RP:Kuzi In the Sky With Diamonds

*like a well-aimed mental whipcrack, into Kuzial’s mind comes….a well-aimed mental whipcrack. Its origin is not difficult to ascertain*

Long-Wide Corridor, Underdark

Kuzial 's mind has already taken quite a bit of punishment today, something unavoidable when one meets the forsaken Xersom and sees what resides beneath the mask he wears. But Kuzial Stavret has seen grotesque horror more than once before, though every time he has it's had something to do with the woman who so eloquently calls him this day. So within the confines of House Stavret the drow lets out a peculiar mixture of a curse and a horrible smile when Tenebrae's whipcrack mental spike demands with a grace only she can summon that he meets her. Quickly he rises from the throne he was sitting on and soon stalks out into the perpetual night of the Underdark. Silently he moves, wearing only his normal armour – well, with plenty of weapons also – until he senses the unnatural stillness in a place of unnatural stillnesses. There was a killer here silencing the silent killers. It could be only one person. So he waits here. He knew she'd make herself known when she was ready, and all he can do is remain vigilant in the hope that she greets him with words and not an attempt on his life. He really has had a long day, he'd hate for her to prove successful in such an endeavor.

Tenebrae made him wait. And wait, and wait. Finally, he’d hear a loud tick of metal heels from somewhere distant, echoing in the stilly caverns’ silent deeps. Like the inexorable march of seconds passing by on some invisible, foreboding clock came the tick-tock-tick-tock of a woman who was taking her goddamn time. Finally, she’d take shape in the dark, as bits of pale against the blackness at first as though she shone from within with some fey light. She was in black and it fit her well, at least the few parts of her it covered. She offered no other sound to Kuzial aside from the obviousness of her boot-steps approaching, not until she’d gained his side and strolled a slow, wide circuit around him, green eyes keeping him fixed in the corner of her vision. When she stopped walking, and the echoes died away, the resulting silence was only as ominous as the monumental ego of the Stavret Patron would permit it to be.

Tenebrae eventually said, "Stavret."

Kuzial has never been known as a patient drow. So with each moment he waits his mood grows darker and darker, if such unfathomably deep darkness can even exist, even within the mind of a psychotic and angry drow. And then he hears it, that foreboding tick-tock of her heels upon stone. He knew she could walk as silently as he could, so he understands this is for his benefit. He can even understand he deserves it. But that doesn't do much to improve his mood... that is until he sees her, almost glowing with some light he doesn't even begin to try and fathom. He can't help but let an evil smile slip onto his lips... of all the people in this forsaken world, Kuzial is sure none can dress with quite as much barely-contained salaciousness as Tenebrae. He doesn't move as she circles him, only his scarlet eye following her where it can, until as she stops walking to let that that silence stretch - and yes it's ominous. Tenebrae, if she's in a bad mood, is something to be wary of for anyone. When eventually she speaks, he replies in turn, “Darkness.” It's as fitting a name for her as any. “You called?” He grins at that somewhat flippant question. He couldn't help it. If one didn't know Kuzial quite so well, one could well be mistaken for thinking he's quite happy to see her again... then again, perhaps he truly is. She is quite a sight, after all.

One of Tenebrae’s delicate, dark brows twitched up slightly, her features impassive as the stone surrounding them both as she spoke, “Yes.” The brow relaxed again over its cool, peridot eye and her lips curled, near-imperceptibly, at their corners. “Several times, in fact, over the past weeks. I had wondered if perhaps you’d gone deaf.” Truly, it had crossed her mind long before the unthinkable prospect that he might be ignoring her had finally crawled through a chink in her own titanic self-image and prompted her to push him a little harder for response. That she had found this necessary at all, said the prickle in her aura, was somewhere between irksome and mouth-frothingly enraging. The prickle did not translate to that smile, however, which only grew wider as she leaned in, just a little, on her toes, toward the drow and her nostrils flared for an instant. Whatever knowledge came to her by it, she only smiled, a warm and genuine-looking smile, the essence of which spread across the rest of her features – the way a bloodstain seeps into carpet – until her gaze shone with it, a mix of pleasure and coquetishness. “No matter, except that I had a gift for you. Have…” the smile grows sweeter, the light in her eyes just a little adoring, “.. a gift for you. Right here, in fact.” She patted some tiny and invisible compartment in her garb that somehow managed to still be functional despite how well indeed that outfit fit against her skin. There, under the fabric, a small, circular lump. “If you close your eye, and hold out your hand, I might even give it to you.”

