RP:Victory

Summary: Lionel's past. Khasad. Raphaline's past. Slavery. Dark forces conspired to beat them both down and grind their resolve into ashes. Dark forces failed. What begins as friends on a mission to relax becomes a promise between heroes to face the coming darkness together. And for Lionel, a decade-long torment finally comes to an end.

Frostmaw: Fort

Lionel finishes unbuttoning one black silk dress shirt and exchanges it for another. He peers into his mirror, uncomfortably. The earthquake and ensuing chaos run roughshod across his mind. Jarith’s little war thereafter. Alvina’s full-on bump into him beforehand. Lionel twitches his lip and blinks at himself incredulously; was he really lumping that in with the rest of it? Somehow, the whole thing -- minus that one element -- is fairly easy to move on from. Whether it’s fatigue or the knowledge that Frostmaw must be swift in shoring up borders and publicly aiding Larket, Lionel cannot say, but he’s processing the entire tragedy at an almost alarming rate. Everything except Alvina. “Ridiculous,” he tells himself, grimacing at his reflection. The years are just beginning to show on the man. Soon he’ll be thirty. Some days he feels Rorin’s age; others, he’s stunned he was born so recently. Today, Lionel feels timeless. All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again. What matters now is that Queen Hildegarde’s kingdom decisively aids the beleaguered peoples of a realm wracked by disaster, especially in light of what Lionel perceives as a simple fact: evil is ever in waiting to strike. He concludes with the buttoning of this fresh new black shirt and approaches his desk to begin the day’s paperwork. There is a great deal of it.

Raphaline did not expect what had happened yesterday. An earthquake? It had come out of nowhere, and given that the quake had not quite registered as normal with her, she is skeptical to believe it is as much. Her body is still tired from having pulled people out of the wreckage and healing to the best of her abilities. There had been so many and not just at the throne room but out in the public regions all the way down to Kelay. Where had this thing come from? Her heart clenches for a moment while she walks the halls of the fort. Whatever it was, it has worn out her body to the point that a day’s rest has gone from a suggestion to a must have today. But first, she chooses to check in on those she cares about who were involved. With everything going on, her last stop is at the door of the Knight-Commander’s, and as she closes in on the door, she catches the whispers of the guards lining the hall. The bard makes a small glance their way, but no other acknowledgement is given to their whispers of something evil riding on the winds to the land. As she squares up for whatever may lay behind the door, she gently knocks twice before waiting for an answer.

Lionel is rubbing his right hand over his forehead in quiet frustration when the knock is heard at the door. For an instant, he wonders what a soldier will need from him this time -- it’d be the twentieth time today, after all. But there’s something different about that tap, though he cannot say just what. “Come.” The door is unlocked and Lionel is fetching ink and quill. Already, he’s reading the message aloud, an old habit of his from those tribal years before he’d realized the glory of books. At some point or another, Raphaline will undoubtedly enter to find him phrasing the entire thing start to finish. “To the honorable Knight-Commander of Frostmaw, Hero of Hellfire, Last Prince of Catal.” Lionel rolls his eyes; three titles in a row means someone’s looking for brownie points in a world gone mad for power. “Enclosed are ten strips of gold-pressed latinu from the finest mines of the humble and faroff Frankenzhire. We are but a small country, across the Eryth Shores. Word of your kingdom spreads far and wide and we ask to open trade negotiations but seek your finest wools. We are twice-glad to trade our seasonal fruits and thrice-joyed if you could send military aid against our enemies, the vile Hambelle. Yours indefinitely, Count…” Lionel mouths the word awkwardly, wincing. “Trollop? Trolloc? Trilo… Trilobite?” He squints. There is no gold-pressed latinu, whatever the heck that is, anywhere to be found.

