RP:Times Like These

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc

This is a Warrior's Guild RP.

Summary: Lionel returns to the Tranquility with new information that could possibly help their side in the war against Kahran.

The Tranquility, Cenril Wharf

It’s another early morning at the Cenril wharf, and the scene is as serene as ever. One might even call it a scene of... Tranquility. The famed ship will have departed for Chartsend in just a few hours, actually, but as of right now most folks are getting their last winks while they can. Even Onyx is nowhere to be found. There’s a single sentry up in the crow’s nest, a fellow shivering in the cold with too much beard and not enough blanket. Below, pelicans are gliding low over the faint waves, hunting for breakfast. Once successful, they stop on nearby posts and swallow their catch whole. As for the Tranquility’s topdeck, it appears unoccupied, save for a flock of sleeping seagulls lining the handrails. One of these, a large puffy creature with a curious red mark on its breast, sleeps somewhat separated from the rest. Unfortunately for the bird, this will prove to be its demise.

From out of the air springs a burlap sack, engulfing the gull in an instant night. It squawks and flaps mightily; it’s not enough to break free, only enough to disturb the rest of the birds from their slumber. They take off all as one, leaving the lone seagull to its fate. And it is a nasty fate indeed, for none other than Captain Brand himself emerges smirking from nothingness behind, stringing the bag shut and handing it off to his newly visible first mate. “That’ll teach you to take your dump on people’s heads, you feathery frakkin’ nuisance. Think there’s enough meat there to make a meal of?” Onyx nods solemnly to his captain, but says nothing. The bag is still creating quite the commotion as the undead exits for the galley.

No sooner did Onyx get to the galley did Khitti come upstairs to give that Catalian a piece of her mind, “Did you just seriously send Onyx down there, to me, with a motherfrakking seagull?!” There’s a slight lean to the right in her stance as she places her hands on her hips and gives Brand that look she usually gives him when she’s quite exasperated. “I am not eating seagull, Brand. They’re frakking sky rats. Do you know how much garbage those things could’ve eaten?! They’re disgusting. I think I’d rather eat actual rats.” She raises an index finger before he can say anything, “Do -not- get me actual rats or you’ll never see another slice of cheesecake again.” She gave him a smirk, to show him that she wasn’t -really- mad at him, just a little frustrated. Because she’s not cooking a sky rat.

In another life, a previous life, a life that’s come back with a vengeance, Lionel ate rat and seagull alike. He couldn’t be choosy, and nor could the men and women under his command. The gulls could have lived in sewers and the rats could have taken to the sky; it made no difference. In those bygone days, Lionel tapped the wellspring of survival knowledge that was Renai while in the field. Renai would dig open her lore book, boring him with it -- a love of books is a recent trait of Lionel’s, after all -- and Lionel would interrupt her, demanding to know how the various animals in the Lithrydelian wilds tasted. It was all a big geek culture reference; in a parallel reality, a reality in which we as writers write, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was still just a couple of years old, and Lionel’s writer loved it something fierce. But it quickly and effortlessly established the rigors of war in less grimdark manner than most everything else Lionel’s writer ever typed. It was in these melancholy moments in that other life, that previous life, that seagulls crossed the mind of Catal’s Last Prince, the Hero of Hellfire, the Catalian of the Great Empty. They crossed his mind in hunger. You can take the rat out of the sky, but you can’t take the war veteran out of the kitchen, as they say, because when Lionel O’Connor emerges onto the docks at first light, the arrow from his bow cracks through the air and skids across the feathers of a fat gull with too little spring in its soar. Fortunately for the gull and unfortunately for its attacker, Lionel has never actually been very good at archery, and a few lost feathers is a small price to say to live another day. The gull doesn’t seem to think so, being that it’s a gull, and it squawks most tempestuously and takes off into the clouds. But its skinnier companion -- still fatter by half than those Chartsend peckers -- is not so lucky. For hell hath no fury like a Hellfire scorned. Lionel’s fabled blade gleams incarnadine, which is your fifty-cent word for ‘mean red’, and a small but ample pillar of flame arcs conically across the expanse before smacking into the poor thing wholesale. “Fried chicken,” Lionel mutters coldly, his azure eyes gleaming with murderous intent.

