RP:Death of a Vampire, Birth of a Queen

Part of the Rest in Pieces: Vailkrin! Arc

Part of the Agitation Arc

Summary: Trajek brings tribute to Larewen in House Dragana and the necromancer reminds him of his place beneath her. Frustrated with the elf's weaknesses, Trajek crushes her heart and imbues it with the darkness of the Shade, thus completing the breaking of her mind to the Shade's will. Larewen names Trajek as her King in their future endeavors to take Vailkrin.

House Dragana

Larewen is upstairs for once, seated in an armchair near the hearth in her room. A simple, worn gown adorns her frame, its tattered cloth further soiled by the constant oozing of the whole within her chest and gut. A glass of wine is held in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The necromancer is deep in thought, pondering things while staring vacantly at the empty bed. Emrith has not returned and she hasn't heard word from him in nearly a month. While she suffers, while her mind unravels, her lover is anywhere but where she needs him and the darkness... gods, the darkness is calling.

The Ghoul's arrival was heralded by an unearthly commotion. There were thuds, screams, gurgles. There were sounds of battle, sounds of struggle, and, ultimately, the unmistakable serenade of submission. His steps up the stairs was the unconquerable tempo, an unending march that, despite what sounds were heard, never slowed, never dimmed, and never ended. The reason for all the commotion was plain once he had thrown open the door to the library; the ghoul had caught or bought twins. Young, fair, and fearful elven maidens, their beauty diminished by the bruises on their faces and the gouged throat, wrists, and ankles from hard tugged chains. He pulled them as he walked to the hearth like the cattle they were in his eyes; he nearly pulled them into the hearth, so hard did he heel them to Larewen's armchair. "Trib...ute..."

Larewen draws a mouthful of carmine fluid from the bowl of the glass in her hand. She is so completely caught up in the thoughts that plague her mind, in that weakness that tugs her toward the light, that she is surprisingly unaware of the cacaphony that ascends the staircase. It isn't until her door is pushed open and the clink of chains precede Trajek's words that her mismatched gaze turns toward the ghoul. Her lip curls into a scowl and... is that a hint of hurt in those mismatched eyes? "Take your tribute and leave, ghoul," she hisses coolly. "I have no patience for your antics today."

Trajek bent low near Larewen's armchair and lashed the lead of the two slaves to a leg of her chair. He did not care that she scowled, nor did he have the wherewithal to see that there were hurt in her gaze. He had spent the better part of the morning hunting down a pair of elf maidens who were sisters for Larewen's sadistic pleasure, and he would be damned...again...if he did not stay to see her enjoy the tribute her trembling plaudits. The chair across from her groaned under the ghoul's weight, and it nearly drowned out the airless voice of his unsinched throat. "Eat."

Larewen doesn't even spare the slave chained to her chair a periphery glance as Trajek invites himself to be seated. "Whatever game you were playing at yesterday, you may drop. If you wish to keep her around as a toy, then I will find use for her, but do not continue to try my patience," she says, her lips pressing into a severe line. The emerald of her new left eye suits the envy that greens her voice. It is jealousy that sparks her animosity toward Talene and that fact becomes clear with her words. "What you do with her is your business; if you wish, placing her as head of House Nasar will be beneficial. That is the deal she has made with Langley."

Trajek let closed his empty socketed eyes; he rested, or so it seemed. Or perhaps it was the sheer stubbornness of whom he had bound himself. Exasperation, deep, undead exasperation, had the shreds of his throat rippling with an unneeded breath. "You. Are. Queenmaker. Not. Lang...ley." He both preened her ego and chided her, both complimented her station and backhanded her with its implication. "You. Give. Power. Or. You. Hold. No. Power." The Death Knight looked over to the pair of slaves chained to Larewen's chair, and for a moment one of his hungers was presented; he needed to watch Larewen feed, to exert her power over the lesser. "Enemies. Made. Allies. House Nasar. House Dragana. Queen...and Queen Consort."

Larewen deprives Trajek of that need by ignoring the two slaves that flank her. "I am aware of this, ghoul," she replies. A puff of her cigarette is taken before she rolls her neck, loosing the stiffened vertebrae of her spinal column. "If you insist on a union between myself and the Nasar sireling, then I will kill her. Publicly." If only to spite him, if only to make his job more difficult. It is petty at best. "I will be Queen, with no King or Consort unless I deign it so." The elf rises to her feet and approaches the seated death knight, dual-colored eyes staring down at him. Anger, hatred, jealousy, they all burn furiously within the depths of those optics. "You do not control me."

Trajek looked up at Larewen when she took her rightful place before him. She was a Queen. She was a powerful necromancer. She was ranks upon ranks, strengths upon strengths, powers upon powers above the Death Knight she had raised. He even lowered his eyes in some sort of deference, out of some sense of respect for her station. He prostrated himself as much as he could from a seated position until his hand twitched, until his hand shot up from the armchair's rest. Fingers, adept at gripping throats, reached for her own, his strength used more to propel her across the room than to close an airway she had no use for. Unless stopped, unless compelled by martial or magical force, her heels would've been torn by splinters from the floorboard, but not as lacerated as her back as it was ground into the side of the stone hearth. "I. Am. Your. -Hand-." And this was what a hand could do.