Raphaline finds herself walking into a rather unique situation. At the aforementioned titles, she cannot help the small laugh that slips from her lips. As a woman of words, it is pretty obvious that whomever this Trollop guy is, he sure knows how to lay on the sugar thickly. But, as she glances up to read the Knight Commander’s features as he reads the letter, she notes he is not so easily fooled. Good, she is happy to see that her thinking highly of him has not turned around and been easily put to rest. She moves towards his desk, and if he doesn’t quite notice her right away, she reaches out to pluck said letter from betwixt his hands. “Sounds like a whole lot of nonsense if you ask me.” If she gets a hold of the letter, she will study the flourished handwriting, wrinkling up her nose at the sickenly sweet nonsense of nobility and royalty who have never known much else. “How many more of these things do you have to torture yourself with?” She inquires, offering up the letter she cannot stand to look at anymore. “Swamped, or might I be able to persuade you at least for a couple of hours to take a break? I am sure your mind will be happy to have a break.” She makes such a request of him full well knowing the calamity of their circumstances in these lands, but she also makes it knowing that he has to be persuaded quite heavily to take time for himself; can’t win a battle when you are already tired.

Lionel is so consumed in such sheer literary tomfoolery that he doesn’t notice his guest is Raphaline until she hoists the letter from his palms the very syllable he ends his reading. There’s a twinkle in his gaze, as the old saying goes, at the woman’s brazen business. He smirks, tugging his chin toward two full stacks of letters on his mahogany desk so far up they reach his shoulders when he’s seated. Some are torn and tattered; others are even more lavish than Count Trileubopoc’s. (That, for the record, is the most unfortunate -actual- name of the puffed-up fellow.) “Briar used to handle quite a few of these.” He shakes his head and stands, his back briefly turned to Raphaline as he crosses his arms thoughtfully. “It might seem strange, the Knight-Commander getting all these trade documents. What happens is, and if I’d known this before I got the job, I guarantee you I’d have thought at least another fifteen minutes before accepting, but what happens is that a lot of these folks are accustomed to military leaders in search of a bribe. Either for their kingdoms or for themselves. And a lot of -these- folks,” he gestures again to the stacks, “want our protection, too. So you see, I wind up with this, and this is ridiculous, and a giant frakking earthquake shattered half a city yesterday and the Dark Immortals’ surviving generals could return to Lithrydel any day if they haven’t already and I’m being asked to accept bananas from a place I didn’t even know exists.” It’s a run-on sentence. A hell of a run-on sentence. Lionel swallows, sitting back down and sighing. He places an arm down to rest his tired head, glancing at his friend almost pleadingly. “...Yes, Raphaline.” He smiles. “I think I could use a break. I think we both could.”

Raphaline offers him one of those playful grins as she offers back the letter, listening to him describe exactly what his position has entitled. She shakes her head, it all seemed to be too much. “I am extremely thankful that any positions that have been offered to me have not entailed something like that,” she says as she gestures to the giant stacks of letters. “Not a big fan of the nobility, at least, when they aren’t paying me to write songs for their courts.” She shrugs casually, not all that concerned about titles or money; a few decades or so and you have plenty to spare. “But yes, it does sound like you need to be dragged from your busy work schedule whether you like or not.” Garnering that it won’t be difficult to convince him, she moves around the desk and gently lays a hand on his right shoulder. “I agree. My body isn’t going to let me do anything strenuous if I don’t do something about it so,” she says as she reaches for her satchel and digs out a map of Frostmaw, unrolls it before him and promptly points to a place in the northern part, “here is where we are going to go. Have you seen the cerulean flowers? Or gotten a chance to experience the hot springs of Frostmaw? They are rather well hidden and unless you are brave enough to head out of town and into the ice and snow, you wouldn’t know they were there to begin with.” She rolls back up the map and carefully stashes it back in her satchel before adding, “Sometimes all it takes is a bit of heat to loosen up muscles that have been wound so tight from stress.” The bard moves back around the desk and heads for the door. She places one hand on the door handle before gazing over her shoulder at him with those emerald eyes and a quirked brow, “Coming?”

