RP:Journey To The Past

From HollowWiki

Part of the Hungry Like The Wolf Arc


Part of the Through The Looking-Glass: Return To Wonderland Arc


Summary: This "journey to the past" doesn't turn out as happy as Anastasia's unfortunately. Yay for married people arguments, I guess. RIP

Outside A Very Dead Dragon's Cave, Xalious Mountain Range

Khitti || Why are we doing this again? That’s all Khitti could think of as her and Brand left Cenril and headed to the Xalious mountain range. Right, yes. It’s because she’s a very nice person and loved her sister dearly and wanted to help her find the pieces of this amulet. What had not occurred to Khitti was that she’d have to revisit a place she’d ALREADY revisited once (and that time it had been her idea, unfortunately) because it made the most sense since there was know way to know where in the hell the amulet piece in Xalious even was. Sigh. She side-eyed Brand as they rode along, eventually asking “How are you?” His whole completely bouncing back thing after being in the Shadow Plane for that thing had been… a little concerning. They’d eventually make it to the spot where the Catalian dwarves had blown a hole in the wall of the mountain, which had unfortunately frozen up again.


Brand seemed totally fine. No! Really. He actually seemed completely and perfectly fine. And maybe he was? His answer to Khitti certainly didn’t betray any not-fineness. He shrugged in a Brand-ish way and gave a Brand-ish non-answer: “Are we making small-talk now? Is -that- what married talk is supposed to be like? Seems like a step backwards, to me.” Cue a rambling impression of a ‘proper gentleman’ engaging in ‘proper gentlemanly small-talk’ -- aside from the fact that he could not hide his smirk. “Yes, jolly good, thanks. I’m just enjoying the weather. It’s absolutely heavenly, don’t you think?”


Khitti smirked at Brand. “Don’t make me go against my vows and punch you. Cause I’ll do it.” She even went so far as to put up a threatening fist. “I’m just trying to get my mind off of… pretty much everything. That irrational fear of Raiez suddenly being alive again that I had a few years ago has made itself known again and is not mixing well with the rabid urge to find Lionel, stab him in the face repeatedly, and then let Francis eat what’s left of him.” She summoned up balls of shadowfire in both palms and started tossing them at the frozen wall. “Be a dear and help your wife, Captain Hot Pants. And I suppose I might as well punch you at this point, seeing as how things are starting to look like how they were in the past. Scared of dragons. Want to murder Lionel. All that’s missing is a bitchy butterfly and the vampirism.”


Brand grunted. “Let’s not. I’m good.” Did he really need to go into all the troubles that butterfly caused? And all the trouble they went through to cure Khitti? “I will help with the frozen wall, though.” He conjured a fireball in each hand, then blasted them forward like… this thing called a ‘blowtorch’ that he’d read about in one of those futuristic fantasy novels he pretended he didn’t read. In a flat, sarcastic tone, he added, “oh no. Solving problems with fire. Well, that’s just the -worst-.”


Khitti || If they were a normal couple, right about now is when Khitti’d probably get all mushy and say I love you, because Brand’s being cute. But. You know. She doesn’t do that. Okay, she does it a little on the inside. She can’t help it. On the outside though, he got a smirk and a shake of her head. Soon enough, the wall was melted through and the doorway formed. “Hopefully, if Raiez -did- have this amulet piece, it wasn’t something that we sold to pay for that rent that was too damn high, up at the tavern in Frostmaw. I, uh, think we might have to leave Lithrydel at that point because Meri might kill us. You were totally fine with a life entirely at sea, right? Some dogs don’t like water, so maybe she won’t come after us.” Another ball of fire was lit and sent to float in front of them like a torch. Khitti squinted a bit, attempting to look around as her eyes adjusted to the light, “It’s been so long I can’t remember if we even left anything.”


Brand shrugged again. “We did, if only cuz we couldn’t carry it all. And also, some of it looked boring. Or possibly dangerous, and not in the fun way.” Yes, of -course- Brand would think there was a ‘fun’ way to be dangerous. “And some of it, possibly cursed? Definitely not in the fun way.” He pulled his fire back for a moment and turned to face Khitti in earnest. “Are we sure this is a good idea? We don’t -have- to do this. Maybe we should have brought someone else along, or sent someone else instead… that friend of yours who’s good with enchantments? I bet she’d know how to de-cursify something.”


