RP:Dancing in the Moonlight
Part of the The God of Undeath Arc
Summary: Knowing that the gem Alithyk Caluss gave to her allows it to see the world through her eyes, Quintessa continues to find methods to communicate that don’t involve her physical body. Seeking out Karasu through the dream realm, Quintessa dives into her lover's subconscious thoughts, wading through her inner turmoil so they can be reunited at last. Though their meeting is short and sweet, they are able to give advice to one another on how to best proceed before they have to part once more.
Dormitory
How bland, you think to yourself as you take in your surroundings. All around you are small cots, with cheap blankets and white sheets. They are all well cleaned though, and the cots look comfortable despite their size. At the base of each cot is a small trunk for each person to store their things in, and at the side of the bed is a small table with a candle and some individual items for each person. There are many windows, all with thin blue curtains that blow gently in the breeze through open windows. All this makes it seem as if they don't spend very much time in here. To the east is a door leading to the mage tower, and to the south is a small door heading towards the library.
Another sleepless night passes in Xalious. The tang of charcoal from the burnt and restored Xalious Tree still lingers in the air despite all the dried herbs hanging from the Mage’s Tower’s windows. Karasu should have left for Frostmaw yesterday, but the news of what happened at the tree had left her paralyzed as she tried to understand what was happening. As the first rays of light creep over the eastern mountains, the spellblade lays sprawled over two cots usually reserved for travelers and guests. She could not bring herself to look at her and Quintessa’s bed in Vailkrin, or be in her own office knowing that the denizen that was supposed to be just mere meters away in the next office might next return. Still dressed in her traveling clothes, dark circles encompass Karasu’s rhodolite eyes. Her complexion is paler than it should be, which would be understandable given that she has not eaten in two days. A teacup falls out of Karasu’s outstretched hand, and clatters loudly onto the wooden floors, but the demifeline does not react. The scent of nightshade and catswort wafts up from the last dredges of liquid that seep into the floorboards. Karasu needed to sleep, even if drugging herself was the only option. Slowly, her eyelids drift closed, just as the sight of someone crosses her periphery. “Give her back…” Karasu murmurs as her consciousness fades, though to anyone who was looking down at her, it may have sounded more like a single garbled word. Before she knows it, a hand grips her own tightly, another turning her head sharply to face forward. “Don’t you dare look away.” Kaaname orders her. Fear and disgust wash over Karasu’s mind as she’s forced to open her eyes in her dreams. She and her father stand at the front of a crowd that has gathered; the others cheer raucously as the two men at the circle of the makeshift ring cross swords. Though their faces are obscured, the true wish to do each other permanent harm is evident in the way that their weapons aim for their torsos.
In the endless darkness that was the gaps between dreams Quintessa floated like a ship lost at sea. Her mind parted from her exhausted body, finally allowed to rest after her most recent additions to Caluss’ undead army and she would not waste this opportunity to try and contact an ally. The changeling desperately reached for something- a tug of someone’s dream to show her where she needed to be. Without the proper powers she could only blindly wander the dreamscape until a light shone in the night, a beacon leading her the way she needed to go. Tonight it was the voice of Karasu’s father, Kaaname that pulled her like a vacuum into her beloved’s dream, shunting her directly into the crowded space of the faceless strangers that gathered. In their eagerness the crowd pushes and shoves at each other, keeping Quintessa from getting to the front of the group and knocking her to the ground. Even though the warlock couldn’t see for herself she could still surmise what was going on. Getting to her feet, Quintessa presses against the backs of the crowd and stands on her tiptoes, trying to see over them. She needed to get her attention somehow but- “Karasuuuu~!” her voice barely cuts through the fog of the demi-feline’s dream, and the crowd still blocked her from view. She'll have to find a way through or wait until the dream progresses to fulfill her mission.
