RP:Where'd You Go? I Miss You So

♪ Seems like it's been forever, since you've been gone... Please come back home. ♪

Part of the The Whisperer In Darkness Arc

Summary: After the horrors of Aedrebyrg, Khitti joins Meri at the blonde's home in Sage Forest for a pit stop before heading back to the Tranquility. There, Meri broaches the subject of Khitti's quite noticeable silence the past few days and eventually reveals to Khitti the things that Onyx told Meri when the undead helped her get home from the Shadow Plane.

Meri and Callum's House, Sage Forest

Meri and Khitti had been traveling back together from Venturil. They obviously had to make a stop back in Craughmoyle, revisiting the stables so that they could pick Kadence up. From there the two would travel back to their respective homes together. Why would they not? A bulk of the route was the same, until maybe a little bit past the half-way point, Khitti would have to press on further east to Cenril. The trip back home to Venturil was not exactly a short one, so Meri invites Khitti to make a pit-stop at her own home. It wasn't too far off-route and Khitti could always make the rest of journey though the forest. Once they reach the front yard of the CalluMeri abode, Meri dismounts Kadence and walks her to the stables. There is no invitation for Khitti to do the same, not because she was not allowed to, but because she is family and Meri just assumes that she knows to make herself at home. "Hungry? Thirsty? Just need to pee?" Meri calls out to Khitti as she strips Kadence of her saddle so that the mare can be free to relax and rest in her stable pen.

Khitti || “I’m not sure how I can be hungry after all of that, but I think all three, yeah,” Khitti said as she led her Tikifhlee into the pen, but choosing to leave the saddle on for now--she’d stay there a bit, but not forever, of course. She was nice enough to remove the saddlebags that now held her satchel and weapons, at least. “Anything is fine. You know what I eat and drink.” Which was pretty much anything, really. She’d deal with her bathroom business and then go to look for Meri in the kitchen. Whether Meri was still tending to things or not, she’d sink into the first unoccupied chair at the table with a heavy sigh and not say much of anything, that signature pensive-Khitti stare written all over her tired features.

Meri would use the other bathroom well Khitti tended to her own business, to be honest. Don't worry, Khitti, Meri clearly washes her hands while in the kitchen and before handling any food. What does Meri make? She makes a sandwich, because it is Meri and if she can take the lazy approach to food preparation she will. Just one sandwich though, which is sliced in half and placed on two separate plates. It's not that Meri has suddenly become stingy, she was just picking up on the 'how can I be hungry after all that'. Start small, if Khitti or Meri wants more they are in a kitchen. There is also whole fruit on the table they can help themselves to. They'll have iced tea to drink. The fact that Khitti is so silent and has that pensive Khitti stare on her face was just another concerning moment to add to the list. Meri begins, trying to be gentle but it can be challenging to bring these things up, "Khitti, I have been worried about you lately. It seems like....something is eating at you. I have some small inklings as to what might be troubling you..." Khitti has made a couple mentions of Brand and work. That is one reason. "But...I think it'd be better for me to ask instead of assume...So...What's up?"

Khitti stared at the sandwich for a bit as red brows knitted together, the templar trying to find her words. She’d take a much needed bite first before she said anything, the added time allowing her to think further on things. “Aside from Brand… Lionel’s been gone too. I’ve seen him once since Dominic was born and it was only just the other day when I was on my way to Craughmoyle for these missions. He’s been with Valrae. Protecting her and spending time with her. Said he was sorry, but he -has- been watching over the Tranquility when it’s been docked at least. He brought her along too and -that- was difficult at first.” She frowned somewhat before continuing, “And you’ve been here, with Cal. And I can’t fault any of you for doing these things--and I don’t want to--but… I just didn’t think things would upend so quickly after things were over with, with Facilier. I don’t even have Onyx to chide me when I’m not doing what I should… and Dominic doesn’t need me because the whole of that ship manages very well without me when I’m gone. I just feel lost again, like I did when I first came to Lithrydel.”

