RP:You Must Have Remembered Something
Part of the You Must Have Been Human Arc
Part of the The God of Undeath Arc
This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.
Summary: Immediately following the events of the Xalious Tree's destruction, the trio responsible take refuge in an abandoned cabin in the wooded mountains. With Quintessa's injuries quickly taking their toll, she faints upon arrival. Leralynn makes the run back out to see if she can procure medical supplies, contact her father or both. Kanna, having forgotten the both of them completely as the Great Insectoid's curse worsens, finds herself remembering being in this place before. Kanna rediscovers the belongings left behind from the night she was made a ghoul, triggering a sudden influx of lost memories. Quintessa follows Kanna into the dream realm, where she sees first hand what dreams and nightmares Kanna had forgotten. Upon the end of the impromptu dream divination, the girls are joined by two bounty hunters in search of information Kanna left behind that could be the key to finding a missing runesmith.
Please be advised before reading that this contains upsetting content matter, including graphic depictions of child trafficking, implied suicide, and implied assault.
A Derelict Cabin
In the darkness of her dreams Quintessa found herself staring at the pond she grew up playing around. The dead limber pine that never showed signs of rotting stood opposite of the black pool of water, the bone wind chimes and wooden fetishes she had decorated it with swayed in the eerie, cold breeze. The changeling recognized it, but something was off; The trees here looked smaller than usual, the brush uncleared, and the path leading up to this place was utterly nonexistent. This was Black Pond, but at the same time it wasn’t. This was a wicked mockery. Quintessa made her way around the pond to look up at the spooky tree she used to hang her little ornaments and treasures in, bird wings and fox skulls, little wooden people crudely tied together with leather cording. This was exactly how she remembered it. The dark fae didn’t have much of a chance to feel anything about it before she heard the soft humming of a child behind her, a girl of ten or eleven playing by the water’s edge. Quintessa turned to look upon her and discovered an urchin covered with mud, her hair long and matted, and her clothes stitched together with mismatched fabrics. She felt her heart sink for the child, pity trumping whatever shock she might have felt. Quintessa knew who this was. She remembered. Timid steps brought the woman closer to her younger reflection, watching the girl draw little pictures with a stick as she loomed over her. “You shouldn’t play so close to the water,” the adult warned, optics of blue and hazel flicking up to watch as the breeze created ripples on the surface of the pool. The little girl stopped humming, her stick gripped tightly in her scrawny little hand as she stood to confront the woman who addressed her. “I can take care of myself.” Her sylphlike face was scrunched in defiance, her lips set in a pout that did not at all look intimidating. Quintessa smiled down at her, unable to deny how cute she looked. “Is that so?” She tried her best not to sound condescending, and judging from the proud expression that replaced the one of resistance, it seemed to have worked. “Yeah,” the child began, turning back around to finish her drawing in the mud, “I’m going to be a hero one day- the best swordsman in all of Lithrydel.” Quintessa froze, remembering all the books she used to read in her spare time of warriors and dragons and princesses that needed saving. “A hero…?” There was silence again, this time extending to the trees and wind around them. Everything was still and noiseless. “Why did you give up?” The child asks, the question taking Quintessa by surprise. “Why did you do it? You finally had people who cared about you and you threw it all away. For what?” The dark fae stammers for a second, her smile replaced by a worried grimace. “I-it’s not that simple- I did what I had to do to-” “NO!” The girl screams, cutting off her older counterpart as she spins around to glare up at her, “You had every opportunity to do the right thing. You could have walked away!” Quintessa tries to step backwards, but the slippy ground escapes from under her feet and she hits the mudly shore hard, frantic movements trying to scramble away. “Because of you I’m alone again!!” A pair of slimy tentacles rise out of the black waters behind the spooky child to stretch out and grip tightly around the ankles of her older version. “You deserve this…” With that utterance, the writhing tendrils yank Quintessa into the cold, murky waters, pulling her deeper and deeper until there was nothing but darkness once more. In the waking world, the dark fae stirs, feeling herself drowning while trapped in her slumber. The feeling jerks her into consciousness as she turns to her side, expelling a small pool of black blood that smells of mud and rot next to the make-shift bed she laid upon. The changeling retches until her lungs are clear of obstruction, pain wracking her body at the sudden convulsions until she relaxed on her back once more. Quintessa sucks in a raggy breath, blood and saliva lingering on her lips as mismatched eyes explore the cabin around her. “Kanna? Leralynn?” the strange woman calls out weakly, her voice strained and raspy. “...Is someone there…?”