The deafening shouts and goading of the onlookers culminates as the sword is knocked from one man’s hand. Those who must be friends of the assailant jeer at the defenseless man as they rush in to steal the sword away. Before the man can turn around, the sword is thrust through his heart and withdrawn just as quickly. “Daddy!” Karasu squeaks, gripping Kaaname’s hands with both of her own. The woman has transformed into a child, looking on with horror as the man collapses to the ground. “-This- is what you will have to face now that you have to take up the sword.” Kaaname says cooly, not taking his eyes off of the scene either. The victor of the death duel looms over the dying man and steps on his skull, once, twice, three times, as everyone cheers and those who gambled exchange coins and start to depart. If Quintessa tries to interfere now, the small girl does not hear her. “I don’t want to fight.” Karasu whimpers, tears streaming down her face. Tightening his grip on her hand, Kaaname snaps, “You’re already seven, and you’re so weak that you can’t even cast anything more than a cantrip without tiring yourself out. You’re going to start taking up the sword tomorrow to supplement your learning. Now.” He releases her hand. “Do what that man did.” Karasu is openly sobbing now, shaking her head and looking away, alternating between begging for forgiveness and reminding Kaaname that she loves him. Though Karasu cannot see it from her angle, Kaaname raises a hand over the child, flexing his hands as though he were practicing puppetry. Karasu’s legs move without her consent, towards the bloodied remains of the man that had just been fighting seconds before. Even though she doesn’t want to hurt the man any further, Karasu lifts her tiny foot, and shuts her eyes as she brings it down on a chunk of skull. Opening her eyes, the terrain has changed to wood, and what’s under her much larger foot is the remains of a tea saucer. Looking back up, the scene has shifted to the infirmary of the Mage’s Tower, where Kanna is helping Leralynn stand upright. “Does that make you feel strong?” Leralynn snaps, glowering down at Karasu. Whether it was the candlelight or the distortion of Karasu’s perspective, the Orange Witch’s expression carries all the maturity that came with being a professional necromancer. “Then why didn’t you come and stop her yourself? I mean, you know everything, right?” Fire wells up in her chest as Karasu draws her dagger and steps forward. “You little bitch--!” Kanna releases Orange, forcing the necromancer to stumble back onto the bed, and grips the blade of Karasu’s dagger directly. Kanna’s expression bears a seriousness even Quintessa has yet to see in her time as Kanna’s mentor. “Do you think this is what Quintessa wants?” Karasu’s eyes widen in horror as fresh blood drips down Kanna’s forearm from where she has the blade gripped. Her eyes flicker to Orange, who is now breathing heavily and gripping at her stomach. “Let go, she has no right to talk to me that way!” Karasu orders. Kanna’s face betrays no indication of pain, though, as the human woman stares down at her half-feline counterpart. “Is this what Quintessa would want?” She asks again, louder. Karasu’s chest heaves and she finally lets go of the dagger and spins on her heel with a frustrated shout. The spellblade storms through the door, into the twin moonlit gardens of Vailkrin, at the edge of the forests, where she is completely and utterly alone. “How could you leave me?!” Karasu screams into the Dark Forest.
The stature of the crowd makes Quintessa feel small, and soon her form shrinks to resemble a child of approximately Karasu’s in this dream. Scrawny, with long, knotted black hair, Quintessa in her little urchin form could sneak through the legs of the onlookers like a forest of fleshy trees. Weaving through the aggressive crowd, avoiding being stomped or trampled, Quintessa finally makes her way to Kaaname and his daughter, who stand only a few meters away. The changeling watches on, helplessly until the crunch shifts the reality around them and shifts her back into an adult form. Again she finds herself unable to act during the confrontation between Orange, Kanna, and Karasu, only able to give chase when the spellblade storms off, trying to ignore the accusing glares coming from the two necromancers when she passes. The halls open up into a familiar place, the Dark Forest, her home, and she catches Karasu’s voice as it echoes through the shadowy trees. “I didn’t want to leave…” Quintessa says to her, standing just a few feet behind her, “But everything is at stake… This has to be done…”
Karasu spins to look at her fiance, her expression incredulous, heartbroken, and furious all at once. Not yet understanding that the woman she sees before her is not a figment of her mind, Karasu shouts, “You made another deal with that monster, I heard it!” The visage of what Karasu imagines Alithyk Caluss to look like appears in the distance, an undead fae with a proboscis instead of a tongue hanging from his mouth, and razor-sharp claws scratching away at rotting green wings. The mirage fades as quickly as it appeared as tears stream down Karasu’s face. “Why couldn’t we get stronger together, why do there always have to be shortcuts?!” The gravity of why Quintessa left also has yet to be made clear to the demifeline, it seems; between the trees, the faint visage of a younger Karasu and Quintessa in their apprentice robes is seen before they giggle and disappear behind a large oak.
Quintessa cannot deny the things she’s done. She doesn’t want to hide behind lies anymore, especially not with Karasu. Quintessa was guilty of a lot of things and she had to come clean about them. “Yes, I made a deal with Alithyk Caluss, long ago. I’ve been working at its behest as long as Kanna has been a ghoul.” There is pain in her mismatched eyes, but no hint of a deception. “It promised me the power to defeat Gevurah, which it granted, in exchange I had to curse the three holy trees- but Karasu, you must believe me, when I made this bargain I had no idea what that would mean… and when I failed, Caluss knew. It’s always known and was waiting…” Quintessa pauses to allow her words to set in, taking a long breath to steady her own nerves. “This time there was no bargain but I forced the trade anyway- Kanna for myself. Your sister had the key to breaking the curse in Cenril, she had to be rescued in time… It was a gamble but I had to do it.”