Khitti || “I’m not bringing Rachelle here! I told you what happened to her in Larket. She’s almost as screwed up as we are at this point. Besides, we’d’ve been better off bringing Dominic here. Rachelle can’t fight at all if something goes wrong besides maybe smacking someone with an umbrella. At least with Dominic, we could take off his bracelet, hold him above our head, and let him set things on fire while we run around.” That… actually kind of sounded like fun. Khitti filed that away in her brain as a family outing idea some day in the future. “If we find something that looks cursed, then lemme grab it, I guess. Things could not possibly get any worse than what I’ve dealt with up until now.”


Brand put a finger to his chin and adopted an exaggerated thoughtful posture. “Y’know, every time one of the characters in one of your books says that, things somehow get worse. So… we should probably just go. Forget the whole thing. Or… come back tomorrow? When the bad juju has had some time to go away?” Shrug. “You jinxed it. Now we’re definitely frakked.”


Khitti smirked, “You’ve been frakked since you met me, Brand. Now quit stalling! I’m the one with the problem with this place. I spent waaaaay more time in this damn cave than you did.” She side-stepped behind him and started to push at his back in an attempt to force him along. It probably wouldn’t work, but he’d get the point: she’s impatient and wants to leave, Brand, so let’s get this over with. Whether he moved or not, she’d eventually move on past him, eyeing The Cave Of Doom™. Brand was not wrong; there definitely were still piles and piles of loot in that hellhole they were standing in. The question was… which one do they even start looking in? Welp. Might as well pick the closest one. Khitti trudged to the top of the nearest pile, sat down on top of it, and started sorting through the mess.


Brand || The piles were large, and gaudy, and glimmering. Khitti could spend days sifting through all that was left, possibly even weeks or months. But she’d notice long before then that… Brand hadn’t come in with her. Nor would she find him in the mouth of the cave -- that narrow, esophageal passageway before the cave opened up into wide caverns of trinket nonsense. She’d passed him, and he hadn’t followed.


Khitti || It had definitely taken Khitti a little bit before she noticed. Gems and jewelry galore were tossed aside before she finally realized that she was Brand-less… again. “Brand? Braaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddd!” With a sigh, she got up off her throne of loot and went back towards the way she’d come from. What the actual frak was he doing? They -really- should not be lingering in this cave longer than they needed to.


Brand || Khitti was right! They should not be lingering in this cave longer than they needed to. Which was why Brand was, well, very much -not- lingering in the cave at all. Nope. He was sat outside on a boulder, staring down at the Xalious foothills. He didn’t appear to hear Khitti call for him. Or, at any rate, he didn’t seem to have noticed her approach.


Khitti stopped a few feet away from where Brand was standing, staring at him as he stared at the hills. Eventually, she’d approach and stand in front of him, those olive-green eyes of hers still locked onto him, “Okay. You are very much not fine. What is it? Besides the obvious of being here.” Her clearly frustrated tone might not have entirely relayed the fact that she was concerned, so in an attempt to show him that she is indeed concerned, she took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t make me try to figure out how to get something like a bloodlink going in order to get it out of you.”


Brand.exe has encountered an error and needs to restart. Please hold .. ... .... ..... .... ... .. Ah, yes, there he is. Brilliant. "Hi. Yes. Sorry. What? It's fine. You do your thing. I'm gonna stay right here and admire the view." That's... I mean, okay Brand, it's a nice enough view, sure. But you're not fooling anyone, much less your wife. "And also, keep guard. In case any dragons come and try to roost here while you're in there." Sensible enough plan, yes?


Khitti || “No.” Now, Khitti was forcing him to look at her, placing a hand on his chin to tilt his head downward. “Brand. -Tell me-. Please…?” A frown surfaced and crimson brows knitted together, her concern for him all the more apparent. “We did not go through all that hell for the past four years to just suddenly go back to keeping things from each other.” She really wasn’t sure what more she could say after that. And if he wasn’t going to help look for that piece of the amulet, then they might as well go home. Which, unfortunately for Khitti, was probably what Brand wanted in the first place.


Brand || “Mmmmm, nope. I just remembered: caves bad. Not going in there. No thanks.” He said all of this as cheerfully as he’d said everything else. Go figure that his style of admitting to being bothered by spending weeks in an underground, underwater cave would manifest in him in the same tone as him politely declining a cup of afternoon tea. “I’m gonna stay right out here, where there’s air and greenery and an astonishing lack of stone walls. Yep!”


