RP:Gevurah Gets the Cold Shoulder

From HollowWiki

Part of the A Line Drawn in the Sand Arc


Summary: Having snatched Emilia from Mcracken's tentacles, Gevurah brings the genasi home for a chat. The cryomancer enjoys a luxurious prison (magically warded against spell casting) reserved for high profile prisoners. The drow tries to strike a deal: a magical stone in exchange for freedom. The ice genasi refuses and Gevurah leaves frustrated.

House D'Artes

Gevurah snarled against the pain as Mcracken’s parting shot lodged in her brain and screamed at the wrong side of both ears. The lizard kept running. Halfway to the entrance to the underdark, the drow realized she didn’t have a plan. She had seen Emilia and knew her value immediately, but not how to make use of it, like a thief discovering unicorn horn. Now what? Alithyk Caluss had the noble scared, and she’d been scrambling for power, leverage, a plan--anything--ever since. On the ride back to Trist’oth, with the unconscious cyromancer wrapped in a piwafwi and held across Gevurah’s lap, the drow began to plot. The plots formed like a spider web, threads connecting to other threads, forking at knots. If Emilia does this, then do that, says this then say that. At the D’Artes estate, the drow forewent the dungeon and delivered Emilia personally to a small, magically enchanted guest room specifically designed to keep high profile ‘guests’ trapped--but in comfort. During the ride to Trist’oth, Gevurah’s death magic sought to suppress any urge in the genasi to return to consciousness. In the room, once Emilia has been deposited on the bed (not delicately or harshly, but a perfunctory delivery of a living being as though it were a thing incapable of eliciting emotions, positive or negative), Gevurah freed the pale woman from her spell and let her woman come-to on her own. The drow stood watch.


Emilia slept in an oddly peaceful forced slumber on her journey to below ground, again. This was sadly not the first time the Genasi had been brought against her will beneath the surface and into Trist’oth. Like a doll made from rags the ice-woman landed on the bed, sprawled out like a dropped plate of spaghetti on the floor. Silence as time lapsed while the spell wore off. In a state of half-here and half-not-here Em fought off the urge to remain sleeping of sorts. First, faint movements of the fingers. Second, slow opening and closing of the eyes. Third, a rush of adrenalin once those pale blue eyes focused on the drow standing watch. Slugging movements in an attempt of moving faster than her limbs woke caused the ice-lady to knock herself off the bed onto the floor on the far side from Gev. A small thud of a thump as she landed. It was within a minute that the drow could watch as the top of the head of the woman rose up until just her eyes and nose were peering over the piece of furniture at the dark skinned woman. Wide eyed she stared not sure yet if this was a dream or really happening. A pinch to her arm with no waking changes, this was real. “What do you want?” a single question from her ‘safe’ spot mostly hidden by the bed from the drow.


Gevurah did not answer Emilia right away. While Gevurah has had plenty of opportunity to study and practice surfacer customs before, she’s lacked the opportunity to practice how to play a sly, manipulative game with a surfacer. The drow are rarely subtle, and subtlety is usually reserved for other nobles who understand the rules of that particular chess game. What does Emilia understand? “Information,” she said after several seconds had passed. “Are you thirsty.” She spoke the question like a statement. “Water, wine, tea.”


Emilia raised a brow with the answer that she was given by the other. ‘Information?’ she wasn’t a knowledgeable source; had this woman bonked her head and woke up on the wrong side of the bed? Staring intently at the other she finally answered the statement question, “Iced wine...hold the poison.” Bad history with these underground dwellers didn’t give her much faith in the drow or her true intentions regarding why she was in this oddly not dungeon room.


Gevurah shrugged at Emilia’s sarcastic comment about poison. “I don’t want to kill you.” The drow wasn’t lying--this time. She crossed to the door and whispered some words in drow to a servant hidden in the shadows there. “We don’t keep ice.” Bit of a hassle to maintain in the underdark. “You can ice it yourself, I presume.” If Emilia meant ice wine, as in the sweet dessert wine, well Gevurah wasn’t aware of that surfacer drink. “I saw you talking to that tentacled creature in the sea. What did it want.” The servant returns with red wine, which is never very good when chilled, but the drow don’t drink white wine--at least not customarily.


Emilia was almost pleased to hear that she wasn’t wanted dead, this time. That was a good sign, hopefully. “No ice?” she repeated like the woman spoke in a different tongue at her. Ice was life, for her anyways. With the return of the servant, strange she didn’t see one before, the Genasi would hesitantly take it when it was offered her way, but not drink from it. A look as if a light turned on inside her head, “You must be that...person with the God of some-such or other that is causing the curse on the shores of Cenril. I’m not telling you anything.”