Karasu tilts her head as Quintessa explains herself. It was nothing like what she thought she would be hearing. The spellblade had naturally been devastated when her sister had been kidnapped by Alithyk Caluss, but this was the first she had ever heard of Kanna being connected to Cenril. “I don’t understand…” Karasu whispers as she stares up at Quintessa, her breathing becoming more even as she tries to make sense of what she is saying. “I’m dreaming.” The realization is instantaneous, and so is the change in Karasu’s appearance, as her clothes shift to match the gear she had changed into when preparing to depart for Frostmaw. Her expression softens as she lifts her hands to cup Quintessa’s face. “Are you really here?”
Quintessa crosses the space left between them, leaning into Karasu as she caresses her face, her own hands moving up as she gives into the urge to embrace her. “This is a dream,” the warlock confirms, looking down at her lover with a sense of longing that a simple dream could not satisfy. “But I am really here. This is the only place Caluss can’t watch me. This is the only way I can talk without it knowing I’m working against it. Everyone calls me ‘betrayer’ and after everything I’ve done I reckon they are right, but that means I’m the only one who can do this. I have to become the Betrayer one last time and double-cross the thing that started all of this… but it can’t find out. People have to believe I am what they say I am, Alithyk Caluss’ puppet. This way I can help lead it into a trap.”
Karasu breathes deeply. Even though she knew this was only a dream, she could still smell the mint-laden earth and cloves that Quintessa always carried on her. With a calculated exhale to ground herself in her lucid dream, Karasu looks up again to meet mismatched eyes. “Then, you need to find the dreams of the others who call you the betrayer so they can help, tell people like Khitti, Valrae, Kanna, instruct them. I wish I could help you, but I was built for brute force, not for necromancy.” Karasu moves her hands down to Quintessa’s hands, them gives them a gentle squeeze. “You don’t have to do this alone. Recruit who you can so you can come home soon.” Every time Karasu stops moving, she feels her mind sinking back into the realms of deep sleep. She can feel innately that she has to keep moving to keep herself grounded, and so Karasu side-steps around Quintessa as though they are practicing a slow dance. “Tell me what to do. Do I still assist the others in Frostmaw?”
Quintessa nods her head as Karasu lists off the names of those who she needed to speak with, those who felt most betrayed by her actions. “Yes, I will speak with them, but I had to find you first. I needed to speak to you so things would be right between us- so you would know the truth.” Quintessa gazes down at Karasu’s hands as they squeeze her own, a sentiment that the changeling returns, gripping back as they enter into an awkward waltz. “Go aid them in Frostmaw,” the warlock begins, “I have shielded you from Caluss’ wrath, instead focusing it on those that thwarted it directly the night I disappeared at the Xalious Tree. Khitti, Larelynn, Kanna, Valrae, Lanlan, Penelope, Kailani… these people are all in danger, and soon powerful undead assassins called Glooms will come looking for them. Protect our friends if you can and show no mercy to the Glooms. They are an evil mistake that I should have never created.”
One by one, Karasu repeats the names mentioned by Quintessa. Her mind conjures images of all of their comrades, their faint forms also slowly turning in a silent dance around the pair. If she were lucky, she would remember all of them. In the throes of the dream where she dances with her lover under the twin moons, Karasu is sure that she will. An unfamiliar voice interrupts their world, muffled as it clearly comes from the world outside. “Magister Karasu?” A young apprentice, not knowing any better, attempts to stir the spellblade from her drug-induced dreams. Karasu stops moving, and looks up at Quintessa. “Promise you’ll come see me again, please…” She pleads. “I don’t want to wake up.” Ironic, given that she did not want to sleep just yesterday.
Quintessa smiles as they continue to dance, their friends manifesting all around them as they continue to spin and spin. Only when the apprentice’s voice begins to crumble the fragile dreamscape they had created for themselves does the changeling begin to cry silent tears. She could not recall the last time they danced like this and she did not want it to end. Here, in this tiny world made for two, everything was perfect. “I promise,” she says against the strain of her tears, “I’ll come see you again very soon. I love you Karasu, and I’ll cross any barrier that keeps us apart, I promise you that. Nothing can stand in my way, not even Caluss.”