RP:Cruel Verse with a Bitter Refrain

Summary: Lanlan, now free from the entity that had possessed him, hides from House D’Artes (and Gevurah) in the drow village of Zaneerh under Gualon. Gevurah, oblivious to the fact Lanlan feels betrayed by her and excited to reunite with her lover, visits Lanlan in his tiny, dirty, cheap room at the inn. It doesn’t go well! After a cruel screaming match where they (but especially Gevurah) shouted words that cut deep, Gevurah leaves. By the look of it, the drow are broken up.

The Hidden Village of Zaneerh

Lanlan is in a room at the inn temporarily. They don't get a lot of travelers, understandably, being a hidden village, but Lanlan wasn't bothered that they didn't give him their best room. In fact they didn't give him their second best room! His is very small, barely room for his cot. Luckily it's all he needs. When not enduring his self imposed bed-rest, he's cleaning his room. The mop-bucket combo and broom leaning in a corner make it so his room is always the cleanest. The day he arrived here, someone came into his room. They didn't knock, and entered (claiming they didn't know he was there), and Lanlan didn't take it very well. Apparently, he can still be intimidating while laying down. Magic helps. The stranger survived though, and hasn't been back. Now every day, the entire establishment's cleanliness suffers because apparently they have one set of communal cleaning supplies. Nobody has been taking care of him, least of all himself, but that started when Haladavar occupied his body. Apparently eating, drinking, and sleeping were low on the ancient elf's list of priorities. They were a weakness in fact, that he didn't intend to suffer the effects of. Lanlan did however, and it showed in the gauntness of his face and the darkness under his eyes.

Gevurah :: When Gevurah heard that Lanlan was hiding from House D’Artes in the Village of Zaneerh, it never occurred to her that he was hiding from her specifically. In the weeks since his possession she’d mastered the art of repression. She repressed her desire to commit every single D’Artes resource towards rescuing him. She repressed the fear that he may never return to himself, and thus never return to her. That fear lurked like a monster beneath the dark surface of her thoughts, and whenever it disturbed the calm of her mind, she repressed the pained gasps that would expose her affair to others. But on the day she heard he was in Zaneerh, she failed to repress. Ready my mount, she said to her chamberlain as she fled to her room to ready herself -- and steady herself too. By the time she reached Zaneerh, her shock had morphed into excited expectation. Her allies in Zaneerh informed her of all she needed to know, and she let herself into the inn, up the stairs, and to his room. She knocked on the door as frenetically as her heart beat, and the door gave way. These cheap doors need to be jammed hard for the door latch to catch the strike and close. She follows the door as it opens and crosses immediately to Lanlan. As he sits up to confront the intruder, her arms slips around him in a slow, much yearned-for embrace. She presses her forehead against his jaw and neck, reclaims the smell of him, then pulls back just enough to get a good look at him. He feels thin under her hands, and the gauntness of his face suggests only some of what he has suffered. But she knows it is him. She recognizes his spirit. “How are you feeling?” she asks without fully letting him go.

Lanlan doesn't even open his eyes when he hears the door, but takes a sharp breath in. "I asked for one thing," he says weakly, and shadows on the ceiling begin to twist. "Privacy. And I will have it..." But then his magic dissipates, he's halted. It's the faintest aroma of wine and incense, but that's not what he associated that smell with. He didn't have a choice, either. It smelled like bliss, like happiness, like love. She's excited and strong, while he's sluggish and miserable. And he can't think before she embraces him. Her arms feel strong and warm against his ribs, and he can't help but try to match her embrace. It wasn't so long ago that the thought of meeting her seemed like the only thing holding his abstract self together..! She was his guardian and bastion and tether for an eternity. But it's guiltily that he allows himself to enjoy this. So much has happened since they were last together. And like his victims, he'd realized too late the things he clung to were only dreams, and believing them was costly. She pulls back to look at him, and he sees her too, but he isn't sure what he sees. The shadows behind him and on the ceiling begin twisting again, and coagulating. "How am I feeling? How am I feeling?" There's no words to describe the confusion. And the emotions dance across his face like they were in a conga line, one after another. Ease, happiness, fear, confusion, anger. "What can you possibly mean by asking that?" Then abruptly he stands up and steps back. The shadows on the wall seem to pool and coil, before suddenly bursting and snapping to Lanlan's form, engulfing him and vanishing him. He can't actually go anywhere, though. She's between him and the only door. So he slides into a corner and hides. He just needed a moment alone to think, to decide if this was even real. It was too incredible, and he was dubious.

