RP:Rune-Lit

Part of the To Haunt A Hero Arc

Summary: It has been one night since Lionel's battle against Jarith and two since he has seen Khitti. When the vampiress appears, she has sharp words of accusation for him, fueled by her intense mistrust. What follows, however, is an unexpected understanding between them -- and a pain shared deeply.

Xalious' Mage Library

Lionel is thumbing through a tome so old that no amount of magic can keep its pages from appearing frayed, beaten, and in some cases ruined. Its thick cover is a cedar overlay laced with unnatural frost just chill enough to warrant the fine leather gloves he wears over his hands; it should perhaps be noted that his left ringfinger has been fitted with a kind of elongated bronze thimble. His brow is furrowed and he’s sifting through text at an almost alarming rate; either he is searching for some key term or he’s an absurdly fast reader. Glyphs of jade and topaz line the shelves and tables surrounding him. It is late and only a few currently grace this library’s halls – in the distance an avian has spread her wings comfortably across a luxurious seat, whilst farther toward the door a pair of magically-inclined elves is whispering some argument and pointing anxiously at passages of an old account of Xalious‘ history. For Lionel’s part, the curious tome he holds is written in a language as ancient as the age of Kaizer and Solaris, but if a passerby should happen to be fluent in the ancestral tongues, they will note that it contains within it hundreds of analyses of demonic spells, Dark Immortal chaos, and the ways with which the heroes of eons past were able to identify them and destroy them.

Khitti strolled through the doors as they parted for her, dark optics taking in the area. Before she managed to set sights on the fallen hero, however, she caught his smell. A frown graced her features, and she found him with those strange tomes. The vampiress was by no means old enough to read such text, but things of that nature had been inquired upon before in her quest to find answers about her magic. It hadn't been what she needed, and naturally, it was passed over and forgotten, just as they had been before Lionel's return. Hidden beneath the hood of her duster, booted feet finally bring her to the warrior's side. There's a moment of silence as he continues his searching, the lack of a finger noted, and his studying carefully observed before she finally opens her mouth to speak, "Curiouser and curiouser zhings become. First zhe ghouls, zhen I find you in zhe graveyard, and now here you are reading books on ill magic. I don't quite get you or your aim, but I'm going to find it out." Her voice was stern, almost threatening.

Lionel has noted Khitti’s arrival well before she speaks, keen war-trained ears perking at even the lightest of motions. It’s a mixed blessing, to be sure. At her tone he visibly rolls his deep blue eyes, but still he carries on reading, tracing a particular passage with his right thumb as his gaze narrows with apparent interest. “In the past I’ve been told by friends whose opinions I’ve generally trusted that it’s considered poor form to ask a lady her age,” he starts, speaking whilst researching with a voice that seems just as likely to be discussing time or weather or hors d'oeuvres. “Still, I can’t help wondering with you, given the whole vampiric get-up.” He seems to have located a relevant text; he taps it a few times and folds the tip of the page for further consideration. “I wonder at your age because I wonder at how much death you’ve seen. How many innocent lives have you watched end? How many loved ones have had their fated final breaths?” He flips a page. “And how much do you know about beloved Lithrydel – otherwise known as Hollow?” He continues reading. “Yes, go right on ahead, love, test me and prod me and figure out my proverbial heel. It’s a damned fool’s errand, I’ll warn you now – my ‘aim’ is the preservation of this fragile shaking peace we exist within.” He snaps the book shut loudly and reveals its cover to the woman. “We are at war. We are always at war. Dark forces hellbent on the eradication of this realm and every other are stalking us, hating us. I have been fighting these enemies of decency half my life. Go on, then, find my aim.” A challenge. “The book is ill magic. Moreover, it’s how to fight ill magic. That’s what I do, vampiress. I fight.”

Khitti 's features take a somber turn as he speaks of loved ones dying and innocents slaughtered. It wasn't the attitude that came with it that phased her, but the memories. She actually looked visibly pained. When he's finished with his speech, the dark ranger shifts her attention to the floor, the frown she held taking on a note of sadness. "I have seen far more death zhat someone my age should be forced to see." A brief sideglance is cast at him as she takes a seat without asking at his table, across from him. "I am eight and twenty years and I've not been a vampire for very long. A few months at most. Lithrydel, or Hollow as you call it, is not my home." She looks like she might say more, but instead her lips purse shut and that frown resumes, her line of sight settling on him again.