Meri frowns. Outside of Brand. She starts with Lionel. What she is hearing of his actions lately, she is not sure that she likes? As much as she adores Valrae. How can he be able to watch over the Tranquility but cannot dedicate a few moments of time to Dominic and Khitti? "Valrae is great...but...." She shakes her head, opting to say nothing before her mouth gets her into any amount of trouble. “First and foremost, Dominic does need you. Regardless of if you have a ship to help take care of him when you have to be away. He needs you and he wants you and he is always going to need and want you. Even during his bratty teenage years when he is giving you grief just for being a moooooom." Meri tries to mimic a whiny teenage voice when she says the word 'mom'. She does pretty good at this imitation. "Second, you are my sister. Regardless of where I end up living? Or who I end up living with? Rynvale? Larket? Here? That is not changing. If you want me to come out to Cenril to see you more? I will. And you are always welcome here. Any time you want. You and Dominic both. I'm -not- going anywhere." Meri wasn't confident that her words would sit with Khitti this time around. The redhead was sad, but Meri would stubbornly and patiently remind her of those two points as much as she needed to...Until Khitti finally started believing it. Meri wasn't too sure what to say about Brand and Lionel, but Onyx. "I...have to tell you something about Onyx....It's going to upset you..."

Khitti nodded a little as Meri spoke. Khitti knew this. She knew it well. But, it really took someone else telling her these things to really drive it home. That’s how it always used to be with Brand: he’d have to tell her like it is and she’d either get it and was fine with it or they fought about it and she was fine with things after the fight. She wasn’t going to fight with Meri, of course, there was no need. “I know…”, she said in regards to Dominic. “Despite knowing this, I just… haven’t felt needed. And this stuff with Venturil and planning on and trying to save them there just isn’t scratching that itch. I know that sounds awful--and I’m not going to let it entirely get in the way of my duties with the guild and taking care of this new bad stuff--but, it is what it is.” When Meri mentioned Onyx, a hand raised up to that lapis lazuli pendant, her frown worsening, “What about Onyx?” Much like with Meri knowing that Khitti was hiding something, it was the same vice versa. Things just didn’t seem the same with Meri since she got back from the Shadow Plane, and while Khitti knew things would be different after what Meri went through there, it felt like more than just that.

Meri nods empathetically about Khitti not feeling needed, she could understand where the paladin was coming from and was not judging the woman at all. "You are needed though," she tries to reaffirm. Shortly after this statement she takes in a deep breath and releases it in a sigh, already looking guilty. It's not like she -enjoyed- keeping things from Khitti. "It was Onyx who helped me back here? I don't know if I would have made it back without them. Maybe eventually? But..." Meri frowns. "When they helped me back they shared a vision of their past with me. Involving you...." Meri's guilt becomes more apparent because it is hard for her to keep her gaze on Khitti right about now. "And you are going to get upset with me...because I did not say this much sooner. But when I first got back? I couldn't. They swore me not to, they said if I spoke one single word of him helping me back? That Facilier would know and their plans would be ruined..." When Meri first signed up for this crazy mission to help some vampire chick way back in the day, she never expected she would end up so invested. "How could I take the upper hand from them? And then afterward...Well Dominic had just been born. I didn't want to tell you too soon after that....And then I was trying to find a good moment to catch both you and Brand..." Meri presents excuse after excuse, maybe to Khitti's annoyance, but the blonde can't help it. Look she feels guilty keeping secrets from Khitti, okay?!

Khitti || It took Khitti a little bit to take all of that it, the depression she’d been feeling making that a little worse than it should’ve been. Onyx rescued Meri? Then they made her swear not to tell? Finally, after thinking about it a bit, she said, “I’m not mad. Maybe disappointed? But, I understand. Onyx almost always had a good reason for doing things the way they did, even if it didn’t seem like it to me at the time. -And-, they were certainly right about Facilier. Facilier was always watching, just like Kahran seems to be.” She was taking this surprisingly well, but it was mostly probably due to shock. Still she fiddled with that pendant and continued, “What was the vision they showed you?” A tiny part of her felt betrayed, but not by Meri. Onyx and Khitti may not have always seen eye to eye--okay, they almost -never- saw eye to eye--but she felt like they knew she could be trusted? They chose not to kill her, despite her having been a necromancer, after all.

