RP:The Khat Is Back In Town
Part of the The Day I Tried To Live Arc
Summary: ♪Guess who just got back today? That wild-eyed redhead that’d been away...♪
Beneath the Cenril-Kelay Bridge, Cenril
Khitti plunged her fist into the flesh of the LydiaAmarrah amalgamation not long after she let go of the satchel, and with it everyone up above on the bridge that she loved dearly. She let go, and latched onto the monster’s heart, and started that flame that would end them both.
She didn’t even know if she’d reach the bottom before then or not.
As the flames finally began to crawl up her arm, Khitti’s screams would surface again. Sure, the fire burned her; that was its job, that’s what she wanted from it. There were no screams from the pain for that was something she’d gotten used to, whether from her own fire or that holy light that had burned her once before.
No, Khitti’s screams were born from those emotions of hers that was always so hard for her to keep in check.
Fear for Lydia. Her poor sister didn’t stand a chance against the combined magical might of Amarrah’s own soul and Facilier’s will. Khitti had doomed her to this and now she didn’t know what had become of her sister’s spirit because of it.
Sadness for Meri. Khitti and the artist had gotten so close as of late, between helping the Warrior’s Guild and getting the ingredients to her precious cure. She’d come to love that psion just as fiercely as she had her own sister--perhaps even moreso--and she’d never had the chance or the nerve to properly tell her.
Guilt for Lionel. She’d made him a silent promise the night he asked her to be his aide-de-camp: to always stand by him no matter what, to protect him and love him as the brother she wished she’d always had. But, now that won’t happen. Now she’s just another face in that ocean of souls he was forever drowning in.
And for Brand, there was absolute rage. The shadowfire only burned hotter as she thought of the man she loved. Her heart was in pieces, for he was truly the one that kept it glued together. This was the second time he’d lost the woman he loved, and she thanked the gods that he hadn’t had to use his own fire on her like he did with Viera.
The thoughts of Brand, of the recent and distant past, finally provoked her tears to flow. Even in the beginning, she still loved him, even if that love began with only Dominic. Dominic was still a part of him, just as he was now, though he no longer had a physical form. It was always him, always Brand. Her heart had always cried out for him, despite their initial, tentative friendship. It was always him. He’d been meant for her and she for him and now everything was to end so suddenly.
Khitti wept because she had no more time with him. She wept because she wasted the time she had searching for a cure. She grieved for his own heart, broken again by fate’s horrid will. She wondered, as she fell and as she burned, if he felt the way she did now. It had only been moments, but gods she missed him. She clung to the memory of that mischievous smirk of his that always lit up the darkness in her soul. She wanted so badly for this to be a dream, for him to wake her from this nightmare once more and hold her in his warm embrace.
But, this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a nightmare brought on by the horrors of the Plane of Shadow.
This was reality.
And she was dying.
She was dying and she’d never see any of them again.
Finally, her magic was gone. The amalgamation of Lydia and Amarrah had long since turned to ash, but Khitti remained. She remained, but she was still dying.
Even if she did not die from her wounds, or even the fall itself, she would still die.
It’s not often that someone dies of a broken heart, but it was surely to be the way for Khatja Elysse von Schreier. Just as she had settled on this, prepared herself for the inevitable… she took a breath. An actual breath; not something done as she had as a vampire, to just go through the motions and make herself seem alive.
Her lungs suddenly had started to work. And then they burned.
The bottom was rapidly approaching, and with it, all the fires and smoke that came with the volcanic activity that bubbled beneath the surface’s crust, overflowing through the cracks in the earth.
Just before she came crashing down into the fire, a light surrounded her--Arkhen’s light--and her body burned. The holy magic seared away the virus that was her vampirism; burned it away, and with it, her body as well.
The Void
The light grew brighter and brighter until there was nothing more that she could see… and then she was left in darkness. Khitti could not move, nor could she see or speak--but, she could hear. Like an echo in time, she could hear Brand thank Meri and Lionel for their help before heading on to wherever his tired, aching feet would take him in his grief. She heard Meri, sobbing in the forest before she returned home to Larket. She heard all things, because she was all things. Khitti had become one with the universe as one does when they die and so she could hear all.
These people, the ones that she once knew, she had no memory of them now. Who were they to her? More and more they faded from her mind until they were naught but background static in a world full of noise.
One voice stuck out, though. One voice, that had been like her own, and yet, it wasn’t hers.
“What did I tell you about dying? I told you, it’s not your time yet. You have things to do still,” said Lydia.
“Things to do? But, I’m fine just as I am. I don’t want to leave,” Khitti thought to herself.
“Give it time, you’ll get bored. You’ve always been that way. Can never sit still to save your life.”
It was a joke. One that Khitti didn’t laugh at because it didn’t really occur to her that she should.
“Who are you?” Khitti struggled to remember. There was nothing in her head. It was like deja vu, but with no hope of recalling anything at all.
“No one of importance anymore. Now I want you to listen to me very carefully. I need you to do one very important thing for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Live.”
There were flashes of strange, unknown people suddenly: a woman covered in tattoos, a man with a fiery sword, and another man with the most beautiful emerald stare she’d ever seen. They were lost in a sea of others, but these stuck out the most. Soon, they faded too into the darkness and Khitti was left to wonder what they meant, who they were, and just how exactly she was supposed to live.
All at once, even these thoughts too were washed away, and Khitti was drawing in breath once more.
Cenrili Ocean, Not Far From Shore, Two Weeks After The Fall From The Bridge
She drew in breath… but also water. Salt water. She was drowning. Just how much water had she drank in before she’d come to? Where was she? Why was she in the ocean?
