RP:Love, Resentment, Revenge

Part of the The God of Undeath Arc

Summary: Gevurah tends to Lanlan and stands vigil over him as he recovers from a near fatal attack by Kasyr. The near-death experience forces the drow closer together, to reaffirm their love, after almost breaking up again that same morning. Gevurah vows revenge on Kasyr and wonders if Kasyr is fond of anyone at the moment. She’ll kill the object of his affection first.

House D’Artes

Gevurah stays close to Lanlan as the healer and a guard take Lanlan on a stretcher to a guest room to recover, at Gevurah’s behest. There infirmary in the D’Artes barracks, crowded with soldiers still injured or sick from the war with the saurians, is unworthy of Lanlan. Umrae notes with displeasure that Lanlan is being treated like a noble despite the fact Daath D’Artes destroyed his home and put a mark on his head. In the guest room, Umrae forces Lanlan into a magically induced sleep so that she may work in his lung, rebuild it with divine magic, and spare him the pain of her thin fingers weaving his lung’s tissue back into one whole piece. Though her aim is to heal Lanlan as her matron demands, Umrae is rough, efficient, and cold. When it comes time to stitch him, she stabs through Lanlan’s skin so roughly that Gevurah flinches (again, Umrae takes note and disapproves). “Get out,” Gevurah growls through gritted teeth. “I will finish this.” Umrae purses her lips and leaves the room with a head full of subversive thoughts about a Matron made weak by emotion for a lesser drow. Though Gevurah notes the healer’s insolence, she has no mental or emotional capacity to deal with anything other than Lanlan. She picks up the needle and thread and very gingerly restitches Lanlan’s wounds, front and back, to try and minimize the scarring as much as possible. She’s no surgeon, but for him she’ll try her best. After he is stitched, she gently massages a balm over the wound to prevent infection and accelerate healing, then carefully bandages his torso. The matron reserves this tender care only for religious artifacts and holy rituals. Outside of her temple, she never has reason to be reverent to anything. But suddenly, surprising even to her, she treats his fragile body like an idol worthy of her worship. His eyes flutter as she ties off the bandage, and she impulsively leans forward to kiss his brow. Her lips rest against his forehead as she shuts her eyes and takes in the scent of his sweat and blood. Slowly relief floods into her heart. He is stable. He’ll struggle to breathe for a couple of days, speaking will be painful, he’ll be weak, but he should survive. He’ll survive. He’s strong. Now all she has to do it wait with him. Despite her edict that he is not to be killed, some ambitious drow may kill him anyway if given the chance. A dead patron, even a former patron, is a mighty badge to wear. She’ll not give anyone that chance. As she waits, she dampens a cloth and cleans the blood off his lips, cheek, body. Then she sits in a chair close to him and watches him as her dark thoughts drift to fantasies of revenge. She hoped Kasyr survived so she’ll have someone to hurt.

Lanlan hears Gevurah assure him that he's in good hands, her hands. He closes his eyes and nods, blindly trusting her. For some reason he can't imagine any reason why he shouldn't. He keeps his shut tight so he can focus on his breathing, taking tiny short breaths in through his nose, trying not to disturb any of the blood seeping into his throat. Every once in a while he'll endure a muscle spasm, he'll be forced to clench, hold his breath. Once he couldn't help himself, and he turned away from Gevurah and coughed, spewing blood all over the doctor tending to him. He noted the disappointment in her eyes, and he gave it back to her, before closing his eyes again. Lanlan knew what he was to these people. An enemy, and a nuisance. He occupied a place here that they could never understand, because neither did he. He trusted Gevurah though, even more than he hoped he could. On the way to the guest bedroom he lost consciousness more than once, but as soon as he felt his grip slide away from her, the coldness would wake him back up, and he'd find her again and reaffirm his grip. In the guest room he sleeps. It's magic, but he still feels weak for succumbing. It felt like giving up. Like dying. His sleep is dreamless and still. The only sign of his life is the occasional spasm or twitch. Already his body is showing the ruins of Kasyr's attack. Around the puncture wound, there's deep blotches of black, red, and purple. On his back its at least as bad. No open wound, but long arcs of bruising and burns that branch and crisscross his spine and up to a shoulder, barely stopping on the back of his neck. But he stabilizes. Slowly he wakes up, opening his eyes. The pain all over his torso recalls him to the strife and he lurches into a sitting position with a defensive hand before him. But it's only Gevurah here. As he remembers, he stops bracing himself for a kind of attack, and starts trying to call her to him. He opens his mouth but only gasps and winces trying to gain her attention, and maybe some affection if he's lucky.

Gevurah stands as soon as Lanlan sits up. “Lay down, lay down,” she whispers as she places a hand gingerly on his arm and guides him back down onto the pillow. Her nose gently caresses his cheek and jaw. “You need to rest. It’ll hurt to speak for a little bit.” She knows because her lung recently collapsed too. Lanlan was the one to collapse it. “Only say what you really need to.” Her gaze scans his to gauge his pain. On impulse again she kisses him, this time on the temple. She pulls a chair close to his bed and holds his hand. “I’m going to kill him. Don’t worry about revenge. I’ll do it. I want to.”