The derelict cabin has been left nearly exactly the way it was when the Samhain festival devolved into chaos almost a year prior. A thin layer of dust coats the tables and floor, both of which have been stained with browned splattering. Through the splintered wooden panels, bits of sunlight peer through, revealing cobwebs and specks of dust suspended midair, untouched by the wind. As Quintessa stirs, Kanna gasps and runs over to her. Having shed her theatre mask and Delisha robes, she wears a simple turtleneck and long skirt, enough to make even a fire genasi sweat given the sweltering summer heat. Her outfit’s original colors have long been lost at this point, now stained a sickly red brown that reeks of rot. “Oh, you’re awake!” She beams, seemingly unphased by the changeling’s condition. “Um, the cute girl said she was going to look for her dad, but she told me to make sure you drink this, and said that I can’t eat you. You kind of smell odd, no offense, so I don’t think you’d sit well with me anyways.” Kanna holds up a metal flask for the changeling to take. The bard moves away weaves between the fallen chairs, careful not to disturb the cursed place. “I... think I remember being here. Only vaguely, as if it were a dream, or as if it happened to someone else. Is this where I met you?” Kanna’s question echoes off the walls as she gently pushes aside a fallen tablecloth with the heel of her boot. She stops at the foot of the staircase. For a brief moment, she sees the host of the party descending the same stairs from the guest rooms, greeting the guests and entertainment alike. The woman ascends the stairs, the wood creaking loudly beneath her steps. The halls are lined similarly with nameplates in chalk for the rooms. Some are still visible, such as “Mallory”, or “Niix”. The guest rooms are just as bleak as the downstairs; there are deep claw marks in the floor leading into one of the rooms, in which a half-eaten corpse lies mummified from the dry mountain air. A nameplate catches her eye with something written in a language Quintessa might not be able to read, should she be able to follow her upstairs. “This is… my name in old Rynvalian. From before the high elves annexed the surrounding islands.” She furrows her brows as the bit of trivia floats to mind. It seems that her mind was not entirely destroyed, at least. The door is pushed open, revealing what appears to be an empty room, with a panel in the floor just barely moved out of place. A thick layer of dust coats the room from its disuse.
Quintessa lets out a small whimper of protest as she strains to sit up, her head spinning at the exertion she was putting her body through. “Drink…?” The dark fae takes the flask clumsily and brings it to her lips, trusting that her partners in crime wouldn’t try to poison her. After all, if they wanted to kill her they had all the time in the world while she lay dying just outside the cabin. The healing liquid moves down her throat uncomfortably, her voice box still recovering from the ear splitting scream she had let out when she was purified by Khitti’s holy magic. ‘Khitti…’ the thought of her mentor (or former mentor) causing a pang of guilt to swim over her conscious, reminding her of what had happened at the Xalious Tree. Once Quintessa has finished her medicine she watches as Kanna explores the area, a frown tugging on her bloodstained lips as she relaxes back onto her elbows. “You… Still don’t remember me, do you?” The sorrow in her voice is unmistakable, her mismatched eyes falling to the floor dejectedly. “I was supposed to help you, but I’ve only made things worse…” Another groan of agony escapes Quintessa as she rolls to her stomach, making it somewhat easier for her to get to her feet in order to follow the ghoul. “No, this is the first time I’ve come here. I wasn’t at the party when you were turned into an undead.” The changeling presses her body against the dusty wall, her body barely able to keep itself standing. “Had I been there I might have been able to stop it… I’m the most prolific necromancer since Joliette Thorne… I could have done something.” Quintessa manages to join Kanna in the next room, optics of sapphire and topaz reading over the ancient Ryvailian language she had studied before they had even met when she first picked up a katana. “It was replaced by Sylvan almost a thousand years ago,” she muses, a hand resting on Kanna's shoulder to support herself. “I didn’t know you spoke it… We could have bonded over something less terrible than your affliction.” Icy blue and warm hazel eyes scan the room slowly, falling upon the displaced panel for a moment before she makes herself speak again. “What’s that?” The changeling asks, her pale hand moving away from her rips to point a shaky finger in its direction.