Lionel appreciates that hand of hers on his shoulder. After all, it’s barely been two days since she’d mended both his shoulders after a tumble of stone fell upon them during his bid to save the queen. It might just be that that act of hers back in Larket has permanently secured his muscles from tensing against her touch -- at least near his arms for that matter. He follows Raphaline with his gaze, smiling plainly at her dialogue, until she’s pointing at a map and he’s scratching at his cheek in confusion. He turns his head to scan a nearby map of his own, tacked to the wall furthest from the hearth. It does not contain this magical resort destination the bard is so eager to visit. “Um,” he manages to blurt, clumsily. Bravery has nothing to do with Lionel’s ability to trudge through ice; Halycanos, the Ishaarite spirit encased in Hellfire, regulates his body temperature unnaturally. But it cannot be said, nevertheless, that he has ever had cause to go to these cerulean flowers. “H, hot springs,” he repeats. “I mean, Hellfire keeps me warm…” Lamest. Excuse. Ever. The shame from even saying it is cast vividly on the Catalian’s face as he takes a deep breath and follows Raphaline out the door. “Hot springs,” he repeats. Hot springs, Lionel O’Connor.

Raphaline cannot help but chuckle at his rather adorable response. Rather than to say something in response, she reaches for the crook of his arm so he doesn’t get lost following her through the town. She glances at the guards who appear curious of their current actions, but she says nothing to them. Once out of the fort and filled with the cold air, she pulls her hood back up over to guard her face from the sharp wind as she heads towards the western region of town. The markets are a bit busy, still finishing up their sales before the sun completely sets and darkness sets over the town. It is only when they find themselves at the edge of the road that she casts her gaze towards the north, and she gives him a little tug in that direction. At first the mines look empty and cold, but she slips past some of the larger formations and moves through a small crack in the wall, following a trail further into the mines, it is like the place opens up. A region filled with deep, blue flowers coats the ground and as they continue to linger the water droplets begin to stick to their skin. She turns to Lionel with a grin, “If we follow the path around it will lead down to the hot springs, but first.” It is already too warm up here, so her traveling clothes need to be removed. She unbuttons the cloak from around her neck and tosses is on the ground along with her satchel. Next is the heavy, fur-lined boots which are pulled free and tossed into the same pile. Underneath her cloak, she reveals her leather pants and green tunic on a thicker fabric for the cold weather. She makes a gesture with her right hand for him to turn around as she says, “So I don’t give you the wrong ideas.” She doesn’t care about him watching, given she can slip the leather pants off and still be covered by the long cloth of the green tunic. Once free of the hot fabrics, she turns her attention once more to the trail. “Come on.”

Frostmaw: Cerulean Flowers

Lionel gasps at the splendor of this gem of a location hidden from him out of ignorance for too many months. He stretches the fingers of his left hand and softly traces them upon one of the larger flowers just as a droplet comes down and taps him on the nose. “I had no idea.” Before he knows it, though, Raphaline is discarding half her clothing. The cave’s warmth hasn’t quite registered with the Catalian, as Halycanos has eased back on the temperature control and he’s long been accustomed to feeling a bit more heated than most. Beads of moisture not from on-high trickle down his neck, prompting him to realize that it is indeed too hot to handle. Clearing his throat awkwardly, Lionel unbuttons his shirt all over again, tossing it not far from his feet. A simpler white undershirt lays beneath, and, still fidgeting at the thought of anyone seeing what’s hidden on his back, he very blatantly chooses to keep it on. His boots and slacks are both removed, however, leaving him with naught but the undershirt and cotton short trousers. It’s the least clothing Lionel has worn near anyone for as long as he can recall. Perhaps since Alexia herself. It is not normal for a man to be so clothed so constantly near all other people for near on a decade. But it is Lionel. He has dutifully turned around at Raphaline’s hand gesture, then nods to her insistence and follows.

Raphaline catches sight of his rather awkwardness, but makes no mention of it as she starts her way back down the trail, following its slope downward. At first nothing appears, but the further down she walks, the more the steam rises until the first pool can be spotted from midway down. Grinning, she takes off down the path a bit more spirit to her step until she reaches one of the larger pools and stops at the lip of it. Gingerly, she dips her right foot into the hot water and allows her skin to become comfortable with the warm that swirls upward along her calf. Once she feels comfortable enough, she seats herself on the edge of the pool, green fabric fanning out around her as she slips her left foot into the warm water. From her position the water rises up to caress just below her knee as she swirls her legs to and fro in the water. While the heat begins to stick to her skin, causing it to become painted with droplets of sweat and water, she works to unbraid her curls from the style she wears to keep them out of her face. As each braid is removed, her curls fall, wilder than usual around her shoulders until they all trail over a shoulder, down her back or along the curve of her face. She gives one good shake of her head to shake her hair out before she pushes off the ground and slips into the pool. The depth of the pool rises up to her hips, green cloth swaying around her hips as she scoops up handfuls of the water and pours them over her shoulders. Barely peeking out of the cloth covering her right shoulder is the large scar that resides over her heart and up along her collar bone. “This water feels so nice, and relaxing for the muscles.”