Lanlan kisses her a little when she comes over to him and happily doesn't realize why she knows what he's going through. He actually never discovered how badly she was hurt. His twitching and spasms have almost gone away completely. Still, when they do, Gevurah would notice the pain travel from entrance wound where he was stabbed, to exit on his back where the lightning left his body. And he'd notice it too. He smiles blissfully at her words. It's a little like what he'd always hoped for with her. The chance to punish each others enemies. He opens to speak again, and brings a hand to his throat. He finds he can pressure it a certain way that makes it easier to speak. "Don't need him...? Caluss." He shakes his head and swallows, grimacing at the taste of his own mouth. He turns away from Gevurah to spare her whatever his breath might smell like.

Gevurah scowls at the mention of Caluss. “We’ll find another way. I cannot abide this. He hurt you. He wanted to kill you.” She shakes her head stubbornly. “I want him to die. Slowly.” She looks at him pointedly. “So did you. You were disappointed I hadn’t killed him sooner. You were right. I should have. Now look at what happened — to you,” she frowns suddenly despite the bravado she displayed moments ago. She looks away from him and hides her frown beneath her hand. He came so close to dying. The fact has not yet lost its ability to punch her in the gut. Gods she feels so pathetic, so weak, sniveling over the near death of some one, but he isn’t just some one. How do the surfacers live like this, under the spell of love and other bonds that lift and trample and wrench and grow the heart in spades. She looks back at Lanlan and arrests his gaze with hers which reveals the extent to which his near death torments her. No, Kasyr cannot be forgiven for this.

Lanlan realizes something that he apparently didn't before. The pain talking brings made it much easier to sit and reflect. He was scared of dying, but he believed Gevurah when she told him he'd live. But the way she's acting, was she lying? He reaches his hand out to pull her hand away slowly. He needed to see her face when he asks: "Did you think I would...die?" The thought scares him. Dying scares him, more than he realized, and he didn't realize how close he was. He didn't plan anything, he's never been hurt like this before. Suddenly he has to sit up again no matter what she says, to hold her. As close as he can.

Gevurah holds Lanlan as tightly as she can without hurting him and buries her face in his neck. Beneath that sticky funk is the familiar scent of a body that’s still very much alive. Her body answers his question where her words fail. She was scared of him dying too. As a High Priestess of Death, she never had much reason to fear that final union with her god, for herself or others. But now that she and Lanlan have crossed an emotional line forbidden to drow, the idea of being separated through death from Lanlan, of either one of them dying, terrifies her. Before she wanted to live because she wanted to rule and control. It was a powerful motivator, but it pales in comparison to this. Is this what the surfacers mean when they say someone gives them something to live for? She takes a deep breath to compose herself then slips into the bed on her side, facing Lanlan, and coaxing him back down onto his back. Her gaze meets his and she’s content to stare at him in silence. Someone knocks at the door. “Go away,” Gevurah replies. Then to Lanlan, “Can you lock the door?” One of those little mage cantrips, those little lock spells all arcane mages seem to be able to cast and throw around. “Lan… I don’t want you to live on the surface anymore. I know this isn’t the best time for this, but...” She takes a sharp in a sharp breath. “Stay.”

Lanlan felt like he needed her. That he could still die without her here, even if his wounds were healing, he'd die of something else, something he can't express. But she must feel it too, or understand him anyways. He gently eases himself back down, certain that something would open and bleed if he even laid on a bed too hard. And everything hurts. This is so wrong, he thinks. That he should be so weak he can't even pretend not to be. And yet, she doesn't seem to notice? No she knows. It doesn't bother her. Somehow that's...better. The knocking scares him a little, and then annoys him. No one can see him like this. "I...could," he says cautiously. Can he still? He leans up slightly and stretches out a hand, forcing his influence against the gravity of a tiny metal hook. He curls his fingers and turns his hand, the hook wavers slightly, he knows he has it. He urges it gently, and it flips up, and lands in the metal loop, its home. He lays back down and just stares gratefully at Gevurah, breathing slowly and steadily, intentionally. "I..." he starts and grabs at his throat, pretending it hurt too much to continue talking. Really he needed to buy time. Yet as he looked into her eyes, he realized he couldn't think of doing anything but what she wanted. What he wanted. "I'll stay. As long as I can."

Gevurah knows that he is fibbing, that he’ll stay as long as he must to recover, but ultimately leave in pursuit of power. She doesn’t want to press this conversation now when he can hardly speak, nor does she resent his ambitions. She only resents his methods, but resentment, as she has learned, is the flipside to love. She assumes that everyone who loves also resents. She’s never loved any other way. “Alright, rest. We’ll plot revenge in the morning.” She grins at the thought. “Do you know if Kasyr is attached to anyone? Fond of anyone? I want to kill them first.”