When Quintessa bumps against the wall, Kanna turns and goes up to the woman, slinging the dark fae’s arm around Kanna’s shoulders so that she can bring her into the room. “I don’t remember you, no.” There was no hiding that fact for now. “But ah, she told me to call her ‘Orange’, she said that you cared about me very much, so I’m sure that we’re friends.” Kanna smiles as a familiar motherly instinct kicks in. The sheet is pulled off of the bed, and the changeling is led to sit on the edge of the bed. A morbid curiosity for what lies under the paneling draws her attention back to the area. An arrowhead falls from one of the holes on her arm that closes with the Great Insectoid’s forbidden magic as she moves. The paneling is removed easily enough, revealing a tattered canvas rucksack, the top of which is affixed with a bed roll. “It’s just a bag. Is this mine?” Kanna turns the bag right side up, propping it up on something beneath to examine its contents. At the top lies a satchel dusted in sand, containing a chunk of quartz, a runic crystal, and other odds and ends. Only a brief glance is given to its contents before being set aside. The woman flips through the first few pages of the worn leather journal, then the pages of her own journal, in which she had already begun an alphabet key for the strange language the same night Quintessa fled the campsite in the desert. “Is this like all garbage?” The amnesiac complains, lifting the rucksack up. The bag is turned upside down, and the remaining contents are spilled out onto the floor, including a folded furisode, embedded with a unique magic that creates the illusion of a sunny sky with clouds rolling across the fabric. Kanna’s eyes widen as she drops the bag, slowly reaching out for the enchanted formalwear. As her icy hands touch the fabric, it shifts under her fingers to reflect that of a night sky. A myriad of constellations previously unseen seem to illuminate the room and the ghoul’s face as she passes a hand over it. Her brows furrow as she seems to think on something. Silver curls spill over her shoulders, reflecting the furisode’s starlight to illuminate the room. “Daedria above, what have I done...” Her Patron’s name leaves her lips for the first time in far too long. Kanna winces as something in her chest aches, giving off a single, painful heartbeat. In an act very contrary to how an undead should be able to behave, tears well at her eyes and roll down her pale fale. Her eyes wrench shut and she doubles over, letting out a wail that tears through the cabin enough to unsettle some of the dust lingering on the rafters. The ghoul would be inconsolable as something triggers in her mind. When whatever air is in her lungs finally gives out, Kanna slumps over, her eyes glassy and unfocused before slowly closing to allow the ghoul her first dream in almost a year’s time.
Quintessa shakes her head. “This isn’t garbage- this is important to the quest we accepted long ago that took us into the Nameless Desert…” The changeling shudders, remembering the projection of the man that looked far too much like her father. Was that really Ranok of Rynvale? Quintessa wasn’t even sure she believed he even existed at this point. The dark fae girl drops to her knees as she struggles to organize the lost artifacts, putting them back in the order they had discovered them in before Kanna pleads to Daedria catches her attention. “Kanna?” Another wave of guilt overcomes Quintessa. This too, was her fault. Everything the changeling touches ends up corrupted and broken, misused and twisted to suit whatever ill means the strange woman put her mind to. Was Quintessa just doomed to hurt everyone, especially the ones she cared most about? “I’m so sorry,” the woman sobs, resting her forehead against the bard’s slumped body as the unnatural sleep takes hold of her. “You should have just killed me- you should have just-” Quintessa ceases in her lamentations as she senses a small spark of magic trying to burrow its way into the ghoulish girl, her night-hag bloodline urging her to follow the call to the dream realm within Kanna’s mind. Even with Lithrydel’s two main nexus points disrupted and her dark magic robbed from her by Khitti’s magic, her cursed blood still held the mystical power to forge a connection into the dreams of others. A single pale digit rises to rest upon the bard’s forehead as the changeling closes her eyes, trying to peer into the surge of memories that overwhelmed her. Perhaps if she understood things better, she could help her in a way that did not involve bending to the will of dark, forgotten gods.