Lionel sits at the table in the Tranquility’s galley, bruised with fresh holes in his button-up shirt, eating his gull ravenously.

Brand is the very picture of sincerity all the way through the halls and down the stairs to the galley. “I mean, you -are- a Khat. I thought rats were your natural prey? Figured maybe you’d acquired a taste for the sky rats since you spent some time in the heavens’n all.” He’s going for nauseatingly cheesy. It’ll cover up the taste of the garbage.

Once within the galley, the stench of charred bird overwhelms. Lionel has his prize and tears eagerly into it, but the source of the stench isn’t that -- it’s the blackened husk Onyx presents on flowered china to the Captain. “Khitti refused to make use of your catch. I have therefore cooked it to the best of my abilities.” Upon closer inspection, Onyx has failed to rid the bird of its plumage or, indeed, do any sort of prep work at all. Behind them, the oven is smoking in discontent. A half-melted seagull leg is stuck to the grate.

Khitti narrowed her eyes at Brand and prodded him rather hard in the ribs, “Yeah. Like I haven’t heard a million feline jokes in my lifetime. That won’t save you from a cheesecake-less fate, you jerk.” With a huff, she’d continue on to the galley.

When she got there, however, the Khat wouldn’t let out a ‘mowrowr’ like normal cats in greeting to Lionel, but instead a shriek (that thankfully wasn’t loud enough for all of Cenril to hear her). “What the hell have you done to my kitchen?!” And then there were tears. Because her kitchen’s a total mess and she hadn’t even been able to start breakfast yet. The smell was awful and starting to turn her stomach. “What is wrong with you people?” Instead of dealing with the obvious problem of prying that seagull leg from the grate and scrubbing the inside of the oven for the next several hours, Khitti finds the nearest chair and slumps down into it, trying to ignore the bile that was climbing her esophagus--that morning sickness wasn’t over apparently.

Lionel has a mouthful of gull. “What? I cooked this myself.” What that has to do with anything, the world may never know. “I actually do need to talk to you. Well, you and Brand.” He nods to the captain. “Maybe let’s bring Sundance, too.” He seems talkative today. More talkative than he was the last time he was here, that’s for sure. It’s possible he’s already spoken more words than he did earlier this week, but it’s technically cheating to say so considering how much profanity he’d leveled against that fat escapee gull on his way in. The bruises on his face and the holes on his shirt and the awkward lilt in his voice all work in tandem to betray any notions that he’s back to his old self, but whatever fresh ‘self’ he’s discovered, it’s evidently hungry. “Sundance,” Lionel mumbles between chews at not at all a high enough tone to summon the dwarf. “Sundance, where are you? Somebody come clean this kitchen; it’s a mess.” He walks straight past Onyx in search of the dwarf. Given the early hour, there’s no reason Lionel should expect to find him anywhere other than his bunk, but fate’s on his side because Sundance nearly bowls him over turning a corner at the galley’s edge. “Blimey, what is that fantastic smell?” Sundance sniffs the air like a saurian raptor, taps his bare foot to the plank, and sits down, helping himself to the remainder of Lionel’s breakfast. Lionel can only watch in horror, take a seat beside Khitti, and slowly transform his battered face into her own shade of horror and contempt.

Brand is torn between not wanting to discourage his first mate and a need to console Lionel and his poor pregnant wife. “Onyx. That’s, er. That’s great. I’ve just decided I’m not hungry, though. You should definitely carve that up and see if any of the other crew wants a bite, though.” He plucks a few of the burnt feather remains off just as Onyx passes underneath his arm and descends to the crew quarters.

