RP:Another Aftermath

Part of the Welcome To The End of Eras Arc

Summary: Kasyr and Iintahquohae have a fight. Inks' loses her memory. It's fine.

Vailkrin Council Room

As the highest point of the castle, this room has the best view of Vailkrin one can achieve without taking flight. With that in mind, the room's walls are panes of stained glass. Through some magical means, the glass doesn't discolor the view for individuals within the room, but it doesn't allow for those that manage to fly up to the windows from the outside to peer in. Similar to the chandelier in the great hall, lanterns float high overhead near the ceiling, their light produced by glowing stones encased within. As is common with many rooms for planning and strategy, the largest and primary table is the focal point of the council room, and a map of Vailkrin with lands beyond it is burned into the surface rather than carved. The markings on the round table are a bit crude, but they're kept up to date by swapping the rounded panel the map is burned into out for a fresh map as needed. In the interest of maintaining clear lines of sight from every wall of windows, the large table doubles as a bookshelf., with the entire stone base of the table doubling as shelving for so many books and paperwork that what don't fit in the shelves are piled neatly either on the table or underneath it. Smaller tables are set at the four cardinal directions, but all seats are pulled to the main table for meetings. Here the sound of music within the castle is clearest, as if the sounds of the City of Undead have traveled and transformed into melodies that can only be heard within the room.

Kasyr is a disheveled mess, wearing a combination of the clothes he'd been sporting the other day, in tandem with his more traditional trenchcoat. His desk is no better, a schizophrenic scatter of papers, small incident reports, threats, and centrally- a copy of a recently released paper, supposedly 'for patriots, by patriots'. And the rest of his office is more of the same. one filing cabinet has been tipped over, the metal contorted by force into a rough 'C'. Adjacent to the door is a small picture of Macon- positively riddled with scalpels. But perhaps the most depressing element of all, is the countless empty cups that litter the floor, a small labrinth of coffee and whiskey glasses, some of which have long been reduced to fragmented glass.

Iintahquohae finished sending out her letters and that helped settle the bulk of her anger. Damage control is just part of politics, right? What was the watered down word she used to describe Macon when she questioned her sire about Larket's King again? Divisive. What Kasyr did was incredibly divisive and it stung. There was still the whole issue of addressing the kensai after actively avoiding him in the castle once the summit came to a close, so she senses out just where he is and heads on over to his office. Part of her wants to step in without giving him a chance to...what would he do, even? Angrily fling a bolt of lightning at her? Toss her across the city again? If the kensai hasn't noticed her presence just beyond the door yet, the unnecessary slow inhale of breath heralds her arrival, along with two knocks at the door. She can smell coffee and alcohol just beyond the door, which is a cause for concern. Her brows knit a little, but she tries to adopt her usual, neutral expression. “We can either talk through the door or you can let me come in,” the seamstress says, then adds with a grin that she struggles to suppress, “I promise I won't kick the door down and barge in.” Humor? Really Inks? Now wasn't the time.

Kasyr probably would have registered the approach, but he's so overwhelmed by the whole of it- that it takes the the knock on the door for some semblance of awareness to flicker to life. An almost automatic, "Go away." is croaked out in response to the knocks, one in a long series that had occured over the course of the day, save for the few he could not put off. The familiarity, that cloying attachment, doesn't even sink in, until the presence remains, and the first few words are offered. A playful entreaty, "Do as you like. Who am I to stop anyone."

Inks flinches at his words. Go away? That wasn't what she expected at all, especially in that tone, and even if it wasn't a direct command by her sire she almost obeys and leaves the door be. But then Kasyr speaks again, and she immediately opens the door, is hit with a wall of the really unpleasant scent of alcohol and coffee combined, then shuts the door behind her once she's stepped in. Her eyes sweep the office and the mess its become, then settle on Kasyr with pursed lips. The picture of Macon with its abundance of scalpels stabbed into it is a nice touch, but she doesn't grin at it. This isn't how this was supposed to go. They were -supposed- to fight it out like usual. Not this. Her plans for the day were damage control, and that extended to Kasyr. “...So,” the seamstress has no idea how to even broach what happened the day before, but takes a cautious step forward, avoiding glasses on the floor. First what she's done. For all she knew, one of her letters was intercepted and passed along to Kasyr and he knew already, but when was Inks ever the type to withhold her actions? “I wrote to everyone I could about what happened and said I didn't agree with this allegiance. Stuff.” Her steps are a little less cautious when she decides to head for his desk and right an overturned chair so they could both sit down. “I don't like what you did, but we-” heavy emphasis on 'we', as if Inks were attempting to remind Kasyr he wasn't running the city alone this time around. “We can fix this, right?”