Lionel frowns as well, now, and it may be the first time she’s seen him do so. Or at least the first time it’s been earnest and in response to touchy subjects rather than bloodthirsty monsters descending upon them. He looks at Khitti as if seeing her for the first time and for once it isn’t quick either. It’s meaningful, as though he is gauging her on multiple levels for the two or three seconds their eyes meet. He is the one to break contact; he leans back into his chair and puts an elbow to the table, a countenance of consideration upon him. “Nor mine.” He sounds so much more thoughtful and so much less evasive here in this library than the woman has heard before. “I come from a lovely little country called Catal. It’s ashes now. I arrived here fourteen years ago and I fought evil for six. That’s what I did. That’s all I really know how to do. And while I was busy fighting, people I loved, well, they kept dying, because do you want to know the long and short of it? The real bastard-in-the-rum?” He looks at her again, serious and clenching. “Slaying villains? Aye, I can do that. Saving the people who matter most?” He balls his wounded hand into his fist. “I’m bollocks at that. I hope you’re better than I am.” The words probably carry multiple meanings.

Khitti tilts her head as she listens, her line of sight falling away as his does. Pulling her hood off, the worn and weakened face of the vampiress. She hadn't slept, that much was true, and if it could actually affect her, she'd likely be in some crazed, drunken state. Matters were a little easier now that Hildegarde had accepted her into their war party, but there was still the matter of her magic. "Zhen you and I have something in common: Dhavislavv, my home, is also gone. Ashes as vell and of my own doing." If he hadn't told her his own story, there'd be no way in hell she'd share anything with him. "My twin sister and I, and zhe rest of zhe children of zhe town vere taken by necromancers in zhe middle of zhe night. Humans like you are and I vas. People. You're suppose to be able to trust people. But, you can't." Crimson brows knit as she thinks on it, "Zheir ghouls and zheir death knights slaughtered the city and returned as zhe undead. Myself and two others got off lucky." That's putting it lightly. "My sister and zhe rest, not so much."

Lionel considers commenting that if Khitti had a hand in the destruction of her realm then the two of them have far more in common than she even knows. He stares idly down upon the table as he dwells, but ultimately he can’t bring himself to speak so much about his own mistakes. The pain is too fresh. As he thinks, his face is visibly stressed, his arms tightened and his heart heavy. He does his best to snap out of this daze with all the whimsy that he’s mustered in previous conversations, but he fails, and it clearly takes a moment for the Catalian to recompose. “That kind of pain never fades. I know it doesn’t. The pain of losing trust. Of losing the people you hold dear. The pain of the worst that can befall us, searing us.” He pauses. It is obvious in his manner of speech, the stresses and discomfort, that he is more than likely basing this not on philosophy but on tangible experiences of his own. “You told me to live in the present. To let my current actions define me. That was the only thing anyone has said to me in years that has fazed me.” The weight of that statement is no doubt immense, but it is truer than Khitti may well ever know. “Your pain won’t fade, and more the fool to whoever tells you otherwise. But if you can fill your days with things that matter to you here and now, a cause you believe in and reason enough to believe it, then you’ll be taking your own advice. And you should know that I plan to do so the same.” His lips tug into a mild smile. Awkward, perhaps, given how fiery he’d been just moments prior, but then, that’s Lionel.

Khitti wasn't much different than Lionel when it came to sudden changes of emotion. As it seemed like something she said finally registered as good advice for someone, she's taken somewhat aback. The surprise lingers, her thoughts dwelling on the words she had spoken to him before. "It is zhe only vay to survive." She didn't mention the fact that things would be just as hard for her as it was him. As he was, in ways, dubbed a monster for the fall of his home, so too was she judged by someone of this land for her actions. "Zhis is vhy I have joined Hildegarde and her cause. I don't zhink I bear to see it happen to someone else. Zhe circumstances may be different, but as you said, it is var nevertheless." Her thoughts regarding Lionel were starting to change, for the better, albeit very slowly.