The ghoul's movement isn't expected and as his hand encloses her throat, she hardly has a moment to blink before her back is slammed against the stone of the fireplace. A grunt bubbles forth from her throat and the sudden use of force exerted on her irritates the unhealing wounds within her body. Blackened ichor darkens her breast and belly as those mismatched eyes remain fixed on Trajek. His force, his willingness to dominate her at moments of weakness only fuel that deeply ingrained lust for the ghoul. She makes no attempt to free herself from his grasp, even as thoughts of Emrith press at the back of her mind. Her lip curls into a cold sneer. "Then be my Hand and not my Father, ghoul. You do not dictate my actions; you will never dictate my actions.

Trajek growled a deep, low growl when he felt her grunt slither through his grip. Her words made him grip her throat even harder. He did not need to dictate her actions if her actions were sensible, logical, and above all rational. Long has she waffled between the Princess and the pauper, a player and a pawn. She -oscillated- between power and pwerlessness, between strength and weakness. Trajek knew what ruled the empty space where her soul should be, and with her in his grasp right now, all he need do is take it... The wound in her gut, that ever suppurating, ever open wound. He thrust his free hand within it, those skeletal digits pushing through necrotic vessels and past fetid organs. It drove up within her--- -beneath- her chest, the hand searching for that hated organ that symbolized the gulf between their plans failing and an unholy, undead empire. "Tell. Me. Why. I. Should. Not. Rip. It. Out." The last word was drawn out as meaning devolved into a snarl.

Larewen cannot close her mouth against the cry that tears itself free of her throat. The act of Trajek shoving his arm upward through her body is pure agony and then... and then she feels his hand curl around her unbeating heart and her lip quivers. Blood bubbles from her mouth, blackening her chin as the elf's features twist. Fear loosens the glower that has twisted her face, for her immortality is at stake and... Emrith. Again, he surfaces within her mind. Perhaps death is better. It will release her from this madness and Emrith from his obligations to her. Lips glistening with ichor tremble as she says, no nearly pleads in that moment of weakness, "Do it." Even as this desire to give up caresses her mind, the curse comes to life: verdant flames begin to lighten the scars upon her body.

Trajek let a grin slip past his fury. He could have forced the change upon her, and much like a strong willed person who is changed, Larewen would've fought tooth, nail, broken bone, and broken mind against to what, or to whom, she was lashed. But if she went willingly. If she gave in...The change, the shift in form and thought, could take her fully with more ease. He wrapped her unbeating heart within his fist, and he gave it one mighty squeeze. He held her immortality within that hand, and he toyed with her undeath with a hard clinch. Energies of a kind to her own undeath surge through his arm. Energies of a kind she was familiar with forced themselves through undead, atrophied muscle. Energies given to Trajek by the shade to dispense, given to Larewen to bolster her station and make allies for the Nightmare's plans, pooled ever so slowly in the vampire's heart. And when he released the grip, when the undead heart's contraction was released, a great force would be felt as though an immense power kicked her square in the chest. For the first time since her siring, the heart pumped a second, a third, a fourth time. It picked up in speed and in pressure, the imbued organ pushing more and more of the Shade's power through veins, into organs, and saturating muscles. "Be. Free."

Larewen feels his grip tighten on the motionless organ and in those final moments before he crushes it, there is a bittersweet feeling of relief. Freedom will finally be hers... Any cry of pain is stifled by the cessation of her own undeath for that brief moment and then... no. The Shade's magic curls into the organ and with those beats of unlife, agony purges her body of the last remnants, the last echoes of the woman that the elf once was. Through those unhealing wounds inflicted upon her by the baslisk blade, the Shade's magic expels the necromancer's own being, her own humanity as he reforges her to what Trajek has already seen in her: a heartless, unstoppable Queen to serve His will. A woman with unlimited potential, a woman that can help further His Will. With every thu-thump of that dead heart, the Shade's power floods through Larewen, inviting the darkness she has struggled with for so long to finally take helm. As it should be. Her lips tremble, still coated in that slick, putrid ichor. Their corners twist upward and she lifts a scarred hand, curling her fingertips beneath his chin. "My King." The two words are not an offer, not a request, of the ghoul. It is a demand, it is a certainty, a definite. No proposal, no request: simple fact.

Trajek pulled his hand out of Larewen's gut, and what damage it had done was sealed behind it. But the major wound, the one that first bound her to him, that had brought the hundreds of geometric runes carved into her flesh that blazed hot and bright, that was kept in its former place. Much like the broken, shredded, eviscerated throat, they would both bear their wounds. But, as the Ghoul processed those words, as the full weight of that -fact- bored into his mind, Trajek let his hand fall from her throat to chill the wounded flesh above her freshly beating heart. "My. Queen." They would bear their wounds and the success or failure of their actions together.