With Onyx satisfied, Brand turns his attentions to the remaining scene. Sundance digs in merrily. The others look distraught. The leg still smokes. “A bit of high pressure water magic will scrub that oven out in a jiffy, no worries. Lionel, anything else I can getcha? We’ve got fruit, truffles, could heat up some fish…?” Brand rustles around in the icebox and ends up throwing a fish into a pan for himself. Turning once again back to the group, he notes Khitti looks positively green. Welp, better warm the kettle, then. “And some ginger peach tea for the peach’s mornin’ sickness. Guess that wasn’t as gone as you thought, eh? Should’ve warned you, Onyx tried to cook while you were gone and it didn’t--” Brand’s been heating the kettle with his fire magic when abruptly he cuts himself off and it clatters at his feet, splashing sizzling water onto his boots. His eyes are wide and his movements slow as he sweeps the kettle back up off the ground and goes to refill it, making like he’d only had a moment of clumsiness and nothing more. “Er, right. Havin’ a solid grip would help. Anyway, yeah, Onyx can’t cook to save their life, har har.” As for Brand’s real reason for dropping the kettle? He’d just realized he’d inadvertently called Khitti his wife, even if only in his head. His turn to ask himself: who was he, really, and what had he done with the old Brand?

Khitti cringed as Sundance tore into the burned bird carcass and nearly threw up. “Definitely… not,” she managed to say to Brand in between swallowing back that aforementioned bile. As Brand’s fish started to cook, that only added to the nausea and the redhead barely made it to the washbasin nearby to empty the lack of contents of her stomach into it. Welp, this day was starting off nicely. “Maybe being a vampire wasn’t so bad.” She’s kidding, of course. Frak that noise. She’d eventually make it back to her seat and promptly laid her the side of her head down on the wooden table, taking comfort in the fact that it was a little cool to the touch, “What do you need to talk to us about, Lionel?” Please say all of the things because she needs to be distracted from the maelstrom that was still churning in her stomach.

Lionel waves his hand. “I’m good, thanks.” Sundance stole his morning meal and Khitti’s morning sickness stole the rest of his morning appetite. Dread seeps across Lionel like sweat and he brings a hand to the back of his neck to pat the hairs that have risen up. Battle fear is one thing. But fear of speech? That seems even worse right now. “Khitti, you and I met because I returned to Lithrydel believing the Immortals still had soldiers willing to finish the job despite their masters’ deaths. No sooner had we met than those demons started sprouting up like weeds. I came back because I knew firsthand how close this land came to its end from these monsters. I’m not talking… bugs or dinosaurs or Macon or even Facilier. I’m talking about the end. The real end. Something somehow worse than hordes of flesh-eating creatures and cities turned to darkness. It’s difficult to imagine just how evil these people are unless you’ve seen it. And I knew going into this mission most folks would not have seen it. They wouldn’t understand. But I had to try.” Sundance finishes his pilfered meal noisily, pushes his plate across the table, folds his arms over his chest and listens. “I saw Catal burning, Prince.” Sundance’s voice booms. “Ye don’t have to be tellin’ me what they can do.”

Lionel shakes his head, agitated. “No, I know. I know. And I know the massacre at the Turnt has given plenty of other people a taste of it, too. That’s not really… what I’m trying to say is, I came here with a purpose. But I’m not sure I did such a good job of it. For one thing, after seeing their power, I never truly believed the Immortals’ armies could be fully destroyed. I lived, day-to-day, telling myself I was coming back because someone was out there, rebuilding them. Something survived. But beating them? Really beating them?” He shakes his head. “I think I came here to die.” Sundance snorts. “Aye, I think anyone who looked at ye back then would have known it so.”

Brand , while Lionel speaks his mind, fixes Khitti’s tea up without further incident. It’s placed before her, steaming a pleasant aroma that doesn’t do nearly enough to mask the lingering blackened-seagull smell. Fish is next on the list, and before long that’s done, too. “Dyin’ isn’t exactly a lofty aspiration. Any ol’ fellow can do that.” Brand settles in at the table, one arm curled around his plate -- just in case Sundance gets any more breakfast-pilfering ideas. “Are you askin’ for a pep talk? I give a great pep talk.” He thinks so, anyway.

