RP:A Touching Scene (in the bad way)

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Remnants of the Elves' Camp, Sage Forest

Kuzial is sitting upon a seat carved from the burned remnants of a tree. He takes certain satisfaction in this, even now; he did so hate those tree-hugging druids. But that satisfaction is tempered with the sense of foreboding he feels as he eyes what was once Tenebrae's hand. It is no longer that, nor even really resembling the limb he so joyously cut off. It is beginning now to more resemble an octopus, with tendrils that seem all too eager to feast upon his flesh. But he's not yet let it. He knows many paths that lead to greatness, but few of them should be as disgusting as this... It does not sit well with the psychotic patron of House Stavret. So he merely waits there, ignoring the lingering feeling that soon enough the hand, which sits upon the armrest of his scorched chair, will feast upon him whether he wants it to or not.

Tenebrae made no especial effort to hide her approach - from Kuzial, anyway, who was a little bit sharper than most of the tools in this tedious shed.. So he'd hear her furtive step, perhaps even more clearly than he would have before her 'gift' was bestowed. But beyond the bounds of any mere physical sense, he'd simply know she was near, and that her presence was inevitable. She melted out of the sulky shrubs that managed to throttle their way out of the earth here, where the signs of struggle still scarred the forest, dawdling like a sweet, more-than-slightly deranged Red Riding Hood, from whom all wolves were probably best to flee. She was well-fed to the extreme, and the glut gave her a glow of lush youth, a smile like something innocent. "Sssstavret," she whispered, "What big teeth you have."

Kuzial turns to Tenebrae as she makes herself known and grins a dark, twisted smile. "All the better to eat you.. oh, to hell with it." He motions with his hand to her former one, "What big tentacles it has? And don't!" He snaps up his hand to ward off her saying, 'all the better to eat you with', because frankly he doesn't want to hear it. "I have been waiting for it to feed off me," A lie, and a blatant one. He spent more than a few of his former heartbeats in time running away from the damned thing while he tried to make up his mind. "But it's not yet hungry... you look full enough for the both of us, though. I take it someone suffered long for you to look so.. radiant." Not a word often used to describe Tenebrae, one would guess. "Because that's about the only damned advantage I can think of for eating like an animal. Prey that gets to suffer while you devour them." Clearly, his mood has not improved from yesterday.

Tenebrae offered him a little pouty face redolent with sympathy. Then dropped it, because after all, this was Kuzial and even she knew he had his limits. "I resent that, you know," she said, dawdling closer to his makeshift throne. "The animal.. thing. No animal has feasted as I have, this past night, nor with as much..." the faux innocence fell away entirely, her smile small and exceedingly wicked, "..flair for the art of sinning. In any case, you'll see what I mean, soon enough." She raised her own hand - the replacement for the tentacular horror beside Kuzial - and wiggled the fingers, its flesh still dark, the motion stiff, as she stepped closer still, until they were face to face. She slid her green gaze, lit with sickly yellow lights, over his frame, then dropped a look to the former appendage. "It doesn't have to be nasty, you know. The feeding."

Kuzial spends a long moment staring at Tenebrae. His simmering scarlet eye meeting her's of green without flinching, something few who were sane in this world could do. He stops himself from making a flippant reply to her words about feeding, for much the same reason as she doesn't push him. They have their limits, and though often these two dance upon the edges of them, stalking to the other side would result in a painful death. Or in Kuzial's case, a second painful death... one more lingering than the first. "I believe, Tenebrae, that our definitions of what is nasty are two entirely different things." He spends a moment looking at that new hand of hers. His agile mind could see many advantages to it, of course, yet he knew there was always a price... always, always a price. "But as for our shared.. flair at the arts of sinning.. there we see eye to eye.... much to the fools of this worlds’ horror." He is rambling a touch, delaying what is inevitable, until with an inaudible groan he snaps his hand around and lifts the squirming former-limb and waggles it at Tenebrae. "You see, lady of darkness and death, you think this is beautiful..." He grins then, behind the trashing tendrils of the... thing. "Where as I think it is nothing more than another way in which you can torture me. Perhaps we are both right?" The limb grows more violent than it was earlier, clearly it is more than ready to feed upon Kuzial.