Meri || "I don't....fully understand what they showed me." Well she did. "I mean, what I don't understand about it...? It is how it can even be possible...But before they brought me home, I accused them of betraying both you and Brand. And he revealed to me exactly why I was wrong and what his motive was for wanting to see Facilier destroyed so bad....." Meri is not struggling to recall the details, but she is having a hard time deciding how to word this to Khitti. You would think after so much time, Meri would have a whole speech written out? Trust, she has written out what she would say in her mind a few times but nothing ever seems right. "Onyx shared a vision of themselves as a child, he was with a woman. She had a hood pulled over her face which did a good job of hiding most of her features. Her eyes were violet though. I did manage to make out that much...And she wore a bracelet identical to the one that you have?" Meri clears her throat. "I don't know how you came into possession of that bracelet, but...this woman had one, and Onyx was calling her momma....Which...? I always thought Onyx was older than you...?" Meri clearly does not understand how this could be, perhaps what she was explaining she saw would actually make sense to Khitti?

Khitti’s brows knitted together again as she listened to Meri, the gears clearly turning in her head a bit. “Did this woman have a skeletal arm and hand too?” Somehow it -did- make sense to Khitti. She shuddered to think of the dreams she’d had before her death, this vision that Onyx gave Meri causing Khitti to remember them all. She’d never -fully- forgotten, of course, but damn well tried too. “There’s some things I haven’t told you either. Not because I didn’t want to, but because for someone that didn’t experience it, it’s a lot to wrap your head around. Hell, it’s still a lot for -me- to wrap my head around it and Brand does his best to not think about it because it gives him a bit of a headache, heh. It’s sort of like with the amnesia. No one else really understands what it’s like until it happens to that person. You can’t really relate to a person unless you’ve had it too. Which is why I think it was so difficult for Brand in the beginning after I came back and maybe not as much for you? Because you understood that it’d take time, if I was ever going to be myself again. He couldn’t relate to that much.” She just sort of rambled on, not really knowing where to begin with her own secrets.

Meri 's telling of this incident with Onyx is temporarily put on hold when Khitti already seems to have some sense of familiarity with what she is hearing. Meri's stomach was still twisting, even though so far things did not seem to be going better than anticipated given the subject matter of this very odd conversation. "I think realistically, while you and I know that we are basically family, even if we are not blood...We still have not known each other for that long. What I am saying is, even though we have already been through a lot together and are as thick as thieves, we still have a lot to learn about one another. And that is okay." Meri takes a moment to eye her untouched sandwich with a bit of regret, the tea finally is sipped from in between sentences. After this brief delay, Meri finally answers Khitti, "It was really hard to make out too many more details. She mostly kept herself shrouded, I just saw the glimpse of the hand...Which yes, was very, very thin, and had that bracelet." While there might be just a smidge more to her 'what happened' story, she was curious what Khitti might say and thus held off for the moment. "This seems like a familiar figure to you though?"