The world of dreams is a blinding white as Quintessa taps into the ghoul’s mind. A small girl no older than ten stands in what can only be presumed to be the center of the featureless room, dressed in only a ragged sweater far too large for her emaciated frame. There is rope tied tightly around her wrists, being led off into the white expanse. A carrying case for some instrument is attached to her back, bobbing uselessly as she is dragged off to what can only be assumed to be a terrible fate. Ratty dark curls cropped to her ears nearly obscure a heavily freckled face and wide blue eyes. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, please let me go…!” The street urchin sobs. As the dark fae approaches, the scenery changes to that of what she would recognize as Rynvale, though the fashion is a bit dated. Two uniformed men drag her down the street by tugging harshly on the rope despite her pleading and apologies. Residents pointedly avert their gaze from her as she looks around, desperate for someone to intervene. “How much do you think we’d get?” The human guard mutters to the high elf. The high elf regards Kanna with the gaze of someone examining a piece of fruit in a stall. “Five thousand upfront to the boys in the coves, most likely. Depends on her condition.” The young Kanna only sobs harder, unresponsive to anything the changeling might do or say, leaving Quintessa forced to bear witness. The memory jumps to that of what seems to be some kind of makeshift holding cell, where different men, presumably her buyers, hold the child in place as a poker is removed from a furnace. The girl still sobs for help, for her father to come save her, still holding onto the hope that someone, anyone will save her. But nobody comes. The stink of burnt flesh fills the air along with that of screams. After a few agonizing seconds, the child is dropped back to the ground of the holding cells.
From the shadows of the room, the Kanna that Quintessa recognizes steps out, watching the child writhe in pain with tears streaming down her face. Having only known Kanna as a ghoul, the woman appears in her human form while in the world of dreams. “This was likely… the second worst day of my life. All because I was caught stealing a loaf of bread.” She says in a dazed tone. “Even now, it feels like it happened to someone else. Is it because it happened so long ago? I wonder how I ever could have forgotten any of this...”
At some point, the wall at the far end of the room has faded away to reveal that of a house, from which only a pair of hanging feet can be seen. The creaking of rafters can be heard over the wails of the child. Somewhere in the room with the rafters, an even younger version of Kanna can be seen briefly holding the same curious instrument case tight. To all of these memories, Kanna does not react. Her gaze remains distant and unfocused. Tentatively, the real Kanna steps forward to try to comfort the self sobbing in the cages, but her hands pass through the frail body. “This is how I got the ability to control the flowers.” The ghoul says softly, her eyes slowly going wide with alarm as the next memory triggers.
The scene changes to that of a grassy knoll in the night. The roar of the ocean just below the cliffs is nearly deafening as the pair watches the girl flee into the Fog Forest. There are only flashes of memory as a dryad emerges from the fog somewhere deep within. The dryad is as mysterious as everything else ever found in the ominous forests. Her skin and hair in the moonlight ranges from a pale brown to a soft pink, with mottled white spots that match her pure white eyes. Flowers dance from the ends of the vines that are her hair, to which the traumatized child seems to be drawn to. The buds of the flowers are pinkish red and split open to bring forth masses of delicate stamens in white sprays that hang downwards to blow in the ocean’s winds. As the dryad kneels before the child, the memory abruptly changes. The dryad is gone, and some paces away are the men who branded the young Kanna who stands with her palm outstretched in fear. “Get AWAY!” The stink of blood and ocean air is prevalent as the men are impaled on thickly tapered roots that were not there just a moment before. The child trembles as the woman comments, “And how I committed my first murders.”
Quintessa shields her eyes from the blinding that causes a high pitched ringing to form in her ears. For a moment it is overwhelming, but soon the dark fae acclimatizes herself to the new dreamscape. Mismatched eyes look down at her hands and clothes as she tries to get a grip on her new form, noticing right away that she too had been transported to a time when she was a young child. Her long raven hair, matted with fairy-locks, reaches all the way down to her back. Her scrawny legs and knees are cut and bruised from a recent beating, and her frame is frail from malnutrition. Quintessa hating being in this form, but at the moment it was the only pure version of herself that remained. Sapphire and topaz eyes gleam with curiosity as she looks up to spy another child her age, her little legs running to catch up to her, the dreamscape shifting to the island that she typically avoided due to her fear of the ocean. “Rynvale?” The two men don’t seem to notice the other urchin as she peers over Kanna’s shoulder to look upon her face, recognizing her immediately as they discuss selling her. Soon they are both within a holding cell, the child form of Quintessa quivering with fear and anger over what they were doing to her. This was just like the tourture that she had endured. Tiny hands grip around the bars as the screams echo throughout the dreamscape, the little changing yelling at them to stop, but they didn’t listen. Quintessa might as well not even exist. She crumples in the cell, dropping to her knees as she watches helplessly, unable to do anything to stop that which happened long before they had ever met. “I’m sorry…” she wails, dirty hands moving to cover her face. The little fae girl only stops crying when she hears the bard's voice, giving her a small narration to the scene that was unfolding before her. Quintessa is still as she watches, her mismatched eyes wide in shock at the horrible things that had been done to her. How was Kanna always so cheerful? It didn’t make sense. Quintessa has allowed all of her pain to make her bitter and hateful, allowing it to transform her into a lying snake that only knew how to take advantage of people. “They deserved worse,” the little changeling says, her voice defiant and willful. “They deserved what I did to my father…” Quintessa stands up to reach out for the hand of the adult Kanna. “What happened next?” the child wonders out loud.
