haphazardly until the fire began to spread. It spread, and it burned, and it blistered the corruption those human hybrids had created. Khitti’d decided she wasn’t quite done yet. Maybe, just maybe, if she made the lake hot enough, it’d turn to steam. Maybe then she could destroy the place the corruption stemmed from. But, she’d not make it that far. An agonizing scream was heard from the far side of the lake, and shadowflames soon shifted to ice.
Khitti took off across the lake, using the shadow ice to make small sheets of ice, just thick enough for her to stand on momentarily between bouts of shadowstepping. Jessamine shrieked again, and this time she was caught in surprise. A wounded hand found the dryad’s throat easily, crushing away the newest scream, a shard of ice at the side of her head. “Fire didn’t hurt you very much last time, so let’s try ice,” Khitti said. “Where is -he-?!”
Brand was seeing things. He had to be. He remembered the warning his subconscious mind had left for him: don’t believe anything that sounds too good to be true. But oh, it was so satisfying to watch Khitti battle with the treant, and even more satisfying to see that she was winning the fight. But it couldn’t be, could it? He saw her flinging shadow spells: just more evidence that the treant was toying with him. Khitti hadn’t had shadow magic in ages. Their intelligence must be outdated. Still, he’d be a good little prisoner and resist if she tried to free him from the vines shackling him to the wall. That was the other warning he recalled: the treant doesn’t like it when you fail his tests. Angering the treant leads to a bad time. Worse than usual, anyway.
Khitti || It was a wonder Khitti even made it this far. If it hadn’t been for her tendency to burn literally everything to the ground in order to find that dude she’s supposed to marry soon, she’d probably never would have found him. The interaction between Khitti and Jessamine had been quite the opposite from last time they crossed paths. There’d been no silence on Jessamine’s part though, the dryad-hybrid forced to endure the pain caused by Khitti’s shadowflames as they ate away at the dryad’s precious trees. It went on long enough for Jessamine to betray James, letting Khitti know where both the treant and Brand were.
Khitti || Now, she was fighting a goddamned tree. Khitti begged those gods that supposedly listened to her for some amount of strength, but none was given. She was so tired now, after the bloodloss and the magic use, but thankfully, James had decided to eventually make a hasty retreat. Accompanied by a slew of muttered curses, she made her way to Brand and started dealing with the vines that held him. “We need to go. Now.” Her words were blunt, and cold. Sure, she was happy to see him, happy that he was alive and all that jazz but that didn’t get rid of the anger she felt. Brand would know what that feeling was like, at least.
Brand looked up bleakly at Khitti, or the image that appeared to be Khitti. She’d already freed one of his hands, and he used it to scratch at the mess of a beard he’d acquired during his time here. This might be an illusion, but the relief felt real. “I can’t. We’ll make it mad. Making it mad just makes things worse.” Good little prisoner. Obedient prisoner. Now, please, stop playing with my mind and leave me alone?
Khitti || “You know who’s mad, Brand? -I- am mad.” Khitti finished tending to the vines and stood up straight, eyeing the Catalian. “And if you don’t get moving, I’m gonna get back into the habit of punching you in the face until you snap out of it.” No. She suddenly decided she wasn’t going to give him the option. He was clearly still affected by whatever the hell James had done to him. Khitti grabbed him by the beard--half for angry effect, while the other half was in hopes of stirring him out of this… whatever the hell it was--and gave him one of her stares. You know the one. “We’re. Going. Home.” Without another word until they got out of there, Khitti’d shadowstepped the two of them from the area Brand had been kept and back into the forest. Both of their tikifhlee found them eventually, letting loose a “MOWROWR!” when they saw Brand.