Khitti nodded slowly after listening to Meri, her lips twisting into a frown. “Before the ritual to bring back Lydia… there were things… that happened on the Tranquility.” She leaned back against her chair, that pensive stare still there, “I was having dreams, thanks to Facilier. A lot of them. One of them, after a while, repeated itself.” Khitti’s features shifted in such a way that she looked like she wasn’t sure if she was going to cry or become unnerved and confused. “You were dead. And Brand. And Lionel. Everyone was gone. Facilier made me kill all of you--he’d turned me into a lich. Cenril and Vailkrin were on fire, probably the rest of Lithrydel too. Even Francis was gone, but he still protected me in death. One of the last times I dreamt it, Lydia--who was still a ghost then--had to have Brand come get me. She connected our minds, through that bloodlink we used to have. He found me in a mausoleum I’d built for all of you and I thought he was an fake, that it was Facilier there to taunt me as he always did, and I almost killed Brand. I almost ripped out his heart like I did Amarrah’s. I don’t know if that would’ve affected him in the real world, but…” Khitti shrugged, continuing, “The bracelet was my phylactery--the thing you destroy to destroy a lich--and I had a skeletal hand. Brand and I had had dreams like this in the past, visions of another world. A strange world, where things were powered with electricity and they used these strange metal boxes to get around, like a carriage, but without horses. Some of the things that happened there, happened here too. It might all be connected. Maybe… there’s another world where Facilier succeeded in capturing me and Onyx was trying to stop it from happening here. The reason why they were older than all of us could be something as simple as chronomancy. They would’ve had very powerful parents, if Onyx was my child from Facilier.” Chronomancy wasn’t simple though and crossing worlds, if that was even possible, was less so.

Meri sort of feels like going cross-eyed when Khitti mentions that chronomancy would be the reason that all of this would make sense. That only slightly helps to alleviate Meri's confusion, but it as all for the blonde to try and wrap her mind around. Knowledge of magic has never been her strong point, but she learns more and more every day. "Ah...That is so...." Meri shakes her head, she can't even put it to words. Does that mean they did not succeed against Facilier? Maybe that is why Onyx had to disappear? Maybe they is no more because Facilier is dead in the past? Is that how it works? But Khitti was saying another world...Oh god, Meri's head was about to explode and she suddenly wanted to break her sobriety streak for a drink. The urge is resisted, Meri instead staring at her tea as she responds with a slow, "Well...If that woman is meant to be you in another world...Then you were telling Onyx that they could save all of the people that Facilier had killed. If they worked hard, found the right teacher, then Onyx could save the lives of so many people. But that Onyx would have to die first...." Meri clears her throat. "But after you said that, I was in Cenril. Sitting in the water. I did not get to see what happened next..."

Khitti offered Meri a faint apologetic smile when it became clear that the blonde was having difficulties processing it all. “I told you it’d make your head spin, heh. That’s why it’s all been kept between Brand and I for so long. It’s so hard to explain and even harder to get people to understand. I don’t think either of us would even get it if we hadn’t been the ones to experience it.” Khitti might’ve been pretty wellread on most magicks, but time travel and the like was above her paygrade, essentially. “That explains why they were undead. It also explains why they absolutely hated me--and necromancers--in the beginning. Because if what Onyx was saying was true--and I don’t doubt what you saw and what they told you--then I’m the one that did it to them.” And then, it hit her finally, those tears welling up in her eyes. “I killed my own child.” A hand went up to the choker on her neck, “It felt like a piece of me died when Onyx disappeared with Facilier and I didn’t know why.”

Meri smiles toward Khitti despite her confusion, "I mean obviously no judgement now that it has been explained..." But it was a lot to take in, and Meri was not going to go on to a full on rant about it with Khitti having tears well up in her eyes. It wasn't common for Meri, as has been established on a few occasions, but this was one of those times where Meri was going to stand up and move closer to her sister so that she can embrace her in a hug. "Was it you though?" If this was Khitti in another world. Was it Khitti? Oh gosh. More complicated questions thanks to this chronomancy stuff. Ugh. Note to self: avoid befriending a time-mage like ever. Sorry Dr. Strange. The hug would come to and end at some point and Meri would find her way back into her seat, sighing softly as she braves to explain. "I don't believe that they actually hated you though. I think that...They might have given you a lot of trouble but...." Would Onyx realy have gone to such lengths if they hated Khitti? Perhaps. Perhaps if Onyx had found that hate for Facilier was greater than any hate for Khitti, perhaps. That assurance would not make Onyx come back though, which is what would probably really help heal the wound Khitti was feeling.