Frostmaw: Stepped Hot Springs

Lionel follows, bowing his head lowly in unnecessary awareness that the stalactite ceilings are a fair degree lower than any building outside Enchantment might offer. He’s never in any real danger of banging his face on a rock here but after their recent experiences with sticks and stones one can never be too careful. Soon they arrive at the springs. It is not a thing Lionel has had much chance to see, and of course, this is the first time he’s seen Frostmaw’s own, so it takes him several seconds -- half an eternity for a man as passionately impulsive and headstrong as Lionel -- to truly register what it is that he is seeing. He spreads his hand across another of these delicate beautiful flowers; he’s never been much for flowers, but there’s something vaguely reminiscent about them here. All-the-while, Raphaline is slowly submerging, working her hair, pouring hot water over herself, and Lionel is consumed by the immensity of this natural treasure she’s brought before him. He’s looking all over the place now, heedless of the fact that sooner or later he’ll have to step in. It isn’t until Lionel’s peripheral catches sight of her scar that he’s snapped out of trance and he shields a sharply drawn breath with a well-timed cover of the mouth by right hand. Somehow it’s caught him off guard -- perhaps he is feeling foolish over psychological stubbornness of his own. Even now, he’s hesitant to show Raphaline, or anyone else, the signs of past torment on his body. Swallowing hard, the hero decides that now is, after all, when he will enter the springs in earnest. The soak is soothing, almost immediately, and not like anything Lionel ever remembers feeling. Each and every part of him is enraptured by its power, and he winds up covered to his upper thighs faster than he’d intended. Soon he’s up to his waist, and wading through the water with both arms, a smile creasing his lips. “It’s better than I’d imagined.”

Raphaline watches the knight from out of the corner of her eye as he stares in awe at the beautiful surroundings. The softest of smiles tugs at the left corner of her lips as she shifts her full gaze upon him once more. The sound he made earlier has not gone unnoticed, but instead, she reaches up and runs her fingers over the bits of scars peeking out before speaking, “I was attacked by a werewolf two years ago. He had no plans on killing me, instead he had hopes to turn me and use me for my magical capabilities.” As she removes her hand from the scar, she looks up at him and allows silence to settle for a few moments as she regards him. Even now, as she just looks upon the fighter, she cannot help the small smile that crosses her lips once more. Rather than allow the moment to turn to darker, sourer notes, she scoops up a bit of the warm water in both of her hands, lifts them up like she is going to pour it down over the front of her but instead tosses at him. Her smile turns to a grin, reflecting the playful manner with which she has turned their attentions’ towards. “Here, let me make every woman in this land’s dream come true and soak the front of that white shirt.” Shamelessly, she winks at Lionel as she prepares to gather up another handful of water to throw in his direction and this time accurately aim for the white shirt.

Lionel narrows his eyes and furrows his brow, surveying Raphaline’s scar more thoroughly now that he’s been welcomed to do so. “I’m glad you endured the encounter gracefully,” he manages to speak after a brief moment’s bewildered silence. It’s all he can think to say at a time like this. Surely there are better words, wiser words, words less stiff, but Lionel can’t think of them now. Somehow, Lionel is so singularly dense at certain things that even when Raphaline announces her intent to soak his shirt, he does not expect it to happen. It strikes him as a silly, light, airy thing to say, but not a thing someone would actually follow through on. That’s the folly of Lionel O’Connor; when he’s not donning the mask called game-face, he’s frequently impervious to sly intent. Raphaline gathers the water, though, and it kicks him into high gear and he hops to the left, but the water is resistant to this hopping! So accustomed to the land is he that Lionel fails to take into account the friction against his skin! What is usually an acrobatic achievement turns instead into a pathetic seven-inch adjustment! Raphaline’s water strikes true, if she is to throw it! “What do you mean, ‘every woman?’ That’s extraordinarily g --” Whatever it is he was going to say is cut off by, presumably, the soaking of his shirt and revelation of finely-honed muscles! All is revealed of his upper frontside. All! There’s nothing for it, then, but to scoop up water and bring the fight back to the enemy. With a toss, he takes liquid to the woman and aims for her without much guidance as to where it will fall, only that it fall upon her -somewhere- in -some- fashion -somehow.-