Kuzial shrugs his shoulders in an unconsciously languid gesture which barely shifts the armour on his body; it moves like a second skin, protecting what no longer needs protection with thin chains of ebon metal. “Deaf? No, Tenebrae.” He ponders leaving it at that, but decides instead to tell her the truth. “Let us just say some in House Stavret who would gain the most by my death were not too happy when they learned I can no longer be killed. They are no longer an issue.” Considering her knowledge of the drow race, that explanation would undoubtedly be enough. He falls silent as she leans forward, and the smile which grows on her lips makes him more wary around her than usual. He is deadly certain she would smile in such a fashion moments before devouring someone. He would too. It's part of the reason he likes this complicated, violent and forsaken woman. Nevertheless, an eyebrow is raised as she speaks of a gift, though a laugh pushes it down as she states the requirements for him to get it. “You want me to close my eyes around you... and hold out my hand...” He has visions of her cutting off his hand and using it to beat him to death, but he figures what the hell; she can try. He'll use the wet end of his stump to beat -her- to death if she attempts such. With that grotesquely amusing thought paramount in his mind, he does indeed close his eye, even as he extends his hand a little too far, letting it brush up against Tenebrae's body from her midsection to her chin. There's no illusions as to whether or not the drow did that on purpose, the slight grin on his lips as he waits speaks loudly enough on its own.

Tene smirked inwardly through the whole of that brief hesitation, during which she knew exactly what kind of things Kuzial would be imagining. However, none of the smirk reached her exterior, her face was still plastered with that ‘I missed you so, of course I forgive you’ expression. She did not quite purr when the Patron’s scarlet eye vanished under its dark lid, though she did let out a soft breath when ebon fingertips brushed her torso, her throat, her chin. “No peeking,” she spoke coyly as her own white fingers grasped his and drew them lower. He’d feel the press of cold lips on the back of his hand, then the slightly chill touch of metal on the third finger of that appendage, from the tip of it down to where it joined the rest of his flesh. There was a tickle, the split tips of a bifurcated tongue that left his fingertips slightly damp, “There. You may look.” Almost the hue of his skin, the ring he’d see, but for the skilfully inlaid fire-opal thorn sigil which blazed across the midnight stone in its lustrous dark-mithril setting. “You can come and go as you please, now.” As if he couldn’t before.. But the way her eyes canted off to the cave wall where red marks were etched forever in the rock might give Kuzial a clue as to her specific meaning.

Kuzial would have felt a prickle down his spine as Tenebrae placed the ring on his finger, were his body still alive. Even still, he draws in a quick breath through his nose, tasting the scent of her without bothering to hide it. When permission is granted for him to look, he does indeed do so. He felt the metal on his finger before he saw it, but even still it causes a dark smile to be born once more upon his lips. “I promise not to return this to you in a twist of metal.” He cannot help the slight jab at her own actions that he undoubtedly inspired long ago. But he is drow, such moments like these would not be complete without hints of his sardonic humour. “A fine gift you give me, Tenebrae... A dangerous gift...” Letting Kuzial easily access any part of your life typically isn't good for your health, “But one I can appreciate.” He nods at that. The appreciation more that he can visit Vailkrin without having to take a single step in the cursed sunlight of the surface. Could there be any finer gift for a drow? He opens his mouth as if to speak again, before he quickly steps forward, wraps his now ringed hand behind her back, before pulling Tenebrae towards him in a crushing embrace. Having no longer the desire to taste her with by scent alone, he firmly presses his mouth against hers for a long moment in the darkness, before pulling back just enough to speak once more. “I really do hate the sunlight,” he says, as if defending his actions.

