RP:Ralinde's Request

Summary: Ralinde makes a request of Khitti.

Khitt || For once, Khitti was in her office at the Sanctum. Well, sort of. There -was- a redhead dressed in black going through paperwork, but it was rather tall, somewhat lanky guy. His red hair was pulled back into a long braid, his outfit a notched lapel black suit with a midnight blue button up shirt beneath it. Khitt peered over his rose-colored pince-nez glasses and sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Khitti, you can’t keep putting off all this paperwork forever. If you’re going to be in all of these guilds, and own a bakery, and everything else you do, you have to spend your time wisely.” There’s silence for a moment, and then he’s soon rolling his eyes. “No, Camina cannot do this for you for the rest of eternity. She has her own responsibilities too.” He sighed again and shook his head, then went back to the paperwork.

Ralinde || A tinny sounding cough interrupted from the doorway. "Don't tell Khitti, but I actually come in and do some of it during the week while she's gone. It was the same with Lionel back at the Warrior's Academy." Inside a full helm with a strange reflective face plate and a suit of armor stood Ralinde. She looked around, rubbing one arm with the other, shifting her feet. "I was looking for her actually... I don't believe we've met?" Khitti had evil shadow dopplegangers and memory problems and- well, a male twin didn't seem far off. "I've been up in the mountains of Frostmaw for a while so," Ralinde trailed off a little again. "Just let her know her Deputy stopped by?"

Khitt || “We have… and we haven’t. The name’s Khitt,” he said, leaning back in his chair a moment to eye the guild’s deputy. It didn’t last long because he was soon getting up and heading to the door, closing the gap between the two before Ralinde could wander off. “I’m sure you recall the mess with Viera, yes?” He was feeling the same way about Ralinde as Ralinde was about him: did Khitti give someone else the deputy job? But, he spoke to her as if she already knew, just in case. “Well… my wife Annette and I are a product of that mess, though I’m not sure if you’ll ever actually see her. She’s a bit shy, you see.” He scratched his chin somewhat, pondering things over. “And you likely recall the first Dominic? The one that Brand shared a body with. This is the same scenario. I’m a variant of Khitti. Annette is a variant of Brand. We share this body and switch back and forth via Brand and Annette’s shapeshifting magic, that they were “gifted” by Viera.” ‘Gifted’ was definitely not the right word, but it worked. “That’s all… an extreme oversimplification of things. The real story is much longer and includes Brand and Annette dying, Viera getting herself a new body, and Khitti having an anxiety attack because of geese.” Khitt smirked a little at the thought as he didn’t share this same fear with Khitti. “You… seem to be different too, from what I’m being told.” He tapped his head, indicating that Khitti was actually speaking to him. “If you wish to speak to her, we can shift. Up to you.”

Ralinde || "Khitt, eh?" Door closed. Is door closed a good thing or a bad thing? Professional courtesy, don't overthink it. Pay attention. "Viera? Yeah, more or less." More Khitti getting depressed, less happy fun times with the gang. Annette, that's a new one. Dominic though, "don't know if I ever met him, truth be told, but it's good to get briefed on the whole situation." Wait, Brand's dead? No, no, had died, probably. Was alive again, happens all the time. Focus. "Oh, uh- is it that noticeable?" She took a good look at her half-plate and couldn't see a huge difference. "I guess I do usually approach with more confidence." Rallinde sort of tried to scratch the back of her head. Gauntlet met a helmet and produced a rather inorganic noise. "I guess I just sort of thought I'd be talking to another woman about this. It's a very personal matter and I'm not sure how to approach it." She took a seat, setting aside a small stack of papers and plopping into the chair. "I should be comfortable talking to either of you though, you're the same person, and you've been through a lot. I've been through a lot with you, now and then." Saving the world together was a team effort, after all.

Ralinde || A deep metallic breath from behind the reflective mask. "It's just that, I'm aware we've never had the greatest relationship. Different upbringings, ideologically opposed. And I didn't exactly make a great first impression... That was almost four or five years ago. People rarely forget near-death experiences. "I respect you though. You're a good person, and I'm sorry if I ever acted otherwise. Despite all that, I have a request." This is definitely skirting the point. Rallinde took her hands and unlatched her helmet. The hair had been grown out, the face very cleanly shaven. There was a certain grace to her features common among half-elves. Under a couple small scars and bandages at least. She took a few moments to collect the right words and find a way to phrase this.

