RP:Her Majesty's Ruin

Part of the Rest in Pieces: Vailkrin! Arc

Part of the Agitation Arc

Summary: Pilar, while fleeing Vailkrin, runs into Emrith and tells him what she saw at House Dragana. Emrith, convinced that Larewen is too far gone to be saved, decides to end her. Tearfully, Pilar lets him borrow her magic-sapping dagger for the deed.

Overlooking Gorge

Pilar was running as fast as she could away from Vailkrin. The things she'd just seen and heard had horrified her to no end. Tears streamed down her face as she fled. She wanted to get help, but she wasn't even sure if it would make a difference. Larewen might have been too far gone.

Emrith is sitting on the edge of the chasm near the bridge's west end, feet dangling out into space, staring down into the flickering fire far below. Of late, this peculiar vista, low and furious and scarlet, seems to be the only thing which can bring sense to his troubled mind. Weeks have passed, weeks in which Emrith has wandered, nearly insensate, in the deserts to the south, not knowing where he was, much less who. Now, at last, there is something like awareness. The ring on his finger throbs gently in counterpoint to the furnace-light in the bottom of the great divide, making its presence known. No shadows though. No spiders. Where they might currently be roosting is anybody's guess, but for now, Emrith is free of them. Sitting here, trembling slightly, is a spell-blade shorn free of purpose, cut loose from most of what he has known. And in this brief caesura between waves of confusion, a figure comes running. Her grief is evident by sound and by smell, gasps and sobs and the faintest tang of salty tears on the sulphurous wind. Emrith's green eyes flick upward, and recognition fills his angular face. "Pilar?" he asks, lunging to his feet. His balance, sure as ever, saves him from tipping forward into the abyss as the ground rocks and creaks its protest. The vampiric elf steps back from the brink, turns to face the running woman, spreads his arms. "Stop." he calls, voice ringing with an authority he has not felt in months. "Stop. What is wrong?"

Pilar nearly barreled straight into Emrith. As it was, she barely stumbled to the stop before him. She stared into his face, her own twisted with pain. “E-Emrith...” She broke down into sobs completely. “It's, it's terrible. Larewen... Larewen...” She took a shaky breath, trying to calm herself. She had to get it out, had to tell someone. Anyone. “She... she ki-ki-killed two wom-m-men... Bu-butchered them, just because she-she-she was h-hungry... Sai-sai-said they were g-gifts fr-from her hu-hu-husband... Said it was mercy!” Pilar covered her face, trembling with emotion. “Sh-she's a m-m-monster!”

Something dies in Emrith's eyes. It happens abruptly, a light and hope there going out all at once. There is no pause to wonder if Pilar is lying to him, as she once betrayed his trust in the past. There is no consideration, despite the spell-blade's absence of late. Before this brittle but absolute truth, no love dares stand. Emrith takes a shuffling step forward, awkwardly attempting to fold Pilar into a hug. "Shhh," he murmurs. "A breath, Pilar. A deep breath." His voice has the calm of winter ice on a pond where all previous life has long since frozen to death. "Larewen has fallen, and I am sorry that you saw what you saw." In a slightly lower voice, he adds, "It was really just a matter of time...but hearts can be foolish, aye." He attempts to soothe the vampire as best he can. Within him, there is stillness. Later, there will be time enough for hurt, time enough for anger, time enough for vengeance. For now, there is only a sort of click, as of a lock upon a heavy door turning for the last time, leaving a sleeping, maddened thing to rot in some internal prison. It will wake and shriek in its time, but for now, it slumbers on as the walls of its metaphoric cell ease silently toward one another. "Is there more I should know?" Emrith has to work to inject some modicum of warmth into his words, but he manages it. "Is there anything I can do for you? I will help if I may, Pilar. None should have to see that, know that, of a person."