Tenebrae nodded, “I know..” though which part of his speech she referred to wasn’t clear. She planted both her palms on his chest then, widening the distance between them, a step back making the gap significant. “Well. It was lovely catching up with you, Stavret. I do hope it’s not weeks and weeks and –weeks- and weeks until we do so again.” With that, the woman strode to that same sigil-bearing wall, pushed out the hand which bore her own ring, and promptly – vanished.

Blackstone Dungeon, Thorne Estate, Vailkrin

Kuzial stands for a moment in the darkness of the tunnel as Tenebrae promptly leaves, before he shrugs to himself. If this was an elaborate plan to kill him, she would succeed. He is in no mood to lets weeks pass until they saw each other again... days were too long... hours beyond his patience. No, minutes was all she would get before Kuzial walks to the rune-inscribed wall of the underground cavern, looks for just a moment down at the ring, before he shrugs again and steps through. The sensation of traveling through space without needing to travel said space is unpleasant for a drow who typically hates magic; there is a reason House Stavret's might rests in swords and daggers, not wands and staves. But it's far, far superior to walking on the surface, dripping as it is with odious sunlight and mind-numbingly idiotic surface dwellers. So as he steps through, appearing rather aptly in her dungeon, there is a dark smile on his face. “We were not finished, Tenebrae,” is all he says into the room. It is not a question or a demand, it is simply a truism.

“I know.” She’d been blotting her lips with a damp, white cloth which was swiftly dropped into a glass flask when the drow appeared through the portal. A match, torn from a little book of them taken from the ‘work’ bench nearby, was struck, its feeble flame also dropped into the receptacle which she then quickly stoppered. The flame guttered briefly and appeared to die but then the cloth burst into flames, a furious little blaze flickering with strange, iridescent hues. Then it suffocated, and she put the flask full of ash and char down again. And so it was that Stavret might obtain the first hint of Tene’s revenge, which may in time lead to the members of his illustrious House taking up a new, if never-spoken-in-Kuzial’s-hearing motto – ‘never put your mouth near an angry necromancer’. By now, the envenomed lipstick she’d been wearing, potent with poisons garnered from far-flung parts of the world the drow may never have heard of, let alone visited, and blended with fell narcotics Tene had refined herself in her underground lab, were possibly beginning to take their toll. But oh, it would be nothing dire. Nothing deadly, anyway. It would begin, if it began at all, with a strange sensation in the drow’s chest, a burgeoning warmth, a lightness of being, a little ray of sunshine peeking into the abysmally deep, black pit of festering wrath and hate that used to serve the Patron for a heart, when he still had one. In other words, Kuzial just –might- find himself feeling ~happy~…

Kuzial watches curiously as the flames burn, even as he begins to rub his palms against his chest. They felt damp, strangely; what was that feeling swimming through his mind, through his very soul it seems. A light, a warmth. He is confused. He's never felt anything like it before. Suddenly the drow has no desire to remove the heads from anyone close to him; how odd. Being Kuzial, he has no knowledge at all of what this strange emotion is. Happiness not born of suffering... and that fire! It was so pretty... wait, did he just think the word... pretty? He blinks a few times, some longer than others as lights dance in the darkness of a closed lid, stealing his attention, before he manages to speak. “You know lots of things. That's why I like you.” He stops. He likes her? No. He hates her, he's sure, the line that blurs love and hate ever murky with this drow. But she does look pretty... he wonders if he can get her to split her face open, that's a great trick! No! Focus! He squeezes one of his hands into a fist at his side, letting nails grow longer with little more than a dazed thought, causing them to pierce his flesh. He hoped a jolt of pain would awaken him from this horrible nightmare of happiness, but all it does is cause his attention to waver to the drip, drip, drip of bloody globules striking the ground. Such a great noise, in fact, the beat has enough rhythm to inspire his next action. He steps forward again, quickly, grabbing Tenebrae behind her back while taking her hand in his. Blood still drops down from their clasped limbs, and to the dark rhythm of sanguine drips, he spins her around in a rather ungraceful for a swordsman attempt at a dance, all the while confused as to why he's not trying to kill her for her nefarious, if oh-so-apt, revenge.