Khitti sighed. “Fine.” And she walked away. Just like that. Sorry, Brand. She ain’t got time for this right now. Khitti empathized, of course--probably more so than most people--but she hadn’t wanted this visit to be a total waste of time. She returned to the Cave of Misery™, stood there, and looked around. And then kicked at the items on the nearest pile. Because frustrated.


Brand || It took quite a while, but eventually Brand sheepishly entered the cave, announcing his presence by kicking some golden baubles out of his path. “So. Uh. I dunno what’s worse, being in here… or not being in here and wondering if you’re okay being in here by yourself. You sure you don’t just wanna bail and say we couldn’t find anything?”


Khitti hadn’t gotten too far into the cave. She was standing next to the piles, just sort of staring at them, an uncertain frown planted on her lips. “I don’t know if I’m going to be okay anywhere.” Besides the obvious places of home and with Brand. Khitti reached a hand out for his, and would eventually give it a squeeze once he let her, “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve stopped being frustrated with... pretty much everything since I realized you were gone. You’re not alone in hating places like this, at least. I’ve not stopped hating this specific cave for a long time.” She too kicked a few rusted trinkets aside. “Just lemme look for like five minutes, to say I did. It’s probably not here. Seems like something Raiez would’ve talked about--there had to have been lycans stuck in here with us too back then and not just humans and elves and an extremely over-emotional vampire.” She smirked, kissed his hand then went to the area they’d been held in those annoying jars.


Brand held himself in an awkward half-hug as Khitti went deeper into the cave. “Yeah,” he muttered to her back. “ ‘Hate.’ That’s the word.” Well, whatever. Just five minutes. He could last that long, right? Just. Five minutes. That’s all. And maybe he’d help dig around while he waited, if only to keep his mind off of where they were.

Brand || The attempt was going well enough until he tripped over the thick root of some stubborn plant trying to make its home in these damp, dim conditions. Even before he hit the ground, some part of his brain was back in the cave under the lake in the Shadow Plane, held back by the vines of a wicked treant. His magic crackled around him in subconscious defense, and the trinkets around him awakened in response. A thousand different trinkets, meant for a thousand different purposes, all activating simultaneously. What could go wrong?


Khitti heard the crash of a Brand hitting the ground after he tripped, and soon after felt the magic that radiated from him in response to unfortunate memories. On some level, with the way Brand was acting and feeling, he reminded Khitti of Dominic. The -other- Dominic and not the one they both created that was safe at home and hopefully -not- setting things on fire and playing nicely with his chickens and his big brother, Francis. There was a frown again, but it didn’t last long when she finally realized he actually activated way too many of those damn things. “Son of a--” In place of that not so nice word was a ‘bamf!’ followed by another soon after as Khitti shadow-stepped Brand away from the pile and much closer to the entrance they’d made.

Khitti || “Okay. It’s time to leave. Hold on though.” She poofed back to what was likely a huge pile of ticking timebombs, opened a portal to the Shadow Plane like it was no big deal beneath the pile, and let it all fall to who the hell knew where in the other realm. “That’s a problem for future Khitti. Or maybe hopefully those Gloomglut, considering how close we are to Frostmaw.”


Brand || By the time Khitti returned, Brand was well outside the cave and looking cool as a cucumber. Yep. Totally. No problems here. None whatsoever. Perfectly fine. In fact, he was looking down at the town of Xalious below, smoking one of the cigars like what Meri tended to smoke, a faint smile upon his lips. Totally fine. Don’t ask questions.


Khitti knew that Brand was indeed -not- as cool as a cucumber, but she wasn’t going to ask about it anymore. She watched him for a few moments before finally sighing and heading outside. She was hoping that -maybe- because he was in such close proximity to Frostmaw that that was suddenly why he turned back into an ice prince and decided that concealing and not feeling was the way to do things. It obviously wasn’t that, of course. He wasn’t going to talk about it, whether she pried or not, and she wasn’t entirely sure whether she should be frustrated or sad about it or just nothing at all. There was one thing she knew she was feeling, however, and that was entirely helpless when it came to Brand’s new problem. “Let’s go to that restaurant in Kelay and get food, okay? And maybe some cheesecake and carrot cake. It’s not as good as mine, of course, but… I really don’t feel like going to the bakery today,” she said at length when she finally joined him.


Brand turned around and faced Khitti with a look of mild surprise. “You mean you’re done in there already? Did you even look at any of the stuff in there?” No mention of his brief trip into the cave or the magical mishap they’d narrowly avoided. He was bleeding from a small cut on his forehead from when he’d fallen, but either he hadn’t noticed or he hadn’t bothered to do anything about it.