Tenebrae slid into his lap - without asking, how rude - and studied the .. thing. If she were not summarily shoved off, she'd lose the smarminess inherent in her expression before stating, "I do not think it beautiful at all, Patron. It's .. wiggly and .. horrid. Loathesome. But there's always a bigger picture, and my delight comes from my ability to see that." Wherever she ended up, she'd help him bare his chest, finger of her new hand tapping the muscle over his black heart. "There's a good spot. Let it latch. Close your eyes, and think of the Underdark, it won't take long until it weakens from the glut enough to be easily removed." Her eyes crinkled a little at the corners, her lips curving to a happy bow. "Let it feed, and I'll tell you why you're suffering this."

Kuzial does not push Tenebrae off when she slides onto his lap, nor does he stop her aiding in removing the mithril chainmail that protects his chest. He cannot help but flash a dark grin as doing so reveals a few of his daggers, but these too soon follow the chainmail onto the ground beside the burned throne. "There are many questions I want answers to, Tenebrae. But what delights you is not one of them." As she taps his chest his hand moves with its formidable speed, catching her wrist in his grasp while the other hand holds onto her severed limb. "Listen well, Tenebrae, for this I will only say once. I will.. trust that this thing will not devour me, or destroy me, or turn me into some mindless slave of yours. I will trust this is not some nefarious plan of yours to get revenge, to destroy me, to destroy anything. I will trust you. But if you betray this trust, there's no power strong enough to stop me coming back from the grave and tearing you apart. No will of yours controlling me as a slave could ever be stronger than my will to kill you. Understand this well, Tenebrae, for a thousand drow have trusted me and those thousand are all dead and buried." He stares at her for a long moment, letting fall the masks he wears, showing her in his single eye the depths of his psychotic rage; the well of hatred that lurks within his powerful body. He lets her see his words are true, and even the grave could not stop his revenge. Only then does he adhere to her words. He lifts the hand close to his chest and with a muttered, "Oh, for fu..." He snarls while saying this, mind you, "..ck's sake," He moves it close enough for the tendrils to touch his ebon flesh...

Tenebrae listened patiently while the drow vented his concerns, gently blinking now and then, finally offering him a nod of approval when he brought the leech .. for this was what she secretly called these things.. close enough for it to snake its hagfish-mouthed, suckered arms onto dark skin. Not once, he might note, did the thing attempt to lash out at the Necromancer. Knowing the feel of that hideous, multiple bite, she pressed a soft kiss to the tip of Kuzial's nose and murmured, "Beside me, or not at all, Patron." And that might've seemed sort of .. sweet, were it not for the rest to follow: "For you might not survive what's to come, it's true. But I did not choose to offer you this Fate on the assumption you'd fail, Kuzial." She patted the slightly rubbery ex-appendage as it latched harder to his chest. "This is the seed of your armour. Pulling it loose from yourself will be horribly painful and disfiguring, not to mention exceedingly difficult. It's a test, you might say - your bond with it ought to establish, in embryo, while it feeds. You must use your mind to command it to let go, once you feel it weaken. It won't want to, even if it cannot take more.. But you -must- command it. Later on, this will be essential to its function. It very likely will also save your life, in a pinch." As she spoke all this, quietly and without her usual gamut of sly expressions, she'd watch his face intently.