Gevurah ‘s heart corkscrews around a pin of pain. His anger surprises her, his retreat wounds her a little, but she clings to the hope that perhaps his strange reaction to her presence is a vestige of his possession. He’s afflicted, unwell, just one last hurdle for them to overcome before he’s fully returned. “Lanlan…” She stands fully and sweeps her gaze around the room, eventually settling it in the general direction from which she feels an arcane heat. “You’ve been through a lot. Whatever this is… I’ll help you get through it.”

Lanlan can't do anything except hold his breath. He loves her. Still. But he shouldn't! He wants to return to her embrace and believe she wants to help him. But he can't. He can't pretend nothing happened. Is that what she was doing? Pretending? He can tell she feels him. He can be invisible to anyone, but not to her. Maybe it was his fault. Maybe he forgot to suppress his heat signature, or disguise his aura as mundane. Because his heart wasn't in this, he wanted her to see him and couldn't commit to disappearing. Either way, he didn't fool her. Continuing the effort now would be futile and embarrassing, so he walks out of the shadows. The emotion he settled on was anger, it was the only one he could trust. "Yes! I have been experiencing some bad luck, haven't I? First I'm cursed, did you know that? That my mind was being ravaged by...something!?" His instinct to demonstrate his feeling with his hands is greatly subdued by his physical weakness, and his hands only flail weakly before falling slack again. "I think you did!" He says knowingly, but he's tired. And his rage becomes visibly intermingled with sadness. "And you tried to kill me when I was weak. It gets hard...to remember. But I remember that. But you failed, didn't you? And you retaliated by destroying me in every other way you could." He flops back on his cot and leans his back against the unfinished wall it stands against. "Welcome to my new home. It's not as big as the old one but at least it used to be far away from you."

Gevurah recoils from the bite of Lanlan’s hate. Her legs feel weak yet glued into the bug-bitten floor. Her self-possesion drains out of her and is replaced with adrenaline. The only thing that surprises her more than Lanlan’s lucid rage is the fact that this hurts her, physically and intensely. She deals with the pain in the only way she knows how: with a determined glare and an audible snarl. She stares at him for a silent moment that stretches uncomfortably long. Her pain is naked for him to ogle at if he can bear to look at her. “Is that what you think happened?” she says bitterly. She shakes her head, looks away, looks back at him, snorts derisively, looks away again, back at him, not knowing where to start or if he’ll even listen. Her eyes feel moist and she looks up at the ceiling to send the moisture back from whence it came. “If I wanted you dead, you would have been dead twice over by now.” The veiled threat rallies her back to her senses, and puts her in the more comfortable seat of anger. It’s a throne she understands. “You think I failed to kill you?” she hisses incredulously, sending her glare right at him. “We were in my temple! I was at the height of my power and I could have DES-TROOOY-ED you if I wanted to. I was trying to exorcise you!” She begins to shake with a rage of her own. “You almost killed me!” She pauses, staring at him in disbelief, trying to calm herself but my god, my god, how dare he. “You almost killed me!” she repeats in stunned disbelief. “Because I let you, because I was trying to help you and would not harm you. And you doubt me now! You almost killed me!” It bears repeating, over and over. “And I’m here anyway. For you. And you’re crying over a f***ing house. You. You almost killed me, Lan. Would you have preferred the f***ing house?”