Lionel clears his throat and stretches, all rather dramatically. He may have already reached the zenith of his current ability to allow his true self to show so unwaveringly. “When I came here, I was fifteen years old,” he says, slowly, methodically. “I practically washed up ashore. I had a cheap little wooden sword, not that monstrosity you’ve seen me with. There are paintings – actual paintings by real – “ he pauses and breaks up a bit “ – real bona fide artists, and scrolls all over some of these books. Me and that damned sword. But when I got here, it was just this… this… it was almost a stick. I saw these soldiers, right? And they were doing something… something bad. I can’t even remember what it was. It was bad. So I wailed at them, and I swung that stick, and they just cleaved it and went for my head. A man saved me. A good man. Later that evening I learned that Lithrydel had been conquered by the Empire of Vyrick. It ruled here for a time – the whole realm, can you imagine?” He sounds almost mystified. “Every night they executed someone who had dared oppose them. They were cruel. Despots. It reminded me so much of what had come upon Catal. Do you know what I mean? So I… me, fifteen, all skin and bones, I tried to run up to that execution block and throw myself at Vyrick himself. Another man saved me. Another good man. And I kept flinging myself. Just… flinging.” He closes his eyes. “Well, long story short, that’s all I did. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Came to a point, I had Hellfire, and I wasn’t so skinny anymore, and I started winning. And along the way I came to discover that the Dark Immortals – Arrecation and Elazul and Khasad – had always been Lithrydel’s greatest nemesis. That’s the evil, the unending war. And so… I have been flinging. And flinging. And flinging some more. And still a bit of them remains. The war never ends. And all I know how to do is fling.” He puts a hand to his chest. “Vyrick and Elazul and Xaden and Immanuel and Lyra and Khasad and Movdon and Corruption and the list goes on and on and on. All I want is what you want. The names don’t matter. I just don’t want to see it happen to someone else.” He repeats her words to close his speech. He repeats them and he sighs. “That’s my aim.”

Khitti :: The names that were spoken to her went in one ear and out the other for now. She had heard a few of them before because of him, and even a few less than that because of the tomes she studied, but she never put much stock into them. His short story isn't returned with one of her own, because unlike him, she didn't have the friends that he did. Even right now, at this point, she could count the people she trusted on one hand. But, as he finishes his speech, she offers a slight nod, the vampiress lost in her own somber memories. "I see. Zhen, please keep it zhat vay." This time, it wasn't a threat, just perhaps more good advice. She looked too tired to start any sort of fight with him. Sliding from her stolen chair, her attention no longer rests on him, the floor instead calling to her dark line of sight, "I suppose I should leave you to your research zhen, if you vish."

Lionel seems lost in thought whilst Khitti moves away, his gaze fixated upon some far-off bookshelf. His own words have had enough impact on him that the fallen hero has once more resumed his most forlorn personification, the one that rears its woebegone visage when memories return to the forefront. Beside that bookshelf, in his broken mind’s eye, there is a woman – beautiful as he will always remember her. As is unfortunately the case with Lionel when he allows himself to be open, his psychologically-induced visions of the people he failed to save now resurface. First and foremost will ever be Alexia. Dead ten years but never closer. “Hm, righto,” he mutters, but by the end of that third syllable, he’s faking his best attempt at chipper and cordial and cracking open his chosen book. He offers the woman something not unlike a cheery nod, but his eyes don’t lie half as well as the rest of him. “Off you go, then.” Something stirs deep within the recesses of his heart as he wishes her off, but then his heart is aching, some vivid unyielding pain, that always-present pain that thwarts him, that pain of remembering the too-high price of any semblance of companionship. And besides, this one may be lovely, but she’s not going to truly trust him anytime soon, and all the better for it. Lionel will surely never truly trust himself. “Au revoir. Goodnight.” He leans into his tome to hide anything else he may be feeling.

Khitti 's own feelings were similar, though they were for her sister alone. Both of their emotions clung to the air like a mist of dew in the early morning. His chipper, cheerful attempt was seen through ever so clearly for what it truly was, as she was ever in the same state of mind. But what's this? Despite her earlier dislike for him, she steps forward and rests a hand on his shoulder, as if to comfort him. It wasn't entirely like her to do so, as speaking with people in general was so difficult. But, a sort of kindredship is felt, now that she knows his past, even if vaguely. "Goodnight, Lionel." Perhaps next time she'd finish her own story, but it was unlikely. It was painful to hear, but even moreso to speak of. Without another word, she heads off towards the exit, and then Vailkrin, the hood of her duster pulled up again over her crimson locks, shielding her face from view as her emotions begin to takeover again. It was to be another sleepless night for her.

Lionel watches her as she leaves. When she’s gone, he weeps.