Khitt eyed the closed door somewhat warily--not as much as Khitti would have though--but it soon passed. His attention soon returned to the half elf, crimson brows knitting together somewhat. “I’m not--. We’re not--.” He sighed. He let Ralinde continue though, as it was clear that this was already a lot of a struggle. It was starting to become a struggle for him too. He wasn't sure what to say, as he listened to her pour her heart out. "Her and I… we're not exactly the same," Khitt said, at length. I know you, but through her memories. I'm… basically from another timeline. My family is still alive. I was born with dark magic. There was no Amarrah, no necromancers that experimented on me. No vampirism. And you… I have no actual memories of a paladin like you, in wherever it is that I'm supposed to be from." Khitt sighed again, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's complicated. Extremely. Viera frakked up a lot of things and I'm still trying to sort stuff out eight months later." He paused. "All that to say, I'm here to stay and we'll get to know one another soon, but… you should be talking to her. Your experiences were with her." Khitt reached out a hand and put it on her shoulder, “Things’ll be fine though. You two are just a bit, uh… crunchy on the outside. Haven’t really had much of a chance to get past that yet.” With a quick pat, he retracted his hand and used it to tap the silver seashell bracelet on his other wrist. He tried to offer Ralinde a reassuring smile as Brand and Annette’s magic took hold, shifting his form to Khitti’s, though she remained in Khitt’s clothes.

Khitti peered at the floor beneath her feet through those rose-tinted glasses, her lips twisted into a frown. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t expect her deputy to just show up one day and apologize. Should she? She hadn’t exactly been nice either. “I appreciate your respect, and you have mine in return, but no, I’m not a good person,” she said finally. “You’re my opposite. You crave order; I want anarchy. I have no qualms with killing someone when it’s necessary. Or when I want to. I do what I do to protect my family. You do what you do because you were trained to do so. This is why I asked you to be my deputy. There needed to be a balance in leadership, just like in every other aspect of the guild.” She hesitated, then sighed. “I’m sorry too.” There’s more hesitation. “What is your request…?”

Rallinde would take Khitt's words and file them into account to ruminate over later. Something about the exchange seemed to have loosened the paladins shoulders. Now why was Khitti frowning though? Concern, worry, regret, guilt, shame, fear, confusion? Rallinde tried to sort of pinpoint it down as she listened but the girl couldn't help but smile as well. "Hold on, is that what you think of me?" She laughed a little- a messy affair that appeared hald practiced, half natural. "I don't 'crave order'. We both do what we do for one reason - to protect the ones we love! That's probably the best reason out of all the reasons out there. Like, for anything, ever. Sure our methods are different, but it's not because I'm dogmatic about sticking to my training. I wasn't trained to uphold the law, I was taught to be a good person and know the difference between right and wrong. And you're a good person." Her expression turned heartfelt and sincere. Those big upturned eyes, bowed brows, and concerned smile she wore so well. "Bad people don't have families, Khitti. Not really bad people. Bad people have tools, and pets, and minions. Things they're afraid to lose because, well, they don't want to be alone, or to feel powerless. You're a good person because you genuinely care. You want to see people get better. That's all you have to do to be a good person in my book!" She took a second to reflect. "I was trained to hunt undead for bad reasons. But you helped show me they're people worth caring about. I don't think you have me around because I crave order. I think..." she cleared her throat a little. Assuming anything about how Khitti felt was a dangerous proposition. "I think you have me around because of this. You have difficulty empathising with people. And communicating how you feel. It's difficult for you to reason with others because of your past."

Ralinde || "I think you have me around because, well, I'm still here saying all this to you. Because I can try my best to relate to you, and to see the good in you, even if you don't see that yourself. My oath wasn't to uphold order or defend against chaos. I promise to shield the weak, and strike down the wicked. I need you for that too. Sometimes the wicked are the kinds of people that need anarchy stricken against them. But that's all way serious stuff that I didn't even come here to talk about!" Rallinde pouted a little and scrunched up her face. She tried to reorient her thoughts. " With a deep breath gritting her teeth seemed to help her strain past the words a little. "My request." She cleared her throat, screwed her eyes tight, and clenched her fists. It was hard because she'd never said it out loud, at least in not so certain terms, not this straightforward. Declaring it to someone she trusted in an office with a closed door... It somehow felt like declaring it to the whole world. "Make me a woman."