Khitti gratefully accepts the tea, with a quiet word of thanks to the older blonde. She doesn’t quite drink it yet, but she does bring it to her nose, inhaling the peach and ginger scent, and finally let out an exhale of relief. It -didn’t- cover up the smell of charred sky rat, but it certainly helped. A drink was taken, cautiously so as not to burn her tongue, before she responded to Lionel at length, “I don’t know exactly what you want from me either. You act as if I’ve never seen or read about evil like this before. You realize that sort of thing is all I’ve known for a long time, right? I mean, you should know this. Facilier and Amarrah and the necromancers and the mind flayers, they’re all the same, Lionel. It’s all evil and I’m pretty damned accustomed to it. Hell, I lived in Vailkrin.” The redhead shrugged and sipped her tea again, “You want me to be scared, to cower in fear, and let them drag me down, but I’m not gonna do it. I’ve done something you haven’t--I’ve died. I’ve died and I’ve come back and I have a second chance. Don’t come here asking me to wallow in the darkness anymore because I’ve -seen- the darkness and I’m done with it. I’m not saying I’m not going to fight with you for everything I’ve got, but I’m not following you down that path of fear. I have things I want to do and Kahran’s not gonna stop me from doing a single one of them. I’ve already seen what’s at the end of the world and I’m not interested. Not yet.” There was a certain sternness to her tone, a strange sort of mix of rebelliousness and faith--faith that they’d actually get through this in one piece regardless of what Lionel or anyone else thought.

Lionel is standing and he’s not sure how that happened. It must have happened suddenly, and surely his brain sent impulses to his legs to make it so. But when, and why, did this occur? His arms are crossed, too. A defensive measure, but against what? There are no external threats here, or if there are then he isn’t aware of it. With a crew so big, there’s bound to be someone with unsavory things like ulterior motives. But chances are, he’ll never know. So why does he look like he’s ready to take the fight to the enemy, one stubborn sulk at a time? He feels foolish by the time Khitti’s done talking, although not entirely of her accord. “Aye, you’ve seen things, Khitti. You’ve seen things I haven’t seen. I don’t doubt you’ve lived through hell. Died through hell. I know you have.” He’s seated again, his arms apart. But his shoulders are rigid like rocks. He runs his left hand up to his face and perches his bearded cheek upon it.

“What do I want from you?” Lionel looks around. At Brand, at Khitti, at Sundance. Even Onyx. “I -want- you to fight. I want you to make them pay for every inch they take. I want you with me near Chartsend in three days’ time because I think Kahran may be there and I want to blow his plans back to that fresh hell he’s crawling from. I’m not telling you to lay down your burdens and call it a wash. I’m telling you I lost my way when I came here, because I intended to die fighting impossible odds and I met enough of you lunatics to have me thinking again that maybe, just maybe, the odds aren’t entirely nil. Maybe we -do- beat them once and for all.” His voice has been edged in steel, but he concludes his speech in something softer, something meager. “The frak of it is, I was all business when I came back, but meeting you,” and unspoken others, whose names he doesn’t need to say for them to know, “well, it changed the rules. I stopped prepping kingdoms for this war and I started fighting other wars instead. The saurians, the insectoids, it’s all the same -- it all has ties to Kahran, anyway -- but the hardest battle of them all has been with myself. Now I’ve gone and done it, I’ve really done it, because I -want to live- again, and I want others to live not just empirically but -specifically.- Do you understand? I felt like death when you died, Khitti, not because I lost an ally or even a friend but because you’re my family.” He slams his fist into the table so hard Sundance is taken aback.

“What do I want from you? I want you to live. That’s all. So if you’re all so damned eager to do just that, then great. But those bastards aren’t going to make it easy. So let’s live, each and every one of us, and maybe I can stop drinking and brawling myself into an early grave.”

Brand hmms at the lot of that. None of this is going as he’d expected -- though for once, that’s a good thing. Khitti’s fervor bubbles his insides with… well, it might be called pride, or something like it. Certainly, she’s come a long way from the despairing vampire he’d first met. “You’re in luck for once, Lionel. We’re headin’ to Chartsend this mornin’, and we’ve got some crew as wants to take their leave in the area so we weren’t plannin’ on bein’ anywhere else for the next several days, anyhow. Though I s’pose maybe they should change their plans or bring their families back to the ship if there’s danger in town…” The track of Brand’s thoughts splits here; some part of him is calculating what he’ll say of this to the crew even as he continues speaking. “No front line fightin’ for us, though.” A glance clarifies: he means himself and Khitti, not necessarily the whole of the Tranquility. “We’ve talked about it. I won’t have her in direct danger, not now.” Not now that he’s lost her once already. Once bitten, twice shy. “Though if there’s any way we can help from the sidelines, any intel you’ve acquired for how we could sabotage Kahran’s base (I’m assumin’ he has one) while he’s causin’ a ruckus here…”