Tenebrae thought, for a horrible, horrible moment (and despite that he’d said he liked her, which made her smirk) that her lipstick had failed, when Kuzial grasped her hand, from behind. It was to be her death, she was sure, the only hope left to her being that he’d take his pleasure in other ways before snapping her head off as if picking a mushroom. But she was spun out, reeled in, turned around and her laughter was clear and inappropriately pure. A dance! How she loved to dance.. What a pity Kuzial wasn’t very good at it. “Like this,” she said, trying to guide him into more rhythmic, graceful motion, holding him close so the intoxicated drow wouldn’t knock over the Iron Maiden or something. All the while, she’d be peering at his eye, his face, his expressions, trying to ascertain what depth of effect the drug would be hitting, at this stage. “If you feel weary, Patron,” she purred, knowing he was indeed weary when they’d met, “You may lie on that fluffy cloud over there,” she tilted her head toward the rack, which still sported faint rust-coloured stains from its last occupant.

Kuzial doesn't really get any more graceful as he dances with Tenebrae doing her fair share of the leading. With weapons or even his fists he was languid and deadly in battle; often he moved much like a dancer does... but this, movement for the mere joy of it, the body surrendering even a little to a rhythm that's not the screaming cries of his enemies as their life is devoured by the patron drow... drugged or not, it's just beyond him. Nevertheless, the strangest, most alien sound comes from Kuzial's throat – something never heard in the long history of his life, both mortal and Empusai. It is... laughter... proper laughter... joyous, free... no hints of malice, no whispers of sadistic delight... it's horrible! If he heard such a noise he would find its source and kill it slowly. But here now, he doesn't care. As the dance halts and she points over to the rack he nods his head, “Weary, yes... that guy... Sacrilus, the damned, the shadow of the world, warleader of Arrecation's armies... his face wore me out. Ugliest thing you've ever seen...” Even as he's talking, he's wandering over to the rack, laying back on it as his voice echoes through the dungeon. “Said he was going to use the Burrower to destroy Tiphareth. Or I said that, and he meant Trist'Oth... Tiphareth... Trist'Oth... I wonder if it's a coincidence they sound the same.” They don't, really. But even as his body fights against the poison – yes, it's a poison! - within him, Kuzial's mind wanders more than an exiled elf.

“Sacrilus…” That dragon again! He was popping up all over the place, like a transient, reptilian boil. And given that the Parasite had come to her with blood that smelled like ancient wraiths and a very specific sort of magic, this latest mention of him had the cogs of Tenebrae’s mind spinning madly. But she said nothing of it, not yet. For there was fun to be had. Or revenge. Same thing.. “Forget that old smokestack, Kuzial,” she was shocked by his laughter, moreso than even this news he’d imparted, “Relax now, enjoy the.. uh… fluffiness.” Quick as four winks, she had the drow strapped in, wrists and ankles bound by constraints she’d tested on herself for security’s sake. Gods only knew how he’d react, when he straightened up. But she had a pretty good idea already. When he was tied down, she crawled onto the table herself and lay with her head on his chest. “There, isn’t that nice? Don’t you feel.. happy? Tell me, Stavret, what it is that brings the most joy to you heart right now. Think on it, imagine it, I’m sure there’s something better than all the rest.” When she’d trialled the drug in her own system, she’d had rainbow-hued visions of unicorns and butterflies – she still cringes at the memory – but what hallucinations would occur for a creature who’s evolved in a world almost bereft of such garishness? She’d let him stew in happiness a little while longer, before dropping the other proverbial boot. It’s sheer self-indulgent wickedness that prompts her next question: “Is it me? Do you adore me, Kuzial?”

