RP:Regarding Brother

Background

This is part of the arc: The Mystery of the Wandering Grimoire

Somewhere in the Vailkrin Graveyard

Kirien was singing with ghosts again, it seemed. Amidst once-fine buildings now left forsaken behind the graveyard, drenched in shadows, he sat in the empty stone frame of a window a floor or two above ground and filled the air with the sound of his voice. Dry earth shook and shifted gently underfoot in a low tremor, rhythmic and constant as though providing some sort of back-beat for the empath to string his melody along to and join the soft songs of eternal damnation that drifted about and whispered in the very edges of his hearing. In contrast, Kirien's little tune was somewhat more upbeat, yet just as unearthly somehow. He swayed back and forth on his perch, swinging his legs as he sung to the dead.

Redhale had been absent from his home for some time, and even his grimoire had seemed to avoid the currently anarchist city, apparently preferring to wander around the nearby woods for a while. However, as Kirien wove his peculiar little tune a rumbling percussion joined in, and whether it was of its own volition or whether Kirien had drawn it to him through song or simply presence, the dark man's grimoire burrowed it's way out of the ground at the foot of the ruins, where it proceeded to do absolutely nothing.

Kirien, clearly focused on his song, was quite ignorant to what went on around him unless it tied in with his odd music somehow. The wind whistling through open window frames was something he noticed; and its hissing voice as it swept through dry grasses and half-wilted shrubbery trying to eke out a living in this place; and that slow rumbling which seemed to emanate from the ground but perhaps from something within it, instead. When the grimoire dug itself up, Kirien opened his eye and his song died on his lips. Leaving his last words to float about the ruins as an echo, the empath scooted forward a bit, squinted at the dirt-covered book, then slipped easily from his seat to land soundlessly nearby it on the ground. In the shadow of the ruin he'd perched on, he hopped over to the large tome and fell into a crouch before it, and extended a curious hand to touch its cover. "It's you again. Staring book." He looked up, as though he thought he'd find its owner standing somewhere nearby. "What're you doing out here?"

Redhale's book flipped open and rapidly turned its pages. The violent whirring of the paper didn't sound unlike the shifting of stone slabs, the likes of which topped many graves here. Several times the tome paused on a page before continuing on or shuffling backwards through its pages, the pattern perhaps conveying some message but, being written entirely on black paper, no words could be read. Instead Kirien was forced to be patient as the book told whatever story it thought it was sharing until it slammed itself shut with a final, creaking groan of leather.

Kirien jerked his hand back. Once, he tried to reach out and press down on the both sides of the book, hoping to halt its rapid page-turning and perhaps find something useful amongst it all. Quickly he was pulling away, however, huffing an exasperated sort of breath as he fell back to sit properly on the ground in front of the grimoire - blind as he was, he simply listened as it shifted its pages, paused, then turned some more. The paper was grinding almost like flat slabs of stone, somehow, which summoned a bemused sort of expression to grace Kirien's features as he listened. When suddenly the grimoire snapped shut again, he watched it sightlessly for a moment or two then blinked and reached to prod at it. "No idea what that just was but-- show me colours again? Or show me something useful." To helping Redhale, he meant. Kirien assumed he was still suffering that problem of breaking; though as he'd not seen the man in some time, he could not be entirely sure.

Again the grimoire did the dance of the pages, although an astute observer would have realised that the pattern was different, although only slightly. Even a casual observer would have noticed that the sounds were louder, and as the book turned faster its leather bindings groaned even before it shut itself. The message was still unclear, although the book seemed intent to communicate -something-, as instead of resting still after displaying its pages it instead jostled about on the spot, crunching the dirt beneath itself periodically.

Kirien's ears perked up and he found himself once more forced to listen to the shift and grind of black pages flipping. Careful attention was paid to the rhythm of those almost-frenzied movements, as he'd done beforehand - but the meaning behind it all was still unclear to him and it prompted Kirien's confusion to deepen further. "Hold still." He grabbed at it when it began to wiggle about in the dirt, if only because the gravelly crunch of earth beneath its binding was distracting him from attempting to work out the message hidden in the turn of pages. "Is there not an easier way to do this? I get it - that there's something tu want to say, that is. The pattern-- I don't know what you mean though. I'm not a book."