‘Talked about it’. It was more like they yelled about it. And then cried about it. And then finally compromised on it. Khitti smirked a little at this thought, but kept it to herself. No reason for Lionel to know they’d had an argument about this very situation almost as soon as he’d left that day. “I doubt he’d let me help even if I wasn’t pregnant.” She gave Brand a look, as if to say that she knew him well enough to know the answer to that without him having to say it. “Even when there’s no fighting to be done, I can still help. With research and whatnot. I’m already planning on looking into things Arkhen and other god-related things to maybe help with this ghost curse from Vakmathras. Maybe it can help with Kahran too--especially if he -is- getting help from the Shadow Plane. I know how you two feel about the gods--and there was a time that I was right there along with you--but… I can’t deny that something made me human and brought me back--and it wasn’t all just dark magic.”

Lionel remains mum on god-speak, as is likely to be expected of him, although he does perk up a bit at the sheer notion of Khitti even mentioning them in the first place. But he gets it; whether or not he’ll give those jokers the satisfaction of verbally recognizing them, he understands that there could have been ‘divine intervention’ at hand. The very term makes his skin crawl with unpleasant memory. “I’ll tag along, sure. Let me grab a few extra passengers before we set out. And Brand, I’d love to say, ‘yeah, go sabotage Kahran’s base’, but we don’t have the foggiest damned idea where it is right now. Best bet’s on a nebulous answer like ‘the Shadow Plane’, but that’s as far as it’s gonna get until further notice. Your suggestion -does- give me an idea, though. If you were to, say, hop over to the other side before the fight broke out… well, maybe you could do some scouting, poke around, mess things up before they get ugly. I have no idea what you’d find, but it’s not like I’m not sitting across the table right now from our best bet at finding out.” He eyes Khitti.

Brand is smirking in grim acknowledgment. Other writers might call it ‘a wry smile’ like one that often prefaces a languid walk westward, but this is definitely different. Don’t ask how. It just is. “Well, of course he wouldn’t make it that frakkin’ simple. This is Kahran we’re talkin’ about, not…” Brand trails off and turns to Khitti with furrowed brow. “Illy Dan? Aladdin? ...Y’know, that guy from your Sphere of Strife books. Never could get into those.” He shrugs. “Anyway. Point is, I’m fine with scoutin’. Can’t be any worse than what we came up against last time we were in the Shadow Plane, can it?” Brand’s writer doesn’t need to point out how often people come to regret such words. Brand’s writer does anyway.

Khitti crossed her arms and pursed her lips a bit in thought--her brows were even furrowed, so you know the gears were really turning. “We could do that, yes, and I’m fine with it. But, I also have other reasons to go there too, but that might have to wait for another time, especially if this attack is likely. I think we should talk to the trees.” She side-eyed Brand with a smirk, “I know how much you love talking to trees.” Now that it was cool enough, the rest of her tea was reached for and finished off before she continued her thought, “We need to find out what our friend Facilier has been up to while I’ve been dead, without actually going to the Isle, and Emeritus might be our best option. I imagine Facilier’s got the whole Isle on lockdown, as much as he can anyway, so we’re not going there until we know what we’re dealing with--or if we have no other choice.” The thought of going back there gave Khitti a chill, her body visibly shuddering as the hair stood up on the back of her neck and her arms. “We especially need to find out if he’s connected to Kahran.” Her mind looped back around to the task at hand finally, “If we do this scouting mission, it’s just to be Brand and I--maybe Onyx too, but that’s it. I don’t trust anyone else but our people. I’m not having another repeat of the last time we went there.”

Lionel cringes hard enough when Brand tempts fate that he almost misses part of Khitti’s proposition. “The funny thing about Chartsend is, we actually -want- Kahran to attack this time. I had my doubts about the… associate who vowed to find out when next he’d strike, but anyone who slashes their own eyes with a sword is either telling the truth or feverishly devoted to their cause. Unfortunately for us, our enemies elicit all kinds of fever. So if it’s a trap, it’s a good one. If it isn’t, I want to punch back with as much vigor as we can afford. Which means you three jumping across the bend, as it were, will be handy. And, hell, if it -is- a trap, you’ll be in prime position to find out. Maybe.” He folds his left hand over his forehead. There are more variables at play here than he’d care to admit, but it’s the best lead they have, and the fog is finally clearing enough in his mind to see ahead. Too bad for Lionel his forehead’s bruise protests at his action, sending another jolt of pain down his spine. “As for Facilier, good call. If Kahran is operating in any way like his predecessors did, he’s forging alliances left, right, and center. All the more reason I wanted Lithrydel to do the same.”