Raphaline cannot help but falter into a fit of silver-belled laughter as his face changes from that stoic look into something similar to shock. She had gotten him good, right on the front! What she had not expected was him retaliating against her and sending water in her direction. His handful of water coats itself down her left shoulder and soaks into the green cloth so that it clings to her chest. “Did you, Lionel, actually throw water on a lady?” She feigns astonishment and shock before she too takes up another handful of water and with no exact aim, throws it at the knight. “Well not every woman, but quite a lot of them,” she quips back as she launches the water and then moves to scoop up a bit more to toss again. “Give yourself a bit more credit sir, you are a good looking man.” Another handful water is aimed in whatever direction he might be trying to move towards. As for her, if he tosses more her way, she can only attempt to dodge but then find herself (hair and clothes) soaked in the warm water of the springs. As a final form, she places both hands into the water and with a few slow steps she moves closer to him, ready to just toss as much water as she can possible conjure with her hands onto him.

The duel is fought in the barest of fashions. Both competitors know the stakes. Like the Hollow of yesteryear, two enter the ring but perhaps only one shall leave. In this case, it is not a matter of life and death, but who escapes the righteous judgment of too much water befalling their clothing too quickly. The opponents in this match are Lionel and Raphaline, famed persons across the land, and as she throws and teases and twirls, he’ll dive and spin and smirk. “I suppose,” he concedes, smacked by a tossed wave and flinging his open palm across the spring’s surface to send a tumultuous current Raphaline’s direction. “For women who are into the ashen blond, azure-eyed gig with the trademark pointed Catalian nose and all that, I might do. Maybe.” He laughs, but he’s too busy spreading both his arms over the pool now to rightly prepare for her coming attack. She steps closer, and he is stepping closer, too, with a similar tactic of his own to charge. Both duelists blast their wave forward concurrently, and Lionel sweeps his feet across the bottom of the spring to swirl around. He’s tempest-tossed, struck true and positively drenched, but his movement turns his back to her, and in a moment of blinding lacked awareness, the thin fabric of his shirt is not enough to conceal the terrible fate Khasad the Dark Immortal inflicted upon him in a bygone era. From just below the neck down nearly to his tailbone, the man is covered in crude slash marks and beaten whip marks and x-shaped pincer jabs that took skin, permanently. It is not a mess that has befallen Lionel’s back. It is a nightmare. A travesty. Ruination. Utter humiliation. Deplorable treatment -- where the worst of it can be seen, one might wonder if death would have been preferable. Lionel grows rigid, his face goes pale, and his eyes widen uncontrollably as he suddenly realizes what Raphaline can see. There are no words. He turns around, abject shock. All the joy is gone.

Raphaline found herself quite enamored with the moment as they both found solace in something as simple as splashing water at one another. For her, it was like reliving something young and spirited from a time long before her adolescence and adulthood; a time when worry had not graced her thoughts. So it is no surprise that she shares with him the most genuine of smiles and laughs with a jovial light that is not something they might not get a lot of in the coming days. For a second she can feel her thoughts toe the line of darkness, but that laugh she catches from Lionel drives her thoughts back into the light. As her neck attack sweeps across her back, soaking the material to the point she can see the scars, her emerald eyes widen. Instead of drawing back from the sight of the scars and history obviously etched into his skin, she approaches him slowly. “Oh Lionel.” Each syllable is full of compassion as she reaches out to him and gingerly tries to touch his back with the tips of her first two fingers. The bard withdraws her hand and utters something even a bit more softly, “I am not judging you for these. They tell me of a history, of a past that brought you here. It was a travesty that someone did this to you, but, they are a part of you and I cannot reject you.” She brings her hands to the front of her tunic and begins to slowly unbutton the cloth until it reveals cloth bandages masking her chest from sight but all the scars that lace their way over her body. The scar on her right side covers her entire right collar bone section and down to where her heart would be. The skin is muddled and ugly, and for that she tends to hide it. But this isn’t the only scar she wants him to see, to comfort him with. The straps of the tunic are pulled down as she turns, bringing her hair away from her back to reveal crisscrosses of whip marks that mar her back from the nape of her neck all the way down and into the rest of her tunic. “I can imagine how you feel about me seeing those scars.”