Redhale's book tore itself from Kirien's hands and stood upright to repeat the same pattern of page turns as it had the time before, although one of the groaning noises seemed out of time with the book's movements, and soon enough a bony, rotten hand reached over the top of the tome and slowly clasped each finger down over the pages. Beyond the hand was a similarly rotting face, which empty eye sockets staring at nothing in particular, but frowning all the same. While the book lay still in the beast's grasp the grinding and groaning continued and it soon became apparently that at least a dozen undead had pulled themselves from their graves and were slowly shambling towards Kirien. Even the bravest of undead souls was unlikely to unearth itself in the morning light, but then the ghouls had been acting strangely lately, and there was no reason today should have been any better.

Kirien rocked forward some in an attempt to catch the book when it escaped, but it seemed someone else did that for him. He blinked gently at the initial undead which rose from behind the grimoire and grasped hold of it with gnarled fingers, staring sightlessly at equally blind eye sockets (he presumed, but like him it appeared undead could possess some queer form of perception as well). "'Allo." He blinked again. Throwing a vaguely questioning glance to the grimoire, Kirien shifted back into a crouch as he sensed other beasts shuffling through the ruins, headed his way - though he appeared relatively comfortable for the time being, the sudden presence of risen undead apparently paying lots of attention to him was worth being cautious of. Curious, he kept still and waited.

Redhale's grimoire tore itself free from the undead that had clutched it, causing the bony outstretched arm to snap off of the zombie's body with a dusty pop and fall to the ground. Undeterred, the rest of the horde shuffled forwards, each of them reaching out their own mostly intact arms as their stiff jaws cracked open at the prospect of fresh meat. Apparently done with trying to communicate the sentient spellbook opened its pages twice wide, new paper unfolding where it probably hadn't been before, to form a barrier between Kirien and at least some of the advancing nasties.

"Friends of yours or not...?" Kirien asked Redhale's grimoire with another cursory glance to the nearest undead. A deep intake of breath followed as though he were trying to catch a hint of their intentions for him on the wind; and if he did catch something of it, he did not appear to like the feel of it. His nose scrunched up. "I guess not." Heresy, the twitching gemstone of malicious whispers in his pocket, seemed eager to be drawn out to rend limbs from torsos and slice through skulls but it was not the mimic that Kirien retrieved when he shoved a hand into his coat. Instead, he held a firestone carefully in his palm, this one glowing with an inner light and already emitting a comfortable amount of warmth. A single word sparked on Kirien's lips, crackling with raw power that the jewel reacted to explosively - and the fiery heat contained within the gem burst out of its prison at the terramancer's command to swirl and lance about the area, hissing with violent energies that would threaten to consume the advancing undead in flame. Somehow, whether by luck or some sneaky manipulation of some kind, none of the flames would set alight the grimoire (if even it could be burned), though Kirien's own coat did catch fire briefly until he managed to hurriedly put it out. "I ain't your goddamn dinner!" Kirien growled that at the undead who'd grabbed the book, kicking a boot out at its rotten head.

Redhale's brothers in death flinched slightly as the flames burst forth, most jerking backwards a few steps and some raising their arms to cover their faces. Unfortunately they were not deterred for long and instead of avoiding the flames charged forwards with an ambitious alacrity, howling hairy war cries into the air even as their dry flesh burst into flames. Even though their bodies were mostly dust and bone by now the smell of burning fat and rotten flesh flooded the air, blossoming into new, complex and sickening aromas on the fetid waves of heat. The zombie whose arm had been lost came first, wielding his own severed limb as a flaming club, but before he could descend upon Kirien the book swooped forwards and enveloped the empath within its spreading darkness, banishing the dark eyes of the corpses and the bright flames alike.