Khitti leaned against Meri as the blonde held her, one hand raising to her eyes to wipe at them. “But it was me, even if it’s just a little bit. It was certainly me in those dreams. It could’ve happened. Maybe it -did- happen… and that’s why they got to be as old as they were. Just repeating the same thing over and over and over again, expecting a different result and it never happened. They kept telling me that they’ve been trying to get me on the right path and I didn’t understand it. I thought I was on the right path. I thought they meant with finally getting things to go my way, and with becoming a paladin, and everything else. But that’s not at all what Onyx meant. The last time I saw them, before we went to confront Facilier, I yelled at them because I didn’t understand. Because just like with everything else, they were talking in riddles and when I didn’t understand, they chided me and it made me angry.” It was making her angry now as she thought about it; just another emotion added to the pile. “If they would’ve just told me… I would’ve listened. They knew I would’ve. They could still be here. We could’ve started over.” Still the tears came and she could do nothing else but cling to Meri, “Why does everyone always leave me, Meri? Even the ones I thought never would.” Lionel and Brand perhaps weren’t exactly ‘leaving’ her, but that didn’t mean that their absence didn’t widen that hole that Onyx’s disappearance had left.

Meri frowns. Why does everyone always leave her? Meri wanted to assure her that she wasn't, but that did not feel like it would do. She was only one person that Khitti was referencing, in a lifetime of people that have left even when she was sure they would not. Brand and Lionel, they would be back Meri hoped, but there were plenty of other names in the grave. Meri came to that understanding while in the Shadow Planes. "I guess...What is important is that you understand that they mean now....That is a start, no?" Meri continues to frown, and contemplates this predicament wholeheartedly. "I guess it is possible that Onyx could have gotten off to anywhere." Another time, another world, maybe they was closer than they were both imagining even, Meri did not know. "But maybe you could find some sort of spell that would allow you contact? Somehow, someway? Maybe you could tell them this, maybe you could say that you want them to come home." Maybe, maybe not. Meri stares at the table in front of her, wishing she could better comfort Khitti...but she was basically learning that she has a child out there somewhere in the world that may want nothing to do with her, because she killed them in...okay we're not doing the chronomancy thing again. The point is! There is no real way to comfort that heartache.

Khitti sighed, not wanting to delve deeper into the rabbit hole that was alternate realities and time travel--at least, not here. If Onyx truly succeeded, they might’ve ceased to exist all together when Facilier was destroyed. “Yeah, maybe.” If Onyx wasn’t entirely gone, then maybe she -could- talk to them. Somehow. Probably with magic that was far above anything she’d ever been taught or that she taught herself. “I think I need to go home, Meri,” Khitti said finally, after a time, that leather-clad form of hers sliding from her chair. “I need to be with Dominic.” Olive-green eyes searched the floor for more answers, but she received none, leaving Khitti to shift her attention back to her sister, “We’ll work on your archery soon, okay? There’s an archery range near here, that the elves use. You could always practice there a bit if you want. And, I’m gonna have some people from the guilds check in on the other byrgs in the meantime, so we don’t have to worry about it much just yet.” She tried to fixate her mind on Venturil again, trying so hard not to think about Onyx until she got home--she was starting to feel like a burden to Meri, much like she had in the past. The last bit of her sandwich was snatched up and her own tea downed, “I will see you soon.”

Meri has never viewed Khitti as a burden, and if she was the mind-reading sort of psion? She probably would not be so quick to let Khitti leave thinking such thoughts. "Go home, spend time with Dominic. If you need any help with the byrgs? Let me know." They would work on the archery soon, that was of importance to Meri but it was not a top concern in the heat of this exact moment. "Or if you and Dominic ever just want to come hang out? That is cool too. Cal bought a crib, we've got it set up in our guest bedroom. Our door is always open to you, Khitti." Khitti would be allowed to leave without much further yacking on Meri's part, she'll have to deal with another hug from her tattoo'd friend, though. For no other reason that Meri feels like Khitti could use another hug.