RP:Are You Less Than?

Part of the The Whisperer In Darkness Arc

This is a Devout's Guild RP.

Summary: The strange blood link between Khitti and Gabriel continues to strengthen, so much so to the point that they can converse while one is in Cenril and the other is in Venturil.

The Tranquility, Cenril Wharf

The Tranquility sat at Cenril’s wharf as it so often did in between cargo runs. Its captain, his woman, and their child had long since gone to bed and likewise the rest of the crew. That woman, Khitti, slept just as fitfully as she had since that day in Aedrebyrg. It hadn’t been enough that she’d divulged her secret of that mindlink with Gabriel and the looming evil that was his master to Encara. She tried chalking it up to stress dreams. But, even in the weirdest sort of stress dream, you don’t dream of the nighttime activities of another soul. You don’t dream of someone as they rip apart people you’ve never seen before. You don’t dream of their screams, their cries as that strange, glowing dagger slid into their flesh, drinking in innocent blood as its blade flayed skin and sinew from bone.

Just as she’d told Encara, the dreams were too much like her past. The thought woke her now, the redhead sitting straight up in bed, but still she saw. Still she saw Gabriel’s figure from across the room. She wasn’t in the ship anymore. That salty sea air was no comfort to her, for it’d been replaced by the musty smell of a basement, humid and befouled by the scent of decay.

“Amos, take this one to the pile. He’s gone, alas. It’s a pity, there was such fight in him when you first brought him to me. They never seem to last as long after the dagger finds them,” said Gabriel to his henchman, as Khitti looked on from her place in the shadows. She’d long since gotten out of bed, having felt her way through her and Brand’s quarters, blind to the real world, but desperate to continue to keep the Catalian in the dark about her problems.

As Amos dragged the body upstairs and out the door, a thought struck Khitti: if she could see him, could he see her? Could he hear her as well?

“Stop this,” came the pleading voice of the redhead as she took a step forward, towards the ritual table with its spattering of blood and hair, olive-green eyes fixed on the human-disguised preklek. “You don’t have to keep doing this. Not for that -thing-. It’s not too late to turn back.” Khitti didn’t even know if that was true.

“She speaks. I was wondering how long you were going to stand there. Did you enjoy the show? I’d thought that perhaps since you were a vampire once, you’d like the blood.” Gabriel’s words oozed charisma; perhaps it was a part of that glamour he used to disguise his true form?

Khitti’s red brows furrowed in concern, her lips twisting into a frown.

“Oh yes. I know about that quite well. I see what’s inside your mind, just as you have seen what’s in mine. We’re not so unlike, you and I. Both dedicated to our causes, willing to do whatever it takes to achieve our goals. I sacrifice who I must to appease the dark one and you… you sacrifice your own kin. It’s a wonder though, that I cannot read your mind unless you’re sleeping,” Gabriel went on, taking a few steps towards the pajama-clad female.

“I’ve had plenty of practice with people being inside my head. You, and -your master-, are no different, Gabriel.” Khitti was quick with the snark, but it only seemed to amuse Gabriel more, as was evident by his smirk.

“I don’t know why you’re fighting us. You should join us,” Gabriel stopped, just a foot or so in front of her, piercing blue eyes staring down at the shorter redhead. There was no malice in his voice or in that stare of his, though. It was… almost pleasant? He didn’t even act like an evil person--maybe that’s why Seika didn’t just up and find another owner for Tenbatsu Kaji after Khitti was made to drink that blood? Gabriel reached out to touch Khitti, but she took a step back. “You miss the darkness, you know you do. And you’re losing hope about beating us. You don’t have to say it. I don’t even have to read your mind. It’s written all over your face.”

Khitti avoided the older male’s gaze, brows furrowed as he continued, “Look at you. You’re less than what you were before and you know it.” Gabriel seemed to look at the air around her, before fixating on her again. “That’s not even your magic, is it?”

As Gabriel taunted her, a piercing screech entered her mind. What was that? It felt so… familiar… So… warm. Khitti cringed as the sound rattled her brain and it brought tears to hers eyes. Strangely enough, Gabriel stopped. He stopped and he held out his hand, “Join me and you can have your life back. You can stop this charade, following a god that doesn’t even care about you. You can stop being less than and be something more.”

Those same tears streamed down Khitti’s face as she fought her mind against the screaming in her mind and the warmth that radiated from it. She stared at Gabriel’s hand, olive-green eyes shifting back up towards his face, furrowed brows accompanying her bewildered stare.

Gods, she missed the darkness. The way it enveloped her in its cold embrace. The way her magic had been Brand’s opposite and made her his equal. The way she could actually protect people with the Black Tides. She longed to feel the Shadow Plane’s magic course through her veins again. Now, the only magic she felt was borrowed from Seika and Tenbatsu Kaji.

Now she was nothing. Nothing, with a sword and quickly dwindling hope.

Gingerly, the redhead stretched her hand out towards Gabriel, those same green eyes taking in every inch of his face, looking for truth in his words.

But, their hands would never meet. The sound that filled Khitti’s mind only worsened, worsened… and shifted into a white blinding light.

No. It was golden.

It was Seika.

The room on the Tranquility that Khitti had wandered to for this meeting of light and dark was filled now with that brilliant yellow aura, which then shifted to a fiery orange, and then a dark, threatening red. Seika, the sprite within Tenbatsu Kaji, used every ounce of her holy magic to break the link between Khitti and Gabriel, even if temporarily.

Khitti was back in the ship now. Well, she always had been. “Gabriel?” Her hand was left hanging in the air, as if Gabriel would find a way to take a hold of it regardless of Seika’s magic.

“What have you -done-, Khitti?” came Seika’s voice in her mind.

The shock in Khitti’s mind melted to sadness and the sadness gave way to anger, as it was so prone to do in the past. “What have -I- done? What have -you- done, Seika?! I wouldn’t even be considering this if it wasn’t for you! If you’d given me my own magic in the beginning, none of this would’ve come to pass!”

The anger flare dissipated, and Khitti was left with her sadness once more.

Seika wouldn’t press the issue anymore, of course. The sprite knew better, and likewise knew she -was- somewhat at fault. But, this only proved that Khitti wasn’t ready. Or perhaps she had been and now that time has passed? Doubt crept into Seika’s thoughts, just as it had been with Khitti these past weeks.

Khitti would cry herself to sleep in that room she went to and Seika would do her best to comfort her, with that soft golden glow of Tenbatsu Kaji.