Kirien could at least state that he never experienced boredom whenever he met this over-large grimoire (or its owner, even). Amidst crackling, fiery tendrils, and the groaning cries of challenge and bloodlust strong enough to provoke the undead into continuing onwards through the roar of growing flames, the empath inhaled a breath tainted with the pungent stench of long-dead flesh sizzling and choked on it, and was quietly glad once more for his lack of need to breathe. Instead of forcing such malodorous air into his lungs, he simply ceased breathing; and though the scent continued to drift in regardless, it was somewhat easier to bear when not filling him entirely. The undead themselves were still a problem. Kirien was just rising and reaching to draw out Heresy, intent on parrying off the first zombie, when the grimoire enveloped him in black and he froze where he was, half-crouched against the ground still and suddenly feeling as though he were losing his vision again, the sounds of the undead and the fire dulling some. Heresy whispered in his hand, the gemstone-turned-broadsword as mournful as ever and apparently quite comfortable in the darkness. Kirien frowned.

Redhale's memory-world was as stark as ever; perhaps Kirien had found himself placed back on the very plain he had last visited, although no violent waves of turbulence could be seen on the horizon. Despite this the view wasn't completely uninterrupted, for not five metros from Kirien stood one of the recently risen dead. The fire that had engulfed it crackled and fizzed as if made of lightning rather than heat, and instead of bathing the area in a warm glow it waved with a silvery white sheen like the rest of the world. The zombie within those dancing sheets of lights still seemed as solid as ever, but didn't seem bothered with charging Kirien anymore. Instead the lonely creature looked around as if confused before picking a direction and plodding off, ever burning but never slowing.

Kirien realised that, at some point, he had closed his eye. Screwed it shut like he was bracing himself for something painful - but when he cracked a lid open and squinted about, nothing seemed immediately dangerous. The plain he stood upon appeared familiar but he could not quite work out if it was the same spot he'd found himself in before. At least the ground was still this time, he noted, glancing about and spotting the zombie as he did so. "Ah!" The cry was...somewhat higher-pitched than the empath had intended it to be, a little squeaky, and he'd jumped back when the sound left him and thrown his arms up over his face in the process. Peeking carefully out from behind his own limbs, Kirien watched the undead watch him, then turn and shamble off, still flickering with what once was fire, into the nothingness. He blinked, and hesitated, and then stepped after it. One step came and then another, and on his third he attempted to leap for a point far further ahead than he would normally be able to jump to - perhaps he was trying to traverse the world in the same manner as the young, masked Redhale he'd met out here with Jolie, though Kirien doubted it would work.

The zombie at least didn't to move too fast, so when Kirien fell over his own feet with an attempt to skip ahead in space he could at least take comfort in the fact that his ambitious attitude and incapable acrobatics wouldn't cause him to fall too far behind. Curiously enough the empath had appeared to have succeeded somewhat, if only to leave one foot far behind and forcing it to catch up on its own accord, which legs are not particularly well trained in doing. The zombie didn't seem bothered with such skills, trundling on towards whatever goal had gripped his dusty mind.

Down Kirien tumbled with a half-stifled yelp and an irritated hiss from Heresy; but for a moment, he had felt as though he were soaring. Picking himself up, or trying to at least, he glanced back and took note of the fact that one of his legs seemed somewhat disproportionate all of a sudden, and was slowly working its way across the ground to return to its regular length. This queer and rather unsettling sight prompted Kirien's gaze to seek out the zombie and he blinked, once, when he found it. "Aha!" Now ahead of the being where he previously was not, all thoughts of just how -weird- the leg-thing was were forgotten as the empath shoved himself to his feet and hopped back along his path a bit, until his leg was back to normal. He watched the zombie briefly and waited until it had ambled ten or so feet past him, then set off for a second run - this time, bounding forward, he leapt and took both feet off the ground, hoping this might spare him another odd body accident and toss him a good thirty feet in front of the undead in the process.

Redhale's world was not a forgiving one, and once more Kirien would find himself falling head over heels. This time the zombie was found to be walking still ahead of him, making it hard to tell if he had indeed moved at all, even though likely aching bones would testify to the fact that he had. Whatever the red-masked Redhale had been doing to skip across the landscape during Kirien's last visit could not be known by the empath, at least not without understanding the nature of the world first; just as normal physics didn't apply here neither did normal magic, or even normal thoughts. Luckily as awkward as Kirien's journey was it didn't look to last too much longer as in the distance a set of buildings had risen from the plain, a town which seemed just as eager to greet the zombie as the beast was it.