Kuzial is easily distracted, forgetting the damned Sacrilus and his promises of power, revenge and death quicker than Tenebrae was at tying him down. Something he lets her do, despite it seeming odd that he did so. Somewhere within his mind he knows this is wrong, but soon she's snuggled down next to him. It was nice, he tells her so. “I do, cozy...” He offers a lopsided smile that perhaps goes unseen, even as he tries to think of what makes him happy. The first thought is cutting someone's head off in front of their family, but that's not right. Hatred and anger don't make him happy. Was it Tenebrae that did..? His eye drifts shut as he thinks, or tries to, of what truly gives him joy right now. “I... don't know...” And then, like shadows born of Tenebrae's magic, he sees it given life in his mind. Deep dwarves... with their crystals and their diamonds, and their rubys and their emeralds... so many pretty colours... things he'd usually die before admitting he admires. One of the few things in his life of hatred, hardship, suffering and death that exists not to kill or maim, but simply to be enjoyed. Tenebrae would look good wearing a diamond necklace, he's sure... he can see it now... and though he's not aware of it, he speaks aloud what it is he sees, “...us not being here, this place... this world... there is power, but who cares... a diamond on your chest, rubies in your ears, an emerald tiara and crystal shoes... no... ruby shoes! Sparkly ones... sparkling like... like...” he wants to say the light dying in someone's eyes, but again that's not right... “Like that place in the Underdark, lit by those mushroom people... it glows! I like things that glow... sometimes I wish I was a mushroom person.” At that, he trails off... thoroughly confused as to what he sees in his mind... Tenebrae dressed in fine jewels, with a mushroom head, dancing with Kuzial on a cloud, the cares of the world far beneath them... she'd look good with a mushroom head, he decides, but thankfully for his well-being he can't quite articulate that thought. What he does manage is, “Being with you, away from this world... that makes me happy, MushroomTenebrae.”

Tenebrae made that pouty face that women make when a man does something they find incredibly adorable and sweet, intending to mock the strapped-down, strung-out drow, but somehow - aside from his associating her with fungus - his happy-place didn’t sound all that dreadful. “One day, Stavret, we will go there and I will kiss you by the light of a mushroom-man and we will dance. After a few lessons, though. And you know how I adore jewels..” Did he, though? Really? Or was it just the drugs that had coincidentally led him to her sinful, greedy desire for pretty stones to keep and wear and love and.. Tene ahem’d to herself and got on with the task at hand. It would never do to keep Kuzial in the thrall of the drug too long, nor to let it wear off of its own accord. She slipped away from him, off the rack and over to a darkwood cabinet, from which she took a stoppered vial of milky liquid, a concoction that seemed to hold a pearly glow as it swirled in its container. Ticking her way back to the rack, she lifted the stopper out with a little pop. “This is something yummy, Kuzial.” It was not. “It’ll show you something wonderful, something I hold very dear, indeed. So make sure to drink it all up. Open wide...” In fact, it was the antidote and all it was going to produce was Kuzial himself, crashing back into his right mind. Tene muttered to herself then, appealing to the Dark God, his opposite, and all gods in-between, blasphemously hedging her bets as she prayed those bindings would hold…

Kuzial smiles again at Tenebrae, “We will go, the world will melt, and by the light of the mushroom-men we will dance on clouds made of jewels...” He'd continue rambling on like this if Tenebrae didn't interrupt him with the vial. “It looks good, like... like...” Unfortunately, Kuzial's poetic talents have all been used up in the whole clouds made of jewels thing, yet during this pause while his mind works on finding the right words, he does open his mouth, letting the Empusai pour down his throat the concoction without even the hint of mistrust in his warmly glowing... smoldering... burning... rage-filled... palpably hate emitting eye... “ TENEBRAE!” The very walls of the dungeons shudder with the strength of his cry and in a moment his body goes from being relaxed to being taut, muscles straining against the confines which seem to, at least for now, be having little difficulty in holding Kuzial down, “You...” He snarls, hatred briefly driving from his mind all memories of what he said... thankfully... “You cheating...” Well, he cheats all the time, so that's not really fair, “Manipulative,” well, he does that too. Damnit. “You... argh!” He struggles again, drawing on the depths of his physical prowess and the grotesque magic within him too... But this is Tenebrae, she'd not tie him down if she wasn't sure he couldn't get away, even as her house shakes with the might he unleashes upon the shackles. “I'm going to... going... to... cut your... stab you in the... tear you apart...” Just when it seems the drow's head will explode from the anger, he suddenly slumps, draws in a cold breath, before speaking in tones which do nothing to disguise his anger, despite his attempts, “Do I at least get to keep the ring?” It seems some part of him has realized he deserved this... some deep, dark part he would crush if he could.