Khitti just kinda shrugged. “I doubt it’s there. And if we suddenly can’t find this thing anywhere else in Xalious, then we know where to come back to. Plus,” she said, reaching up to wipe the blood from his forehead, “looks like you messed yourself up.” She was over-exaggerating, of course. Khitti eyed the blood for a moment--dare she put it in her mouth? Mmm nope. Best not to. Best not to go down that path again. Instead, she wiped it on her leggings and snatched that cigar out of his hands. Has she ever actually tried smoking before? Nope again. Seemed about as good a time as any, right? Except she has no idea what she’s doing, inhaled too much, and nearly coughed her lungs up.


Brand || “Wha--? How?” His gaze followed her hand as she wiped the blood off his forehead and onto her leggings. Then he went to take another drag from his cigar -- only to realize it was no longer in his hand, but Khitti’s other. It hadn’t taken much to distract him, apparently. Or Khitti was really good at sleight-of-hand.


Khitti blinked at Brand once she was done wheezing herself to death and handed over the cigar to him, “What do you mean ‘how’? Brand, you just tripped on something and set off an entire pile of Raiez’s crap that was going to explode or something. You probably did it then.” Crimson brows furrowed as Khitti took a step closer, “Are you okay? I mean, really okay? You’re kind of freaking me out a little…”


Brand || Khitti might be concerned for Brand, but Brand was just as concerned for Khitti. Well… that might be putting it generously, because really, Brand was the one looking at Khitti like she was off her rocker. More than usual, anyway. “You musta been seein’ things in there. Magic illusion nonsense. I’ve been out here the whole time.” Then how did he get blood on his forehead? Don’t ask questions. Brand certainly looked like he thought it made perfect sense.


Khitti || There was a lot more blinking this time around than there was a few moments ago. What the actual hell, Brand. Khitti’d had enough of people thinking she’s crazy lately--including her own self--so of course, him saying that was enough to set her off again. “I know what I frakking saw, Brand. And if you’re not going to believe me, then...” She grabbed his hand, attempted to pull him into the cave again to show him the spot where the pile had been AND the fact that there was still shadow magic residue on the ground from the portal. And if he wouldn’t go willingly? She’d resort to magicking him in there.


Brand resisted. He resisted with all of his might. He couldn’t stop himself from being portaled into the cave, obviously, but he could dig his heels into the earth (and maybe magick some earth around his feet to make things that much more difficult). “Nonono, it’s fine, I’m good, I believe you.” Whatever he needed to say to avoid going in there. Obviously there was just two of him running around. Or something. He was going to try not to think too hard about it.


Khitti || “I don’t know what the hell that tree did to you… but he’s going to frakking die for it,” Khitti said at length after she finally just gave up trying to get him to see that she’s not insane. “I don’t care what you think, but you’re not you... “ She took a few steps back away from him, putting enough distance between them as if to say ‘I’m done fighting with you about this’. “You’re acting like Dominic did--and I don’t mean our kid. It’s almost exactly the way he was in Frostmaw, that day before I went looking for Raiez, when he didn’t want to even try with his magic.” Khitti could not do this again. What if Dominic came back? She might -actually- lose her mind then. Now she started to wonder just how bad things were back then for Brand in Catal. Because if this was how he was now after that treant getting ahold of him… how bad enough did it have to be to bring Dominic back entirely? Khitti did not like thinking these things. “You need to go home.”


Brand || “Ugh. No, I’m not.” Not acting like Dominic, that is. Brand protested, though he knew full well that Khitti was going to think whatever she was going to think. Fine. He held up his hands and leaned back in surrender. “Going home’s fine by me, though. Stupid cave. Stupid magic-hoarding dragon. Frak this place. Let’s go.”


Khitti bit her tongue. Out of all the hills Brand could die on, arguing that he wasn’t in any way, shape, or form acting like Dominic whatsoever was definitely going to be it and she really did not have the energy for it. She wanted to tell him that she told -him- to go home, not that she’d also be going with him. But… that would also end badly. Brand wasn’t the only one with tendencies from years ago cropping up again; Khitti had the urge to send him home and go… somewhere else for awhile. How was she going to help Brand? He clearly didn’t want help and she couldn’t even help herself of late. She’d eventually head back to her tikifhlee and headed for home, not even bothering to stop and get something to eat like she suggested. There weren’t enough sweets in the world to help this problem. There likely wouldn’t be much talking on Khitti’s end either, if anything at all.