Pilar allowed Emrith to embrace her as she sobbed. Her own heart was broken. She loved Larewen so much, and to see what she had become hurt her more than words could say. It took several moments for Pilar to calm herself enough to speak again. She sniffled and hiccuped before she said, “She has a... a big, big injury... a hole, in her body... It, it reeks of... of... evil.” She turned her eyes up to Emrith's face again. “I... I... I don't know what to do... I want to save her but I... I... I don't know if I can... if anyone can...”

Emrith takes a hesitant step back, lowering his arms and releasing the embrace; he moves without hurry, to indicate to Pilar without words that the end of their physical closeness is not a matter of fault, but merely of preference on his part. That interior coldness demands at least a little space. "My money is on Trajek," Emrith murmurs, then runs a hand back through his blond hair. "That creature she raised will be her complete undoing, I think." He speaks quietly still, as if musing on something not altogether interesting. "Pilar, I must tell you something. Love or not, desire or not, there are some creatures that go past salvation. There are some choices too dark to tolerate. Larewen seeks power, and always has, from all accounts. She cannot claim ignorance when she purports to know the intricacies of her craft, and its risks. She does not deserve clemency, no matter how much we may have loved her, and may love her still. The best thing for her is a quick death. An end to the misery that can be wrought upon her, and a termination to whatever devilry she may be up to. I won't enjoy it, for I am not so black as that. But I will do it, and in my darkest heart I will know that it was right. I made her a promise once." He sighs, shrugs his shoulders. "I promised her that straying too far, for any reason, would cause me to react. It would appear that she has done so. And I must thank you for telling me. Had I not been warned, I might have come to her in ignorance and been made another victim thereby. You have done a great thing, despite the apparent coincidence of timing. Think no more on saving her, I beg. Think upon delivering her from evil. That is the greatest mercy love can grant now."

Pilar started to sob in earnest once again. She knew he was right, she knew it, but that only made it hurt more. Slowly, she unhooked the sheath from her belt and held it out to him. The sheath was of black and dark green leather, and the hilt of the blade was wrapped in black leather as well. It was over a foot long, and slightly curved. “This... This is...” She sniffed. “This dagger steals the magic from whatever the blade touches. It... it might help you to... to...” She sobbed. “Just... make it as painless as possible...”

"I have no desire to hurt her." Emrith reaches out his left hand, palm-up, to receive the dagger. Nothing of his lie is on his face or in his eyes. "It will be done because it must be. Too much is at stake. I will weep for her, Pilar. I will, despite the glacial calm you may sense. But the time for action comes first. Tears follow." He closes his fingers gently over Pilar's knife, feeling at once the tingle of its enchantment. "In time, we will gloss over this darkness with remembrances sweeter and more hopeful. We will not burn her effigy or taint those good things of which she was a part. We will do what we always do with the dead, I think. In time, she will not be what she truly was...but her reign will end, and with it, her ability to make the world a more evil place. If she is not strong enough to free herself, then we must do it for her." He reaches out his other hand, gently grasping Pilar's wrist. "I'm not a killer," he adds. "That is not how I would have you define me. Just as you are not a killer. Think, if you can, as if this is a form of healing. The removal of rot, even though there might be parts within the blight still whole."

Pilar released the knife and her hands dropped to her sides. “I... I need to go home, now. I'd... I'd like the knife back once you've... It was a gift.” Pilar wiped her eyes. “I live in Chartsend. 44 Bluebell Street. I'll... I'll be waiting.”

"You will get it back. That I promise you." Buried in that promise, of course, is the absolute certainty that, come what may, Emrith will succeed in his errand. "Pour yourself a drink, Pilar, or seek out company that is less onerous and more comforting. Do whatever it is you do when you hurt. Home should be a bastion against the cruelties of the world; treat yours as such. If there is anything else I can do, anything I can bring you so that you need not venture out of doors for awhile, you have but to ask it. We are united in this, you know." He smiles then, and it is a surprisingly warm expression that reaches his green eyes. "One of these days, we are going to spend time in one another's company without storms on the horizon. Another promise."

Pilar nodded. “Th-thank you... I... I think I just need to rest.” And cuddle her pets. And her Ibbles.