Tene unscrunched her face from the wince it made when he screamed her name like the promise of her very own, personalised apocalypse. “Yes.” The necromancer was peering at him from a couple of feet away. Empusai, you just never know what they’re going to sprout. “Don’t be cross at me..” try telling rain not to be wet, “I had to show you, let you experience it for yourself.” And get revenge, and experiment on him, and.. ahem! What was she saying? Oh yes. “There are few poisons which work on the drow, and those that do tend to increase their capacity for causing damage. This one,” she smiled at him, more meekly than she would ever consciously intend to, “Dropped in a water source at full strength would render an entire house useless for battle. For hours at a time. And even if they escape, how long do you think they’d survive in the Underdark?” The smile faded, she was searching his face now for any sign at all that her death was not his newest, greatest desire. “Plus, I wanted to get even with you.” She could still see the glint of gems, a vision she’d plucked from his mind via their bond of flesh. “I think I did. Let’s call it evens?” Her gaze raked over him, familiar salaciousness returning, as if she had other nefarious things planned. While he was tied down and all...

Kuzial , despite it all, laughs at her rationalization for showing him the poisonous drug. It was clever, and despite his anger, he cannot help but find it amusing in a dark, twisted way... perhaps some of the drug's remnants are still in his system, though of course the laugh this time is streaked with dark emotions rather than the lightheartedness of earlier. “Had you tried to justify it without admitting you wanted to get even with me, I would kill you for this.” The words are spoken as a truth, despite the fact he's tied down and she could well destroy him. He doesn't care. “As it is, I'll only torture you for a few hundred years instead. And they say I am not kind.” He grins at that, the look as evil as anything that ever walked the world, offering the dark promise like a gift rather than punishment. “If you weren't so useful to me, Tenebrae, I'd cut your face off and put it on my weapon wall... a reminder to House Stavret to never kiss a pissed off necromancer.” Perhaps that saying will catch on, after all. “But if I didn't have you, who else could I play with?” The look he flashes her tells her exactly what type of playing he means; there is a lot of wickedness for a drow who is tied down and at the mercy of the Empusai in his expression. “But if you ever drug me again...” He doesn't bother to finish those words, instead looking to his shackled wrists... “I suppose demanding you release me will get me nowhere.” He flexes his hand, “Come on, then. Thoughts of killing you always fill me with... excitement.” He flashes her a contradictory lecherous look back, start contrast to his words.

“Or it’ll get you everywhere. Depending on how you look at it.” She so likes it when they beg. But even as forgiving – so to speak – as Stavret may seem right now, she wasn’t pushing that particular button harder than she already had. Tene strolled closer to the rack, eyeing her captive before climbing back up, sitting so she could face him, staring down into that singular, gloriously ruby-hued eye. “I vow, on all that has passed between us and ever shall, that I will never drug you again.” And even looked like she meant it. The sharp nail-tip appending her forefinger tapped on his lower lip. “It also works on us, imagine what it what it would do to a lesser creature of undeath. The applications for mind control…” As she blathered on about brainwashing and interrogation, Kuzial may have found several further reasons not to rip her apart. Even reason to smile - though of course it would not be a truly happy expression - but she stopped short of the usual sort of conclusions reached. “I think I’ve played with you enough for the moment.” She had not. But she got off him anyway, and picked at his bindings, “Tell me more of Sacrilus. And then I will tell you something, in return.”