Who was she…?
Dark olive-green eyes snapped open and were soon met with the sting that the salt water brought with it. Squinting, she swam as quickly as she could, which was, unfortunately, not very much at all. Khitti struggled in vain to get her way to the top. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. But, her newly human body just couldn’t take it. Soon Khitti stopped swimming. Soon she was unconscious. Soon she was to die again, the water quickly filling her lungs.
Everything began to seem for naught again, until a hand grasped Khitti’s left arm. A mermaid--THE mermaid--examined first Khitti, “YOU!”, noting that she was no longer immortal, and then eyed Khitti’s arm. Her likeness was spied, the tattoo that Meri had given her still there: the mermaid with purple hair, an orange tailfin, and that seashell bracelet Khitti coveted above all other trinkets. The mermaid, known to the rest of her seaborn tribe as Nemona, stared at the artwork in confusion. Khitti had tried to kill her, why in the name of Selene would she stain her own skin with the mermaid’s likeness? After everything that had happened in the waters near Rynvale?
The mermaid didn’t have time to dwell on it. Khitti was surely fading fast and she was now clearly human. Nemona grabbed the redhead’s chin, pulling their faces close as the mermaid pressed their lips together, breathing life into the former vampiress. A mermaid’s kiss was a rare thing indeed; many a sailor craved it during their final moments beneath the sea’s waves but never received it. And here Khitti was, being given it freely, by the one she had once called her enemy.
The water almost immediately cleared from Khitti’s lungs, precious oxygen replacing it, allowing Khitti to draw in a deep breath despite being underwater, and coughing up whatever water was left. Still dazed from the near death experience--just another on her long list--green eyes open to find herself face to face with the mermaid, but Nemona’s met with no recognition whatsoever and confusion in its place. Khitti had no memory of the purple-haired beauty and would promptly lose consciousness again.
Nemona let out a ‘hrmph’ at Khitti as the human passes out again. There’s another few moments of consideration before the mermaid latched onto Khitti’s arm again, dragging her to the surface. Where were those two blondes she was with? Why was she out here all alone? And how the hell did she get to be human again? Maybe she made a deal with a sea witch, Nemona decided.
With caution, the mermaid peeked her head out of the water, eyeing the beach carefully for anyone that might be lingering about. A couple was walking by, holding hands, but they didn’t stay for long, instead moving on to the docks where merchants were selling their wares. Nemona tugged Khitti along, past the waves that calmly ebbed and flowed, and onto the beach itself.
Sandy Beach, Cenril
The mermaid brought Khitti far enough up the sand that she wouldn’t get pulled back in by the tide, but still not quite so far that Nemona couldn’t get back. Khitti’s red hair, having grown quite long again before she died for she did not have the time cut it daily amidst all the other chaos that had gone on, lay plastered against her face, neck, and chest like wine-colored seaweed, the woman breathing but still out cold. Laying in a somewhat curled up position, the mermaid stared at the redhead, still unsure of what to make of her just yet. “How did you even do it? -I- tried going to a sea witch, but the things she wanted were unthinkable.” Nemona looked down at the scars she had from Khitti; the new scales had grown in already, but there were obvious signs of damage from before. And then, realization struck her, “You -did- do it, didn’t you? And that’s how you ended up here… near me.” One could only wonder what might happen had Khitti not heeded Brand and had sent Nemona to the grave like her sisters.
Gingerly, Nemona leaned over Khitti, carefully peeling the hair off the human’s face as she continued to peer down at her, “I should kill you, you know, after what you did. After what all of you did. But… I think I understand.” Khitti’s arm is picked up again, the details studied more closely in the light, first her own image and then the star beneath it, then examined the fiery star on the opposite wrist. “Why did you do it?” The mermaid let Khitti’s right arm flop onto the ground, then sighed, watching her again, “It was him, wasn’t it?” Nemona frowned deeply; she’d seen the way Khitti looked at Brand when he convinced the then-vampiress to not kill her. “I hope he finds you, then… or else none of this would matter. You don’t even know if he’s still here. You don’t even know if he still cares. What if he doesn’t love you like you thought he did? Do you even remember? Do you know anything at all?” The mermaid got rather impatient all of a sudden, flustered by some memories of her own long since past. It prompted her to give Khitti quite the slap on the cheek, “Never fall in love with humans! It never ends well. Never!” But, she didn’t know Khitti, and therefore, she couldn’t judge. Much.
The slap was enough to rouse Khitti somewhat, the redhaired human groaning loudly, “But, I don’t want to wake up yet. Can’t I have like fifteen more minutes, please?” Nemona blinked as Khitti rolled to her side, her hands under her head like a pillow. The accent, while still there, seemed to not be as prominent anymore, for whatever reason. Maybe whatever magicks had been used on her affected more than just her memories. Now that Nemona knew Khitti would be alright, she smirked, then shook her head. “Go back to sleep. I’m sure someone will find you soon.”
The mermaid shifted her gaze towards the docks, watching for anyone else. A few Cenrili guards were making their way to the shore, likely to keep an eye out for seaborn, and Nemona knew it was time to go. “I hope this was all worth it.” She leaned over, kissed Khitti’s forehead, then called over to the guards, “Help! Help! Someone’s hurt over here! Help!” The guards would come running, and Nemona would take off into the ocean, leaving the human behind.
Khitti was alive. Her cure had worked. Now if only everyone else knew… and if only she could remember everyone else.