Kanna watches the scene play out as the scenes play of her “upbringing” from there, starting from the child feeling the Fog Forest and never returning. “Maybe they did.” The bard says softly, accepting the hand of the small changeling. When the child asks what happens next, Kanna motions with her hand out to the scenes flashing in rapid succession. Accompanying them are wisps of other sensations: a particularly catchy song, the scent of baked goods, the impression of flower petals and grass on warm skin. As the memories flash by, Kanna watches, still a bystander to her own disconnected memories. There would be the sudden inkling that perhaps she was able to act so happy because she had dissociated completely from the nightmares endured. Not quite the healthiest coping mechanism, but it worked, somehow. Scenes of the bard as a flower peddler and of herself training to play the curious instrument on her back play out in blurred scenes. Other scenes play as well, pauses on certain memories as a teenage Kanna tries to perform her music in taverns, only to be catcalled and harassed. That samed dazed expression crosses the memory version of Kanna’s face as she finally resigns herself to being led away from the tavern stage. In this memory in particular, the bard leaves the Whaler’s Bar in Cenril. As Kanna walks alongside the dream Quintessa, she looks around the town. “The things I did to survive weren’t pretty, but they guaranteed warm nights when it got cold.”
Quintessa frowns as the story continues, wondering if she too would have been forced to stoop to such acts just to survive if Mahri hadn’t found her wandering the streets of Vailkrin, alone and disheveled. Begging, stealing, spying, and murdering all seemed better alternatives, but they had given rise to the darkness that lived inside of the changeling. Her mother’s cursed blood would always course through her veins, but did that mean she had to follow those corrupted desires? Quintessa remembered one of the only times she had stepped foot in the Whaler’s, the catcalling she had been subjected to caused a vicious fury to overtake her salinity and smashed a mug into some man’s face for the crime of speaking to her too crudely. She was 16 then, and thus her current form shifted to the beggar-spy Mahri had contracted to spy on Larewen; A dirty orphan wearing an elven wedding gown she stole from a corpse, a ratty veil hangin in her face to hide her strange teeth and eyes. She was ashamed of the way she looked then, with her pointy nose and limbs that were much too long for her body. She had not yet grown into the exoitc beaty she was in present times.
The ghoul’s brows furrow as she looks south to the forests. “I… spent a night out there too, I think.” Her eyes widen in realization as other scenes pass around them in a torrent of related memories. “That’s right. In this life, I don’t need to worry about such things, right?” Quintessa’s hand is released as the ghoul, now assuming the form of herself in her memories, walks to the center of the scene. In the forests just below Cenril, the ghoul reliving the scene nurtures the flames to smoke the remainder of some victims’ flesh for which she cannot grieve for. “Why don’t you ever join me?” Kanna calls out to the treeline. Even with the heightened vision of one accustomed to the night, Quintessa would be unable to see the figure in the distance. Strangely enough, the voice of the man from the projections in the desert rings out. “Whether I am here or not is none of your concern, girl. You have much more important matters to attend to.”