Kuzial ignores the solemn promise she makes about never drugging him again. He'd say the same thing in her position, and undoubtedly mean it as much as she does. Nevertheless, he doesn't argue the point, even as he listens as she speaks about the various implications of a drug strong enough to defeat the powerful defenses of Empusai vampires... it was worth thinking about, though Kuzial is sure that cutting someone's fingers off and using them to poke out said person's eyes is as good a torture method as any for interrogation. And a whole lot more enjoyable. When she gets off, he seems almost disappointed... perhaps he had an altogether crude plan of stabbing her with the only weapon that wasn't beyond his power to control right now... but that thought aside, ahem, he speaks. “He is an idiot who thinks he is stronger than anything walking this world.” Which is about how Kuzial sums up anyone who has proven themselves to be stronger with raw power than he is. “But he fears the intervention of...” Kuzial forgot the name, so he shrugs awkwardly while Tenebrae picks away at the bindings... “Some other idiot who thinks they're a God. He wants to use the Burrower for his own ends, of that I am sure... he spoke to me about it, of having it destroy Trist'Oth and placing me in control of the city.” The drow pauses then, eyeing Tenebrae carefully, “How sure are you none can listen to our discussion?” He takes for granted Tenebrae ensuring none can listen in, but his next words require affirmation of his assumption.

Tenebrae’s expression became sombre, “The elder gods themselves would strain to hear a word.” Tene’s had too much business with nosy godlings to allow otherwise, and had worked long and hard to ensure this place was proofed against them, let alone any lesser creature. Clearly, the whole thing about the Burrower had the necromancer perturbed, she wouldn’t deprive herself of rack-time with Kuzial for nothing. “How does he imagine he’ll control that creature, I wonder, when I who bear the Eye of Darkness cannot. Not alone, anyway.” She shakes her head, “Please, go on.”

Kuzial nods once while his gaze flickers to his shackles, ensuring she carries on removing them, before the drow speaks again. “He thinks me an enemy of Tiphareth D'artes. I am not.” The drow grins wickedly at that, it is something he has kept well hidden within himself, perhaps deep enough that even Tenebrae would not know it. “Oh yes, I hate the idiot surface-drow, but I have no desire for him to be destroyed. Why would I?” Kuzial does as he likes in Trist'Oth and the surface, he has a powerful house, stronger than others higher ranked than his own. But though he seeks great power, as all drow do, he doesn't wish to be burdened with having to run an entire chaotic city. Why would he bother, when Tiphareth does it for him, ensuring males rule. “So I will have a meeting with Tiphareth D'Artes, and tell him what this... Xersom... seeks. Together, archmage and myself, we will find a way to kill the moronic dragon... unless, of course, you have your own plans involving him?” Kuzial fully expects an answer from Tenebrae. He knows she wouldn't betray him, as he won't betray her, simply because the other would find out and the result would be... well... catastrophic. “If so, I will perhaps rethink my own plans of cutting this ancient idiot's head off and ramming it so far up his ass the next time he opens his mouth to boast about the past he'll be choking on his own intestines.” Kuzial growls that last word, ensuring Tenebrae understands how serious he is.

Tene’s eyes widen slightly at the Patron’s admission, but only slightly – for House D’Artes and House Stavret had co-existed long enough now without massacre or the like, and as patient as drow can be in their plots, Kuzial was not the shiniest example of that spider-like trait. The next thing she does is exhale relief. She will not admit it, cannot admit it, for it’s nothing she consciously knows, but Tiphareth holds her loyalty in a way very few in all of Lithrydel ever have, even those who have thought themselves dearest to the necromancer over the centuries. “Take me with you?’ she breathes, “I have no plans, but there’s something.. “ she drops her tone, an reflex rather than a necessity, “The one Sacrilus fears, the Parasite of Lithrydel,” even here, she is loath to use his common name, “Came to me with a vial of blood and a gem, and demanded that I bind them together. Of course I agreed - he made my gates shiny, no-one’s ever managed that. He’s powerful, but I now have something he wants, something he surely intends to use in yet –another- bid to take over the world, lock and stock. I have them still, but will not do as he has asked until I find out what he intends by it.” She frowns. “One of my less wild guesses is that he seeks control of the dragon. Or something worse.. Why is this creature poking its nose into Underdark affairs anyway? That sort of chaos is right up the Parasite’s alley. So yes, do take me with you when you go to see Tiphareth. Together, we might come to figure out what to do, with what we know so far.” All the bindings are loose now.