Brand doesn’t like this talk of traps and trees. Rather than voice his discontent, he stabs a fork into his forgotten fish. The first bite makes it no more than halfway to its destination before Brand freezes, squinting. The gorram thing’s gone cold already. A wave of his hand warms the whole fish right back up, and finally Brand gets to his meal. “We’ll take Onyx, then,” he says between mouthfuls. “Dozla will be in command. She and Sundance can coordinate with you, should the ship be needed here while we’re in the Shadow Plane. And we’ll hope nothin’ drastic goes wrong on either side.”

Brand is already halfway through his fish, but it’s not fast enough. The stench of scorched sky rat is making its way back towards the galley, and of course Onyx is, as well. Brand, so suddenly ‘not hungry’ earlier, is about to be caught red-handed, eating the evidence of his lie. Hastily, Brand shoves his plate in front of Sundance and flees the table to look busy with scrubbing the oven. Somewhere in all this movement is a red herring joke, probably.

Onyx rounds the corner, oblivious to it all, still holding the blackened bird before them. “No one else on the ship wants to break their fast this morning, either,” they declare. “Not a one. Curious.” Onyx takes a seat with the unwanted meal and stares. With a pang of guilt, Brand recognizes their expression even through the filter of the undead’s usual stoicism -- it’s rejection.

Brand was quiet when it came to this tree business--too quiet. Khitti eyed him ever so carefully as he agreed to bringing Onyx along and said nothing else. -She- was about to say something… that is until the older Catalian started freaking out and shoved his food away. And then Onyx showed up and Khitti could only sigh.

“Give it here,” the redhead said after Onyx voiced the news and their unhappiness was laid bare for those present. Brand, you owe her big time for this. She freaking hates sky rats, okay? But, she was going to take an arrow to the knee--or to her stomach, really--as she reached over the table and pulled the plate towards her. There was no hesitation as she tore into the bird, for if she showed any sort of uncertainty on the subject Onyx might figure out what was up. After a few bites of that savory-yet-unsavory seagull, Khitti grabbed that plate of fish as well, and pushed it back in front of Brand, “I promised him I’d save him a fish for breakfast, or else he would’ve eaten this instead. Sorry, Onyx. He must’ve forgotten. It was the very last one, so he needed to eat it before someone else did. You know how the crew gets around here when they’re hungry and I’ve not made anything yet.”

Khitti would soon finish off the bird--though of course she made sure to pluck the feathers from it first and avoid the insides--and even managed a smile for Onyx, “It was good. I can show you how to make it better next time though.” You know, not charred and full of feathers and such. “And, it seems like you’re going on a mission to the Shadow Plane with us, when we get to Chartsend. These three can fill you in on it as it seems I’ve a kitchen to clean.”

Brand’s and Khitti’s and Onyx’s voices and even Sundance’s loud breathing all blend into one distant but comforting cacophony. It isn't the emergence of a plan for Chartsend that warms Lionel’s body against the seasonal chill, although it helps. Nor is his relief a result of the banter between friends he's tuning out courtesy of that most Lionel-like sudden bout of solitary reflection. But the banter helps, too. He came to them frantic, ranting and uncertain, and they replied with solidarity and utter refusal to yield. He came to them for help, and they helped. They may not even realize how much they've done for him today, and perhaps it's for the best if so. No man can face his demons alone. Lionel won't be returning to The Winking Nod tonight, nor The Whalers’ Bar or any other of the nearly two dozen shoreside taverns he's been drinking and dicing and bruising and breaking. It's such a simple, small, selfish thing -- wanting some small measure of inner peace, when facing what might be the end of everything -- but he needs it, and they've given it to him today. All it cost were a couple of sky rats and the blank acids of Khitti’s stomach.