Khitti adjusted her position a little, uncomfortably, as she was told that she was wrong. Usually her perception of people was pretty decent, but Ralinde had really mostly bamboozled her. “Yeah, I…” But she didn’t say anything else, letting the paladin continue. Her olive-green line of sight would shift back and forth between Ralinde and the floor occasionally. The follower of Arkhen was right, of course. It -was- hard for her to empathise with people. Really, the only person she could empathise with was Brand the majority of the time (and now Annette as well). Khitt was far better at empathising with people, as he’d shown before him and Khitti had made their switch. She opened her mouth to speak again just as Ralinde was getting to the part where she pointed out that this isn’t the reason why she was here. Khitti just nodded quietly, her crimson brows were somewhat furrowed in thought.

Ralinde would make her request and Khitti just stared at her. And blinked a few times. She wanted to ask ‘why would you trust me with this?’, but she knew better than to do so. “Okay,” Khitti said at length, with a nod of her head, no judgement whatsoever in her tone. “How do you want to go about it? I do know one way…” Where -had- Khitti put all of those books Raiez had in her cave? Hopefully she hadn’t sold them like she had a lot of the other items in there.

Ralinde || "Oh, uh..." Ralinde sort of sunk back into her seat. Her brow knitted together as she thought it over. "I don't really know," she admitted. "I do know you have experience with a different range of magic than I do, maybe herbs, potions, and alchemy too." She leaned forward with wide eyes. "You already know something?" Her voice strained with intensity and excitement.

Khitti || “Back in Raiez’s cave, there was a jar with another vampire in it next to him. His name was Ayras; had a metal arm and a penchant for lightning magic. The first time I met him, he was patrolling in Frostmaw… I’m guessing he worked for Hildegarde back then. Well, he didn’t like being stuck in a jar anymore than any of the rest of us did and one day, he broke the jar he was in while Raiez was being nice and giving me some books to read. So she opened up a book, picked a spell at random as punishment, and it ended up turning him into a woman. She’s dead now--after somehow surviving a magical explosion that happened when you all were fighting Raiez--but I don’t think she ever saw the spell itself anyway. Brand and I looted -a lot- of stuff from there. Books. Weapons. Magical implements. Sold a lot of it. Kept a fair bit of it for ourselves and one of the unbroken jars.” Khitti took a breath finally and shrugged. “The problem is that I don’t remember what book it was in or if it was even one I kept. So… I guess we can go to Raiez’s cave and see if it’s still there. Maybe check some of the shops in Frostmaw. And if we can’t manage to find it, then we can certainly explore other things, like looking in books on transmutation magic or alchemy. I’ve been dabbling in the latter lately thanks to Karasu and my assistant Camina is quite skilled in the former.”

Khitti took a moment and thought things over, those crimson brows furrowed again and her lips twisted into a slight frown. “I would offer up Brand and Annette’s shapeshifting magic, but… it’s not mine to offer up. And on top of that, Annette is pregnant and I don’t want to add anymore stress onto her.”

Ralinde || A few different threads they could follow. "All right then," Rallinde declared, "I say Frostmaw first. We know the area well, and have a lot of different contacts. If anyone's seen it there, it can be found." The rest was a decent plan b. "It's likely that there may only be a fragment of what I'm looking for. I'd need your help to use it. I know a lot of abjuration and healing magic, as well as some practical medical knowledge. But that would be no substitute for someone skilled in transmutation." After all, there was only so much improvising could do for them here. Too many mistakes and gender would be the last thing to worry about.

Khitti nodded in agreement. “Alright. I’ll have Khitt meet you there then. Since I’ll be doing the spellwork and whatnot, he can help do the legwork,” she said with a smirk. “He’s better with people than I am anyway. Well. He’s still got a temper, but it’s better that he may possibly get punchy rather than me getting stabby.” There’s a bit of innocent blinking before she moved on. “Be there in a few days. I need some time to get things sorted out here for Camina and at the bakery and at home.” She hesitated a moment, then reached forward and put her hand on Ralinde’s shoulder, “We’ll figure this out, yeah?” With all the gendery things her and Brand had gone through the past year, she could certainly empathise, even if it was still difficult for her to do so.