Kuzial pulls his hands in to towards his chest as he rubs at his wrists. Though, it looks like a common enough reaction to being freed from bindings, he does it more to ensure his hands don't try to reach for his daggers. He was still angry at her, of course. But he's not fool enough to try and destroy her right now while they're discussing something of this importance. Perhaps he has some of that spider-like patience after all... or perhaps, and far more likely, his plans on revenge for this little... episode of joy in his dark life... are more complex than simply turning Tenebrae into a sieve. Forcing himself to properly focus on her words, he nods his head before replying when she's done speaking. “I do not know why he seeks what he does. He would not tell me, other than promising he has no desire to destroy the drow... but if he was half as powerful as he claims, if either of them were half as powerful as they claim, they would not need us mere mortals,” as if Tenebrae and Kuzial are mere mortals, “to control the world, or destroy it, or whatever other plan they have concocted.” The drow falls silent then, letting his agile mind work through the problems they face, before he shrugs once more. “You can be at my side when Tiphareth seeks me, I had one of my scouts deliver a message requesting his presence. Just remember this, Tenebrae: Tiphareth has sided with powerful idiots in the past. He is like a moth which always seeks the biggest source of power to fly around and leech off. He may well decide that our alliance is the less profitable one, and if that's the case...” Kuzial trails off. He's not sure if he could kill Tiphareth or not, but the implications that he'd try are very clear.

Tenebrae’s loyalties never go higher than that which she holds for herself, and while Kuzial’s unfinished sentence makes her frown, she nods. Herself and, by extension, Kuzial – for are they not of the same flesh? “You have a good point, about those who need puppets to wield influence. I once beat the Parasite in a fight, you know. That was before…” he became whatever he’s become now, she did not need to add. “Still, the thought of it reminds me of my own strength. And that is strength you will have at your back always, Kuzial.” Perhaps her use of his fore-name added to the sincerity of it. Perhaps not. But he would never have seen her look so earnest about anything. “And perhaps where you may find it inconvenient to speak in blunt truths to the Lich, I have no such concerns. If we are to do this, I will ask him for security, that we may trust him not to flap toward that hungry flame again.”

Kuzial nods at her words as the smallest of smiles twists the edges of his lips upwards. She said what he most wanted to hear. “We are in agreement, then.” Those simple words mean more between these two than most could understand. Few would make greater enemies of each other than Tenebrae and Kuzial now. They could never truly hide from the other's wrath. It is another reason why he hasn't just attacked her for poisoning him, as he would anyone else who has ever lived upon, under, above or beside this world. None could have survived what she did... though, there will be revenge, of course. “And you have equal strength behind yours, do not forget. If anyone is going to kill you, it's going to be me. I will not allow anyone else that privilege, be them mortal, immortal or self-proclaimed God.” A final nod is given, before he leans back on the rack. It's hardly comfortable, but the drow is exhausted; the strain of his mind being stretched by Xersom and then messed with by Tenebrae is taking its toll, even on a body which is no longer alive. “I think I shall remain here this night. In the morning you can show me these shiny gates of yours.” His eye locks on her, almost daring her to make a flippant remark about Kuzial liking things which glow. “Maybe tomorrow you can tell me about how you beat the Parasite. Maybe you can show me.

Tenebrae made that face again as Kuzial claimed sole rights to her permanent demise – the soft, smily look women offer to the adorable things men say, and this time it was not entirely a mask of mockery. Moments later, she was beside him on the rack. “Best that I allow you a proper rest then, Stavret.” She turns her face up to his and pats the back of his hand gently, apparently committed to being chaste as a cathedral full of nuns for the sake of this poor, enfeebled drow.

Kuzial spends less time than it takes for a dragon's heart to beat a thump of its immortal rhythm, before he's taken Tenebrae's chastely patting hand, locked it in one of the shackles, before her other soon follows suit. He doesn't bother with securing them in any elaborate fashion.. but she was locked down tight enough... he'd not seen her in a few weeks... tired or not, mind numbed by the enormity of events or not... she was after all wearing those rather form-fitting black clothes... well... not for much longer..