Kasyr stares up at the desk towards the seamstress, his expression narrowing slightly at the order she leveled at him. Still, he can't maintain the expression, something closer to resignation creeping across his features. That is, until she mentions what she's done. He can feel his stomach drop as what she says bounces around in his head, reverbrating like a long lost pulse- a pressure building moment by moment, an oppressive force within the room, courtesy of his empathy. His hands find the desk, and he jerkedly pushes away from it, sending it skittering a few paces back, and himself to his feet. "You. What." The look she's offered is accusatory. Venemous. An unfamiliar anger mixed with an almost raveneous undercurrent of barely suppressed violence, which can only exert itself through a strangled whisper. A bleak order, "Stay there. Shut your mouth." His hand twitches, clenching shut, before one by one his fingers unfurl. He can feel himself fraying again, his very presence corroding the weaker elements of the world around him, a decay that latches onto one of those pristine windows and eats away at it's moorings until the pangs begin to fall out, one by one.

"There -was- no goddamn allegiance. There was a -trade- agreement. That was the -only- thing that existed. What he'd done was a gambit. One that -would- have been hard to extricate from before. But thanks to you? Because you couldn't goddamn well trust me. Because you went behind my, " He can't help it. His hands find the chair meant for guests, takes hold of the back, and it goes out the newly formed window. "-ing back." It's plausible, at this point, that some tendrils of his dread aura might be seeping forward now- a threat he's barely in control of as he continues, "You had the goddamn gall to ask me to be more honest with you, but the moment something happens..." His tone drops, the words drawn out for emphasis, "What, did you miss your husband enough that you felt the need to burn down the city to make time." He turns on his heels, and just as quickly, stepping over towards the displaced desk to set his hands on it, "You can do as you will now. Maybe add a bit more fuel to the fire- because no, there isn't any fixing this now. But maybe if you cozy up to some of the other rulers, et paint moi the villain a bit more- you can stage a coup." The sheer malice, the utter hurt in his voice, as he tilts his head backwards to look at her, "All hail the hero, non?"

What in the world was Kasyr doing? Iintahquohae swears she feels something about the air in that office changes. The sound of wood scraping against wood when he shoves the desk and the look on his face prompt her to explain herself before he's issued the command to silence her. “...Yeah? I told them tha-” Her eyes gradually widen when she tries to resist the order and try opening her mouth, and the seamstress goes so far as to try prying her lips apart with her fingers, but it yields no results. And she's rooted to her seat now. He said to say there. Since all she can do is listen and watch as he destroys more of his office, she does just that despite trying to mentally fight through the grip he has on her. Inks doesn't have a choice but to take the verbal beating until realization hits. He ordered her to shut her mouth, right? He -didn't- order her to not communicate at all. So she starts throwing Drow hand signs at him, but it's shorthand and in bursts. “A trade agreement still looks BAD,” and “He,” she jabs her index finger at the shredded Macon picture, “Made it sound like you two were allied. I thought it was just the Magic Academy? Remember?” “WHAT ABOUT VAL?” She should flinch at the kensai throwing a chair out the window, but manages to stay seated. Not by choice. “I thought I was doing the right thing you, you-” she just points at him repeatedly while she scrambles for something to sign at him. Her hands resume flinging signs, mostly unloading curses and something about how Kasyr had the gall to get angry with her when he hadn't told her the extent of his and Macon's 'relationship', something about his godawful job of being a sire since the night he turned her in that rundown cabin. His comment about Odhranos is met with a glare, and she lets her hands fall limp in her lap, then tries to stand up. When Inks finds her voice again, the first words she utters are incredulous. “Are you actually out of your mind? A coup. Against -you-. I'd lose.” The times Kasyr had directly ordered her were always predicated on her shouting at him to hold her back, but this... Inks is shocked at her own reaction to it, and how she defensively hugs herself while leveling a glare at her sire. “Don't you -ever- do that to me again.”

Kasyr had not even processed most of what she'd signed at him, so lost was he in a fugue of rage. It's only after she offers up that simple declaration as to how a coup would go, he can't help but retort, "Oh. Is that the only thing stopping you? Then take a swing. I won't stop you. You've already started. Why stop there- my back's already turned, I'm sure you can find a knife." That anger, though, is starting to dwindle, burning away even as the awareness of her state is starting to sink in, at the deeply personal sense of violation that ripples out from the seamstress, his anger giving way to a sickening shame. "The right thing? Were you? Or just saving face. You could have asked me. At any time. My door was always open for you." There's no anger there anymore, just that familiar emptiness creeping up, the same he'd initially had to greet her with, "Not for a heartbeat did you trust me. Not for a single moment. Or you would have talked to me, first. About..any of it." It finally clicks for him, the one sign she'd made, not a word, but a set of letters frantically sent. "Val. I did have a safety net for her, en fait. But, well-" It didn't matter. None of it mattered. "Just go, s'il te plait. You've done enough." He nudges the desk, as though he intended to slide it into some fascimile of place, perhaps some means of pointedly ignoring the conversation. That, and to mask the quiet words he still felt he owed her, "I'm sorry."