Gevurah splays her hands before in self presentation, a non-verbal ‘it’s me’. “Yes, that is no secret. It is my castle now. I am protecting it with my god, Vakmatharas, God of Death over us all, yourself included, as well as that creature. Why were you building the ice wall. Why was that creature there.” There are two glasses of wine and Gevurah takes one for herself. Emilia’s glass is not poisoned, but the drow doesn’t push the point.


Emilia held the glass, waiting for it to frost over under the contact with her hand. It wasn’t easy being made of ice living in a world meant for warm drinks and cooked food. It wasn’t until the glass was well frosted and the liquid inside clearly well chilled that she lifted the glass to those light blue lips and took a small sip. Lowering the glass as she rose up finally from behind the side of the bed speaking as she rose, “What I was doing with making a wall of ice and why he was present doesn’t really seem to me that you are privileged to know.”


Gevurah grinned darkly at Emilia’s tart reply. “It is my castle, and you built a wall around it.” As she spoke she moved to a chair near the door and dropped lazily into it. “And yet you say I am not privileged to know.” She scoff-laughed at that. Clearly this would be a long interrogation, made longer by the fact that Gevurah’s considered the benefits of beating the answers out of Emilia, and deemed them insufficient when compared to the costs. Having a powerful husband proved to be the best defense for the cryomancer. “Forget the creature for now. Why did you build the wall. What reason did *you* have.”


Emilia seated herself on the bed after finding that standing didn’t do much for an intimidating factor. The woman was hardly five feet including the mass of curls with a weight that didn’t even reach near one-hundred pounds making her not much of a threat judging by appearance alone. Crossing one leg over the other, polite lady like, the woman sipped at the wine once more. “See. I find that if you want to lay claim to a castle, fine, but that doesn’t make you the owner of the wharf running along the shore beyond the building and it most surely does not make you the owner of the shore and the ocean. Thus, you are not entitled to knowing the purpose of my wall of ice near to ‘your’ castle,” the word your spoken with a gesture to note she wasn’t believing of her ownership of the building. Another sip of the chilled wine, near tasteless to her frozen taste-buds. “You do realize that I could freeze you into a statue and then place you as a decoration on the ice wall?” she tossed out, an attempt at a threat back at the dark skinned woman.


Gevurah pursed her lips at the threat. "Not in this room you cannot." She doesn't explain why, but this room has been enchanted to suppress magic casting as part of its defense mechanism against high target prisoners who often boast high powered magic to go with their ranks. "You want to go free, yes? I want information. The transaction is clear. I can give you some time alone to think about it."


Emilia could now confirm with herself that if she wasn't held down in chains or in a cell and that she wouldn't be in touch with her full powers that the room held a magical containment. Listening, but the look on her face read clear that she didn't buy the words of the drow. "Do you think I am stupid? If you wanted me for information only you would not have wasted time in bringing me down below ground just to turn around and let me free if I answer you. Good deal of work on your part to bring me below and then turn around and return me to the surface. So, would you like to try again? What am I doing here? All of the reasons. Not just one excuse," Em stated plainly.


Gevurah inhaled, irritatedly and loudly, as she considered what to tell, if anything at all. There's always the option to lie, or to bend the truth. With no indication of what path she has chosen, Gevurah said, "I want that creature dead. You associated yourself with him, and thus you may or may not be my enemy too. I know who your husband is. I only want you dead if I absolutely must kill you. So tell me, what is your association with that creature?"


Emilia traced her finger idly around the rim of the glass she held in her hand while staring down at the liquid within. A trace of an amused smile lingering on frosted lips, yet she said nothing while she listened to the woman speak away throwing her husband into play, who didn't know who he was. Lifting her gaze to meet Gev's the frozen one spoke up with a strange grin tugging at one corner of her lips while the rest laid serious, "You see, this curse you put on the sea critters has crossed the line to infecting and killing land folk, which does not make me very happy. As a healer it falls in my job to assist those in need of anything that falls into my realm, including now making them comfortable while they die. Now. My association with the seaman is simple. Get him to solve his problem killing my land folk. And, as it were seems I have a wanted poster on my head by the fishy folk for raising their sunken ship temple and stealing something of theirs. So, really all you did was save me from serving time to the water folk in some underwater jail. But, hey. You want me dead. Go ahead kill me. See what wrath you bring to the entire land with that one," she ended with an amused tone as she held her hands out as if in a surrender, "Nothing is stopping you..." However, she still answered not to the earlier questioning about the ice wall.