Kirien flailed a little as he fell, hit the shifting plain, and rolled once or twice over before stopping. He could at least take comfort in the fact that both his legs were still their normal length, though he barely noticed this as the disappointment at not being able to traverse the memory-world like Redhale's avatar did so effortlessly began to weight down his unbeating heart. He huffed, shoved up off the ground again, and grudgingly fell into step with the zombie. Casting it sidelong glances and observing the white lightning that shifted and crackled around it, the empath kept close enough to walk alongside the beast but not so close that it could snatch at him if it decided to abruptly go on the offensive once more. For a short time he walked in silence, occasionally breaking into a run to attempt further leaps (to no avail), but soon enough the landscape changed some and he came across a town amidst the nothingness - and, insatiable curiosity guiding him as usual, Kirien strode towards those buildings along with his unlikely companion.

Redhale's little town was not completely foreign to either guest, and though the streets were unusually busy with translucent pedestrians and shadowy shopkeeps the eventual appearance of a great graveyard watched over by an apparently ancient citadel confirmed that this was, at least in some some form, Vailkrin. The zombie which had accompanied Kirien on the journey had been engaged in conversation by a grey blur, and as he listened the already faltering flames finally peeled away from his rotten body. The shade beckoned for the zombie to follow and soon led the lost undead to a group of other flickering figures, who in turn ushered the outsider towards the graveyard. As the group travelled in apparent conversation the zombie began to meld in with them, and over a remarkably short period of time lost his colour to become the silvery-grey of the book-world and its occupants.

Kirien felt the sensation of familiarity shifting in his chest - he had seen this place somewhere before, where it was not wrought in silver-grey flickers of memory and where the sky was forever darkened, occasionally peppered with bland starlight. It took a short time of meandering about the spot where the zombie had become caught in conversation with one of the blurred townspeople for the empath to recall Vailkrin's name and pin it to this ancient replica of it. Pausing in his steps, he turned, realised he was being left behind by the zombie and its new friends, and hurried after the little group as it trundled along through the crowded streets. "All this et I still don't know what that damn book was trying to tell me, Redhale," he muttered as he walked, eye on the zombie which was quickly beginning to blend in with the rest of this book-world. Momentarily unnerved and fearing the same might be happening to him, Kirien looked quickly down at his hands.

Redhale's red-masked avatar had snuck up behind Kirien as he followed the group of specters, or perhaps had simply stepped there from afar, and spoke softly in the empath's ear, "You're right to worry, I've seen stronger minds than yours succumb to this place. He was taken quickly, but he had no will to fight back anyway." He walked around to face Kirien and brought one of his own, grey hands down to slap one of Kirien's own, not unlike a high-five, "You're fine for now, but keep in mind where you are, and don't forget -who- you are."

Kirien, without the advantage of earthsight allowing him to perceive everything within his vicinity and not just before him, admittedly did jump a bit when Redhale's younger self spoke close in his ear. "You!" He'd have spun, but the other was already wandering round to stand in front of him, his mask a bright blot of colour amidst the grey world, and a colour Kirien did not get to view anywhere else but through the sight of others' and in illusionary landscapes. "You-- how do you do that thing you do? I tried but I--" He waved his hands about a bit, apparently still miffed at his failing to master the art of leaping across vast expanses with ease. The topic at hand distracted him again though and he shook his head some, gaze flickering briefly in the direction of the grey group still hovering close by. "What happens if I forget? I become a ghost? Not that it'll happen." There was a certain stubborn finality in that. Kirien had no intention of losing his colours.

Redhale waved one hand nonchalantly, "Don't beat yourself up about it, I just know more about the nature of the world than you do. Really once you know how it's quite easy." Though he neglected to suggest how one might learn, "If you let yourself be taken, you'll become just like the rest of them; lifeless and mindless, like some kind of puppet. All characters in a play. Or most of them, at least." He shrugged off the train of thought, "I don't worry myself with them much. Child likes to talk to them, but I can't imagine why, you'd get just as interesting a conversation out of a painting. You, however, are not the same, and soon enough this place will realize you don't belong. It's never pretty. Why do you insist on returning so?"