Lionel is of two minds, two worlds, two hearts. Everything is a schism now. Raphaline is reaching to touch his back. None have touched his back. None save Donovan and Kalid even knew the extent of his torture -- and neither of those dear friends are within five thousand leagues of here, if they still draw breath at all. Raphaline, however, is -touching- the scars. Shockwaves of pain are expected. Uncontrollable sorrow is expected. Yet neither of these things seem to happen. Lionel wants to pull away, to escape, to be gone, to be free, to make her forget, but he can’t, but he won’t, but he doesn’t want to. He -doesn’t want to.- The tips of her fingers have graced the scars that mark his brokenness… but not to shatter his fragile image. Lionel, genuinely, feels okay. The color in his face returns. His eyelids revert to a normal openness. And she’s talking, and it’s like a river over him and he can’t quite comprehend the words, and yet he comprehends the meaning utterly. And she’s moving cloth around and showing him her own damage, her own loss, her own brokenness. And it is almost as if he is back in his quarters, now, staring into the mirror again, darkly. The extent of the bard’s suffering has clearly been tremendous. The tale of slavery she’d given him in her home now rises to the surface, the proof to those dreadful chapters in her life evident upon her form. Lionel’s jaw is slightly slack before he can readjust himself. “I… I… I.” Him, him, him. The past, the past, the past. Like waves from their brief sparring match, he’s overcome by pangs of remembrance. But not for long. There’s a clever trick to Raphaline’s emerald eyes. She may not know it, herself. She’s gazed upon him too many times now, demanding that he return to the present, requiring that he see. And so he sees. And his prism of the past cracks and crumbles and he’s forced to acknowledge that they are here, now, in this stitch in time, in these hot springs in Frostmaw half a continent away from where the now-dead Khasad spent half a year inflicting savagery upon him. He is here, safe. She is here, safe. “They couldn’t beat us.” His voice is conviction incarnate. “They tried. They took flesh and they fractured bones and they stole the lives of those we loved.” His tone is princely, crisp, confident. “They failed to finish the job. We won. They’re dust. We’re not. And as long as we still draw breath, we will defend the weak and protect the realm and do all the things they could not stop us from doing. -We won.-” It has taken him ten years, but Lionel O’Connor has truly defeated Khasad. All it took was a half-elf with a heart.

Raphaline pulls the cloth back up over her shoulders and allows her hair to fall back into place to hide away the scars once more. The buttons are easily slipped back into place as she turns to face him once more, those eyes of emerald green looking upon him with a mix of both joy and strength. She can feel her eyes beginning to water, flickers of tears mingling with the droplets of water on her eyelashes and the curve of her cheek. Her lips press together as she tries to smother the sound that wants to echo in her throat. With a deep breath in, she calms the fluttering her heart has picked up and reaches for the knight with her left hand. If he lets her get that close again, her hand goes to brace against his bicep as she shortens the space between them once more and looks up at him. Finally, she finds her voice once more she says in a timbre that is soft and laced with all the emotions she feels swimming in her, “Yes. We did win against all the odds. We will keep winning against all the odds, even in the face of the darkest reaches that might come to swarm these lands.” Her hand on his bicep gives him a soft squeeze as she purses her lips together once more, mulling over next choice words. Finding it within herself to speak them, she utters, “I will help you and stand by you, no matter the direction that this world may turn.” And there it was, a thought that had been echoing across the chambers of her heart since she had met and gotten to know the knight. There was no way, nothing that would ever convince her that she couldn’t be a part of his life, in whatever role that might be.