Gevurah's expression remained cool throughout Emilia's antagonism. The D'Artes run hot on only a few issues, and Emilia had failed to provoke one of those few. By all appearances, the ice wall did not disturb Gevurah as much as she initially had suggested, for she did not return to that subject. "What did you steal from them?"


Emilia shifted her form, crossing her legs over one another like a pretzel and rested her glass on her knee. It was with the other hand, a hand that was a glossy black fading away into her pale white just above her wrist, she formed a first to indicate the size of what she spoke on next, "A stone about this big. Really. I just looted a sunken ship with a group of other people." A should shrug as she rested her dark hand on her knee. "Its rather chilly underground. Haven't you any guest clothes?" she questioned while tugging on the bikini she wore.


The drow could not quite make out the glossy, black hand in the dim light, and summoned yet more faerie fire to illuminate the peculiar extremity. Faerie fire is harmless to the touch. "I thought you enjoyed the cold," Gevurah murmured as she signalled to the servant in the shadows to fetch the 'guest' a robe. "Why is the stone valuable to them? Where is the stone now?"

Emilia gave a small chuckle, a sound like ice clinking against glass, "I cannot feel. Cold doesn't exisit to me. Heat does not exisit to me in the form of feelings.." she replied with another chuckle. She lost the nerves to feeling some year or so ago, extremes would bother her, but most other things she noticed not. However, sitting captive in a bikini is not flattering. Under the added light Gev would be better to see that hand was not dead, but indeed blackened and smooth appearing almost as if turned to polished black ice. "Now, lets see. The stone is not with me, hidden by a child who sees the dead. As it were I believe he said something about healing properties of this stone, but I remember not the full details. I was stolen away," a smirked reply.


Gevurah's fingers formed a teepee before her mouth as she recalibrated her interests and plans in light of this new information. "You wish to go free, correct? I want that stone." The fact that kraken wants it is enough motivation, but, in addition to that, the D'Artes noble was also a collector of peculiar and magical items. "Give me the stone and the seafolk may absolve you of any perceived crime you have committed against them and transfer that guilt onto me, which I am more than capable of refuting." She grinned at the thought, because her rebuttals are always violent. Exciting. "In addition, I will release you unharmed. I suggest you write a letter to this child and coordinate a drop-off location where I will retrieve the stone." Gevurah would of course be reading the letter before it is mailed by a courier she trusts from her own estate. "Once the stone is in my possession, you walk free."


Emilia raised a brow at the offer at hand from the one holding her captive. Give the stone to her? She already promised the return of it back to the seaman. Yet, this could let her walk free from being trapped underground, yet again. Tapping black finger tips on her knee she debated, "I can write a letter to this child all you like, but you will never get an answer back from them. A toddler cannot read and something tells me you don't want it being read by the wrong eyes pending on whom is present when said letter would arrive." Silence except the faint sound of those glossed tips drumming against the kneecap. It lingered for a time. "To that point you will never be openly granted permission to be within sight of the child. So, sorry. You will not be gaining anything," Em would never let her daughter make a deal with Gev and she could garentee that Xersom would not allow it either.


Gevurah growled low in the back of her throat. She was growing tired of this woman. "Whose permission do I need," she scoffed at the idea. "You are giving me problems, not solutions. Surely you know how to retrieve this stone from the child. Tell me how. I have no interest in harming the child, if that is your concern."


Emilia stared at the woman, "You want to reach the child then perhaps you should return her mother to her." The genasi turned so now her back was facing the other woman. With those curls tamed and a swim attire on those silver scars were almost glowing in the light, even dim. No speck of flesh unharmed on that back. Layer of scar on scar from old whip marks to burns to slashes to stab wounds. "That is all you are getting from me," she snapped folded arms over her chest.


Gevurah rolled her eyes as she stood. "Perhaps you should rest so that when you wake you may think more clearly. I will lay out the facts for you one more time. You have a stone that I wish to possess. The stone means nothing to you." The drow paused here to let this final fact sink in, then continued, "You protect it for a race that seeks to punish you for taking it. I propose you give it to me peacefully, and I will free you. Deny me this and I shall keep you imprisoned until I have it, by any means, including violent ones against your child." Fully aware that she just threatened a mother, and that this is a problem on the surface, the priestess lifted both palms in silencing matter. "I have no motive to harm you or your child unless you give me one. Think on this. I will visit again soon to hear you utter your better judgment." Gevurah left without awaiting a reply.


Emilia sat with an annoyed look present on her face at the threat from the woman that had just walked out of the room leaving her to be alone. Strange why so many wanted this damn stone, yet how could the dark skin woman not come to think that while the two sat here chatting Mcrackem had not already gotten ahead of Gev and was on his way to collect the stone himself.