Kuzial nods his head once, curtly, as she speaks her words. "Believe me, I will never ask you to give me hand again." He knew death could well be a consequence; let's face it, anything to do with Kuzial or Tenebrae usually involves death and destruction. Probably why they get along. Yet even still, he is not prepared for the sensation that assaults his senses as the hideous appendage latches onto his chest. It delves into ebon flesh with sickening ease and he feels it begin to feed upon him. Her last words are heard beneath a rushing in his ears, like he were drowning in the midst of a horrendous storm, for not only does he feel it begin to devour his flesh, he can feel the essence of his life - the dark and twisted soul that this drow has - begin to waver beneath its insidious touch. His mind at first goes blank and torn from his lips is a groan of pure agony, but slowly, so slowly, he sets his psychotic will to the task of forcing it to stop. His body begins to convulse violently, strong enough to force Tenebrae from his lap, but he neither knows nor cares where she ends up. Instead he focuses further on the limb, forcing it to let go; to stop its feeding. Threats of death mean nothing to it, nor do the oceans of anger Kuzial throws in its direction. But he doesn't relent, he could not; his life, his soul, his every existence all rests upon this single test. He would not fail. Froth begins to come from his lips as he further fights against the grotesque creation, and his hands contort into fists which begin to hammer down on the arms of his throne, driving splinters into flesh which has soon become bloody with the force... and only then does he feel it begin to lesson, to listen to him, or he thinks he does... but he cannot yet command it to free him... nor yet does he succumb. He fights, as only the dark elf can, even as his unlife begins to drain away into the hand Tenebrae so kindly gave him...

Tenebrae’s brow was pinched as she observed the progress of Kuzial’s desperate struggle. But she did not react, nor speak a single word for the duration. It was a test, indeed. This first time was never easy, but it wasn’t meant to be, all in aid of sorting the sheep from the superior beings. And this drow was no sheep - Tene knew that fact, like she knew the back of her.. hand. Too well she recalled her own disgust, her own suffering, and remembered the fear.. A slight snarl crossed her lips as she shoved that thought aside and tilted her chin up imperiously. As much as the Necromancer wanted him whole, for her various and sundry reasons, Kuzial’s existence was his own to command or.. not. And if worst came to worst.. Well. He’d make as fine a set of war-garb as any girl could wish for.

Kuzial has grown entirely oblivious to the world around him. It has shrunk down to this battle between the feeding limb and his own willpower. His hands stop thrashing the wooden arms of his chair and his mouth ceases to froth like a rabid animal as the ravenous hand continues to bite him. He has the desire then to tear it free with his fang-filled mouth, perhaps creating all too literal of an idiom about biting the hand that feeds off you. But he resists, as does he resist the final sensations that assail him; the despair, the anger, the fear and even a sense of love. All these the hand throws into his mind in an attempt to let it keep on feeding upon him. A thousand tiny tricks, twists and turns that Kuzial now knows he can defeat. He doesn't use his anger to drive it away, nor does he use the oceans of hatred within him. Instead he merely focuses his mind so intensely he's not even aware he speaks this word aloud. "Stop." Such a simple command spoken almost softly, yet the power behind it is enough. The limb stops its gluttous feeding, though it doesn't drop from his chest. It remains there entirely still as Kuzial's eye again is given focus to the world around him. There is for a moment an emptiness in the scarlet-hued gaze, before it locks onto Tenebrae's face and he speaks again, his voice as harsh as a man who's been deprived of drink for a week. "It... is done." He draws in a breath, filling dead lungs with unneeded air. "I thought you said... it'd be difficult." He manages the smallest ghost of a twisted smile, one that's filled with the relief of a dark elf that has stood on the very precipice of disaster and managed to spit into its depths.

And in Tenebrae's own gaze, Kuzial might glimpse a sharp flash of pride in his success. But her words were almost flippant, "Then you'll enjoy the next week or so, won't you?" Still, she couldn't prevent the smile that perched on her lips, which only grew more salacious as she leant on the charred arm of his seat, head tilted back and to one side, so he'd get a clear view of the pilfered life flowing through her. Enough for them both, indeed. "You must be parched," she said, blithely. And her stolen pulse might be pounding a little harder, for all the vicarious triumph she was experiencing right now.