Lanlan got what he wanted. She was hurt. But there was no satisfaction in seeing her eyes sparkle, no sense of achievement. Only guilt. Why? Why couldn't he see her for the monster he knew she was? She was monstrous to him! He looks at her. Stares at her. He can because he's right and she'll do something to prove it and he'll notice as long as he doesn't blink. "Yes," he says bending forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "That's what happened. He nods dramatically. Up, down. Up, down. Up, down. With the full range of motion his neck provides. "HAHAHA! Kill me then!" He shouts over her. "Kill me, then walk back home," he says imitating her walking with two fingers, "get your husband!" He takes a breath. "Get your husband! To bring me back to life, and kill me again. My life is the only thing you haven't taken from me." Then he closes his eyes, daring her to do it. But it doesn't go as planned. Every time she repeats it, that he almost killed her, he hears her pain. Feels it. But it gets worse. Burgeoning memories flash vividly behind his eyes. Ones he can't put down. The rocks he tried to crush her with, her cracking bones. The fires he scorched her with and the smell of burning flesh. Her burning flesh. A hundred glowing needles scattering her blood on the walls, the floor, on him. "No I wouldn't have killed you. I would never kill you and you know that." He opened his eyes and peeked at her for a moment. He couldn't bear those memories, he needed to see her whole. But he can't bear to look at her either, now. "This is all..." He regretted this. Was he wrong? No. He stares at the wall instead. "You know I never would've killed you. Even if you were trying to kill me! And...you were. You hurt me too! Why are you even here? You don't love people," he says, standing and doing a dramatic twirl on tired legs, "who sleep in janitor's closets."

Gevurah cuts in often as Lanlan speaks. Her rage matches his, but she’s determined to cut deeper. When he mentions Daath she screams over him, stressing the word ‘husband’ with intent to wound, “My *husband* wanted to kill you for what you did to me! I stopped him to spare your life! You should be thanking me.” Then Lanlan insists he never would have killed her and she shouts back, “Oh you would if you could! I can see now how naked your ambition is! How naked your ambition has always been!” And then he gestures at the tiny room and with a predatory, monstrous instinct she sees her opportunity, “You’re delusional if you think I ever saw you as an equal, if you think this,” she gestures between them, “happened because you slithered your way into a throne I gave to you. You did nothing to win that house. I gave it to you the day I killed Laezila. Without me you never would have gotten it. And you failed to keep it. You failed. Not me.”

Lanlan claps his hands vigorously and wipes a fake tear. "You're so right! I should- wait." He slowly, painfully drops to his knees and presses his hands together, wringing them before her. "I should thank you. Thank you SO much. Thank you! It feels so good to say it! Thank you for all of this!" Then he scoffs, at this point he's invincible. He has nothing, he wants nothing, everything he thought he wanted before doesn't matter. Because he's right! That's what matters. "Have all the husbands you want! Have an army of husbands -thinking- they can kill me. You know how many people have wanted me dead? A lot. None have succeeded. None will." He presses his hand into the cot to help him up, but it's hard, and she's distracting. "No we're not equals. I'm an ant. And you're an ant queen! Who married a dung beetle because he's 'strong'. Who cares if he smells like sh*t? And...! What?" Suddenly his armor shatters. "That's not true, I was..." The best person for the job? He can't even say it. The game's over. He's lost. He can feel it, she can see it. Her other attacks hit him like they were just waiting for this. He heaves himself off his knees and back onto his cot. "You're right. I don't know why this happened."

Gevurah instantly regrets ripping the head off her prey. She would if she could take back those obliterating words. Her anger burns all the kindness out of her voice. She wants to say ‘I didn’t mean that,’ but of course she did, and besides, she isn’t accustomed to retreat. She wants to explain what she means, but what use would that make? In Trist’oth the rules are clear. Come for the Queen, don’t miss. No one cares if you were possessed. No one cares about any context. An attack is an attack, and a failed attempt begets a response. Lanlan knows that. What he forgets in his journey to self victimization is that D’Artes had to retaliate. To not have retaliated would have been seen as weakness. She wants to say this too, but the words get stuck in her quicksand throat, the quick-grief throat that knots and hurts, the throat that knows before the mind does that this may be over. They’re over, it’s done. The realization fractures her heart and for the first time in a decade Gevurah sobs. She presses her knuckles to her mouth to stifle a second one, but she can’t plug up the whole dam. Her nose stuffs up, her eyes water, and suddenly she flees. She’s out the door as fast as when she came in, but this time compelled by an entirely different emotion.

Lanlan winces as he lies on his side, using his arm as a pillow and facing the wall. He takes a deep sigh and waits for her to continue, ready for whatever other stinging words she might have ready for him. It's fine. Now he knows what he is, what she thinks he is. No more surprises. But she doesn't. "Anything else you wanted to say?" He asks without moving. But her response is so strange, a noise so unlike anything he'd ever heard before, that he has to turn and look. It's too late! She's gone. She's gone.