Kirien spoke, "So how do you learn to do it?" Of course he would ask that question - insatiable curiosity and the desire to learn practically demanded it. Kirien watched Redhale expectantly for an answer, somehow managing not to squint or grab at him as he tended to do with people in the other world. Did personal space even exist, here? He did not think to test it, caught up in conversation. "...Considering we're all in a book right now, I guess they are characters. Ah-- I'll deal with those consequences if it takes note of me, I guess." Hopefully he would manage to remain under the radar for the moment. "Et I'm here because you--" A pause and he frowned at the masked boy, "--Well, the older, current version of you, es...breaking? Something is...wrong. I figure there're answers here somewhere."

Redhale gestured to Kirien as he rambled on, "You sound like you already know, if only you knew how to think as well. As for us, we're not broken, it's just that this place is… Muddled. Things don't fit together the same, something's forcing them apart. It took a foothold long ago but now it's growing faster. Unfortunately I don't know quite what it is, or how it's doing what it is, or else I'd cut it out." He seemed to be getting a little on edge, and the fingers of one hand flexed as he reached idly for the staff he carried, "All I can do is attempt to fix the damage, and do my best to keep these sheep in their proper place."

Kirien had hoped for something less vague and that showed - but as always, everything in this world was frustratingly perplexing. Affixing Redhale with a blank stare, he then puffed his cheeks in some irritation. "A hint would have been nice. Being able to move like that might make finding your Brother less difficult." Although he did not know what might be gained from visiting the one mentioned last time he met this particular avatar, but he figured it a good enough place to start. "Still, this problem es...it sounds almost like a sickness of a sort, tu know?" His head fell to a tilt and Kirien turned his gaze skywards, his frown a thoughtful one. "Maybe you don't know what it is because it's a part of you, too. An outsider's perspective es useful sometimes."

Redhale shook his head, "I'm not meant to know, that isn't what I'm here for. One of us will know, one of us always does. Apart from Brother, he doesn't do anything except mourn, I can't think of a single reason you'd want to find him." Obviously this youth's patience with Brother was a might bit shorter than it was with the rest of the people here, and he didn't seem too fond of them either, "You can give your opinion all you like, just don't make things worse. I don't know if you'll be tamed like the rest of these folk, but I'm sure I could cut you out all the same.

Kirien's ears gave a curious little waggle at those words. "What is it he mourns? If you know that, at least. Et, before, you mentioned he has a heart where you have eyes and hands and tools. That's why I want to find him." It was, if nothing else, a starting point though the empath was not entirely sure of where he would go from there. Prodding the tip of Heresy's blade against the ground and allowing the weapon to stand eerily straight despite having not broken the earth's surface, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Ah. I'm not here to mess things up - I'm here to help out." Kirien paused, then, sliding his gaze back to the mask, and swayed forward a bit. "What is it -you're- here for? To 'fix damage and keep sheep in line', or something more? I don't remember if you ever told me or not."

Redhale growled in response, "Don't ask stupid questions. I can't -but- be here, it doesn't matter why. If you want to know about Brother then find him yourself, he stays in the mountains; never bothered to move and now he's stuck." A pointing finger directed Kirien's gaze back the way he came, where far in the distance stood the Xalious mountain range, "Good luck crossing the plains though. They're broken and blank and only growing bigger and stranger."

Kirien's frown deepened but he managed to even his expression back out. "Of course it matters why. Everything matters," he said, turning his head so as to peer back in the direction of the town's outskirts and the vast and blank expanse stretching out beyond it. Ghosts of a mountain range could be spied if he squinted a bit against the glare of ever-shifting whiteness; the sight of them had the empath's vulpine ears perking back up again. "Well--" He turned back to Redhale, "If I knew how to jump like you can, I could try to get across. I did it before! Just..." Casting a glance down to his leg, he gave a small shrug, "Not quite right. I...stretched."