Kuzial nods his head, but restrains himself from feeding; an act that takes almost as much willpower as his recent battle. "If it's anything like this.." He then repeats his earlier words of, "Oh, to hell with it." His willpower has fought enough for one day and he quickly snakes forward, latching his mouth onto her neck. He pierces her flesh quickly, with a fang as sharp as sin itself, and soon feels that stolen vitae flowing from Tenebrae into himself; sharing the blood of her unlife with his own. He draws upon it cleanly, letting not even a single drop spill, before he eventually pulls himself back. He was not satisfied, but he feels an unconscious desire not to feed too much upon her. In the depths of his mind this worries him, for perhaps it was a command or merely a symptom of this siring. But he no longer speaks in the voice of a parched man when he flashes a bloodied grin at Tenebrae, "Bloody hell, woman," A rather apt expression, considering, "this had best be worth it." He traces his hand up, then, scooping up a flowing globule of blood that trickles down her neck with his finger and raises it to her mouth. "To... the destruction of all they hold dear." Who 'they' are isn't clear, but the toast of sorts is spoken with vehemence and he only just manages to hold back the wild laughter that threatens to spill free. He had survived this... he'd not dwell on what else she had in store for him. For now, this here, this was their moment of victory and nothing would spoil it.

Tenebrae waited until he'd had that last taste of her, then perched on that same charred bit of wood - this process took a toll she would never allow herself to admit, let alone describe, and not just in a physical sense. Vulnerability was poison, anathema.. yet, necessary to this. Oh, what she would give for a nice, safe spire stocked with Barbarian whores and captured warriors; but there was a thrill to this, too, this freedom to leave oneself open to danger that, were she home, would result in nothing but a very quick demise. Not so radiant now, she sighed, a satisfied sound. "Once you can command it without effort, when it knows what you ask of it before you can form the thought, you must choose a thrall of your own, for the vats." A sidelong look carried a wicked gleam. "Choose wisely. For the armour is a symbiote, and it will reflect you as much as you... will reflect it. Some choose fierce beasts, some choose great fighters. For my first, I..." Tene turned to meet his gaze, ".. chose a human whore who was very good at throwing knives. Do not," she followed quickly, ".. feel the need to comment on that choice. The point is, you must enthrall the body. Then it.. and you.. are ready for the final phase." The darker of her two hands, the one which was still honing new nerve-endings, new muscle, brushed a strand of snow-white hair from Kuzial's neck, an almost tender gesture. "I have mentioned the vats.. haven't I?"

Kuzial shuts his mouth as she commands him not to comment on her choice, the flippant words halted before they can be given life. But his look says enough, he's sure. And that look lasts about as long as it takes her to make the almost tender gesture of brushing his hair away from his neck and speak of these vats. She had mentioned them in passing, he is sure, but he's not gotten a solid answer of what they truly are. And so he voices as much with his typical straightforwardness. "What the hell are the vats?" Before she can answer, though, he speaks again in answer to her earlier words. "But yes, I know already what... or who.. I will pick... but it may take time." He shrugs in a languid gesture, "Not too long, though, I am sure." He would speak no more of it, but he was sure she would enjoy the choice he makes.

Tenebrae waggled one forefinger at the newborn symbiote, "I trust you'll choose well." And how bizarre was it, that among the very, very few whose word she did occasionally trust was Kuzial Stavret.. "I'll tell you another time," she breathed,, "Perhaps you've had enough excitement for one day." Her gaze was wide and brimming with limpid and exaggerated adoration, as it settled on his singular eye, and she blinked, "Or.. have you, Patron? Had enough?"

Kuzial spends a long moment staring at Tenebrae, before he shrugs, "Tell me another time. Now that I have enough blood in my body again..." His words fade as slides one hand under her knees, the other under her back and stands. For a moment he looks around, before walking towards the entrance to the Underdark. There cunningly hidden amongst the trees is a small shelter that dips beneath a rocky outcropping. Here Kuzial sleeps when he's stuck on the surface, and the thin mats would do just nicely for what he intends. And after, he would rest; letting his body deal with the twisted trials of the day, before he would again come out... this time to feed...