Her face is still set with that expression of incredulity, and her hands raise in mock defeat. “Are you really that inattentive? I don't -want- to be a Queen, or a Princess, or a Lady, or -whatever-.” She then sharply jabs an index finger into her chest. “I wanted to help you and I want to do my job. At my shops, that I shut down for YOU and this entire city so I could help. That's all I've ever wanted to do. None of this sh-” Iintahquohae actually does pull a knife from her pocket in the midst of shouting over Kasyr, but it's the peculiar blade-less one she used for her seam ripping trick. She holds it as if she's prepare to slice an opening, but doesn't make the full motion just yet. “I was trying to do the right thing because what he said made everybody that we are allied -with- witnessed that which, I don't know if you realize, Kas – that is probably going to screw up -everything- that I tried to fix. The embargoes. The economy. Some minor semblance of stability for at least Ventra and the other Houses to hold onto so we'd look -reliable-. All of that? Probably gone now.” Her tone almost softens at his self-loathing, but the seamstress tries to keep it steady. It doesn't work too well. “...I did trust you and I still do. But -” His dismissal was her cue to cut an opening and leave, but after the verbal blows they just traded, she considers what he means by 'just go'. “If you really want me gone from all of this, -tell- me. I'll go back to Cenril and leave you to this.” She didn't miss the apology, judging by the way she regrips the knife handle, uncertain if it should be returned to her pocket.

Kasyr finally turns around, not due to her indignation, but more at the cause of it. The hurt which had lingered alongside every angry word. And finally, those last pangs which accompanied her statement. That unspoken question. And for a few long moments, he's silent. The impulse is there, to try and scour up one final bit of anger. To push her away, and suffer through it along. To provide her distance from it all. A refuge from the disaster before it really began. But going it alone had been the cause of so much damage- and a recent remind finally forces him to speak. "I'd like you to stay. Despite all this." He tries to meet her gaze, braced in part for some instinctive flinch that might accompany the effort, "I want you to. But, you know this won't be easy, madamoiselle. Staying means everything you -want- es-" He runs his tongue over his tooth, and the impulse rises again. He could order her gone, maybe even to forget the matter. She was adjacent enough that she could even disappear from the whole debacle, "Do you -want- to stay. You once asked for honesty. Transparency. That still holds true. But I'm asking the same from you. Do you want to stay for yourself, or es this just you trying to save me from- myself, from the city?"

Her arm drops when he finally speaks, and she has to will herself to not bark a retort at everything he says next. Of course it won't be easy. Inks discovered how not easy things were after that nightmare of a summit. “Everything I want is...?” She assumed that he'd say that it would be unattainable for a while now, and that thought elicits a frown. Kasyr wasn't ordering her to be honest or transparent, and that truly wasn't needed. She couldn't lie, but she -almost- does. When had Inks ever felt this rattled? It was the command he gave her before that spurred her onward. Her tone is considerably more quiet than it was moments before.“After what you just did, yes. Do you really think I'm cut out for any of this, Kas? Honestly.” She considers the knife again, peering down at the handle and how simple it'd be to just cross over to Cenril's coastline, then adds. “I meant what I said when I didn't want you to do this alone.” As for saving Kasyr from himself, Inks produces a wry smile. “I'm not a hero, Kas. I just make clothes.”

Kasyr offers he a smile, but he cannot suppress the sense of melancholy that paints it. He knew how this went. How this had gone time and time again. The way the ones around him burned to ash, caught in his wake. "Thank you." But however honest that sentiment is, there's a distance to it. One that's antithetical to the one vanishing between them. "Listen, s'il te plait." One part request, one part faint order. "Just. Listen." He's careful this time, cautious in the face of his prior misstep, in the firm grasp he'd forced her to endure, "From now on, If you're to feed from -someone-," there's an emphasis there, if only due to her fondness of horses, "It es either with their consent, or if they posed a threat to you." There's a weight there. A solemnity. An order he'd repeated for countless members of the Coterie, and which he'd omitted for her, before time and place had separated them repeatedly. "You will not turn anyone. Nor create thralls." Perhaps, she'd even seen these commands before. "And you will go home. You will forget me, the name Azakhaer, when you go home. You will be Iintahquohae Kerrigan, free from all of this." He feels sick. Every part of him wants to stop, and hold onto that singular hope she'd offered him, however strained. And he buries it down, placing it instead into the ring she'd once given him, which he slides into her hand, "C'etait un plaisir, madamoiselle." And something quieter besides, when he leans in to gently tap her cheek with his knuckle, as a farewell

Kasyr whispered to Iintahquohae, "Je vous t'aime."