Redhale shrugged, "Well, you can't know the things I know, we're not the same. We don't do the same things, and we don't exist in the same way. I'm not sure what kind of jump you're trying to make, I just move the way I know how." It was obvious he knew more than he was letting on, but not much, "But if you keep practicing, maybe, just maybe, you'll fall down a hole and wont have to bother us any more."

Kirien said, "That's true. Considering I did it before hints that it's possible for me to move in a similar way to you somehow. Et I mean your ability to...well, maybe you see it differently but to my eyes, you move further than you naturally should be able to. This being a really messed up world and all, it's actually probably the norm for you." Talking faster than he perhaps normally would be, he seemed to be internally going over various ideas and probabilities as he spoke, and reached up to flip open his breast pocket and tug out a letter during his rambling. It was the final correspondence of a friend but it was not the content Kirien intended to show Redhale - instead, he bent the envelope a little until it formed a small zig-zag shape when seen from the side. Pushing the two sides together squashed part of the envelope downwards and away, but the top of the envelope remained flat - traversable, were it land. "You're like that, essentially. You cut out parts of the world and just jump over them like they're not there. That's what I want to do." The remark regarding falling into holes went ignored.

Redhale nodded, "Right, you fold the paper like I fold the world, only it's easy to fold something you can see, let alone hold in your hand. Try to fold that piece of paper without touching it and perhaps you'll realize why you're more likely to find yourself in a hole."

Kirien, in a moment of childish behaviour, stuck his tongue out. It was only a quick flash, but it was there. "I can move the world, tu know. Just not this one. At least--" Not yet. Despite his predicament, he looked determined to work out the secret to leaping in the same way this version of Redhale did, and cast his gaze back to the paper again. It was obvious enough that he was unable to fold the paper without touching it himself, but he considered that a minor set-back. "So how d'you do it? With your mind?" Attentions drifted out to the plain. "Or do you...imagine yourself to different spots, if that makes sense."

Redhale only chuckled to himself, "Fool. I -am- the paper." Apparently sick of arguing the specifics of travel with this intruder the masked apparition ducked off into one of the moving groups of ghostlike forms, leaving Kirien to fend for himself.

Kirien huffed a breath. "And that makes everything unfair." He almost went to follow the avatar but, even with his colourful mask, Redhale had already faded from view - frowning, the empath turned and, tucking his letter back into its pocket, headed swiftly in the opposite direction. Weaving through crowds upon crowds of grey and flickering ghosts, he left Vailkrin's memory-apparition at a run, speeding out into the flat landscape. Out there he envisioned it; the world shifting underfoot like it would to his command were he home, contorting itself so as to throw him far further ahead than he could normally jump. Right then, Kirien attempted another leap, a determined yell leaving him as he soared forward, a blot of colour on a vast blank canvas.

Kirien would find his leap did bend the world, at least somewhat, but instead of landing where he had "envisioned" the empath was spat out in some starry void, surrounded by floating black masses which might have been trees. Of course, he wasn't lucky enough to land on one of these objects, and was in fact rapidly accelerating downwards. If it weren't for the fact that the page he eventually "fell" out of was facing upwards he might have faced a particularly nasty halt, but as things were the kit shot up into the air from the streets of Vailkrin, appearing out of one of the torn pages that had been caught in the wind.

Kirien did not have wings but he could soar, sometimes. Without wings though, his flights would always come to an end sooner than he hoped, and now he found himself tumbling into a shadowed abyss dotted with smatterings of stars and the silhouettes of possible trees, the white plain having vanished entirely. He extended an arm in attempt to catch hold of something -- anything -- but did not quite manage it, and the illusionary world once more fell away from him into blackness. Vision blinked out and there was a gut-wrenching twist, as though he were turned in mid air, thrust forward instead of falling-- and then he shot back into his own world, startling a couple of men chatting under the pale light of a nearby street lamp. Quickly augmenting his earthsight allowed Kirien to see how he'd flown up out of one of the grimoire's ragged pages; caught up in this, he fell again to hit the cobbles, and all the breath was knocked out of him.

...At least the zombies weren't here.