Kanna seems surprised for a moment, her eyes glazing over with recognition. She swallows thickly before regaining her composure and giving a weak laugh. “That’s a very good impression, but I’ve seen you. Your frame is much too small to be Ranok. You know me well, I suppose. Do you like magic?” There is a pause, then a trademark scoff that the changeling would immediately recognize as that of her lover… Former lover? “Why’d ya keep lookin’ for me, eh? I ‘em not a threat to ya.” A dwarven-sounding voice calls out. Kanna turns her head to face the direction of the thrown voice and leans forward as the flesh dries on the spitfire. “No, you’re better, you’re an ally… Right? So why are you hiding from me?” Another change in voice, this time, the voice of Provost Kaaname was imitated. “Because I might kill you at a moment’s notice.” At this, Kanna’s expression fell. “Don’t use his voice.” She snapped, having to rub her arms in a mimicry of her human memory to wash away the chills. A much longer stretch of silence is had, then Karasu’s own voice finally asks, “You’ve met him?” Kanna blinks slowly. “My own father? Yes, in Schezerade. He apologized for not being able to find me when my mother passed, and asked me to visit Xalious once, but I made up an excuse at the time to not go. How do you know him?”
As if broken from a trance, the bard looks up at Quintessa. “I never heard her voice again after this, but I know why she didn’t come out now.” The scene shifts again. This area was easily recognizable as the terrain just outside where they dreamt. People scream and flee the cabin as the bard walks out into the mountainous forest, seemingly in a daze. There is a rush of footsteps as a soldier wearing armor emblazoning Xalious runs up and grabs one of her hands with both hands. The soldier is a familiar demi-feline with almond-shaped rhodolite eyes and unruly mulberry curls, panting from the exertion of having run all the way here. “I found you!” The spellblade wheezes out excitedly, her still-naive eyes full of hope. Thank goodness you’re okay. Your name is Kanna, right? I-I know this will sound crazy, but I’m--” Karasu does not get to finish her introduction as a snarl from the ghoul cuts her off. As Kanna lunges for the girl, the memory cuts off abruptly, drowning their world in the white expanse again. Kanna stops mid-lunge to bury her face in her hands, desperately trying to repress this memory. To this, she has no commentary except, “No wonder Karasu won’t see me. Ranok would hate me if he saw me now too.”
Now Quintessa was in the forest, before a campfire when the voice of the man from the projection caused an icy knot to form in her stomach. “No-no-no…” Quintessa whispers, her lanky arms wrapping around her rail thin body, but she relaxes when she discovers it was merely an illusion. “Is that…?” Quintessa doesn’t speak her name; She didn’t have to. Guilt again overwhelmed her. Quintessa missed Karasu with all her heart. She wanted to do better for her, but after their fight the dark fae had convinced herself she was only fit to commit acts of evil. Only fit to steal, murder, and ruin the balance that the entire world relied upon. What would the demifeline think of the changeling now? Behind her elvan veil silent tears ran down her face. “Karasu would hate me now too,” she says to Kanna, accepting that she was an irredeemable monster who deserved all the pain she had endured. “I promise, if we ever find him I’ll tell him it was me. I’m the one who enabled your descent into madness. I-” the realization that she had been keeping herself from piecing together for months finally became untenable. “I’ve been serving the thing that did this to you all along. I’m the one that corrupted you. If Ranok should hate anyone, it should be me.”
Kanna looks to Quintessa, lowering the hands that covered her own face as she tries to think of what to say to the observer. “Karasu… I don’t know if she hates you. But, I don’t think she could. You didn’t do this to me.” As Kanna speaks, she looks away, downtrodden, “Could I even find him like this? In the course of two weeks, he had to save my life so many times. And I did not become stronger because of it. I let a memory of him lure me into becoming what I am now; it wasn’t you.” The white expanse trembles around them and shifts to a time when the downstairs was much livelier. Kanna stands ready for her performance, this Kanna being the one that had returned from the Nameless Desert to run straight to her scheduled performance before she missed her chance for payment.
A stranger is amongst those who continue to slip in through the portal, a red splash against the throng of newcomers. At a glance, his costume looks simple enough, being Pantaloons and a tunic of a sanguine shade of red. But there's an added detail to the shirt, an uncanny bit of stitch work which seems to etch out the semblance of ribs along the front, providing a somewhat sinister and gaunt appearance to the wearer. An effect which pairs rather well with the skeletal mask he sports. With it in place, his face is all but obscured save for the hint of his murky green eyes. That said, the most discreet touch is perhaps the most morbid, with what looks to be a thin wound painted unevenly across the pale flesh of his throat. Upon spotting Kanna that any semblance of grace seems to enter the Strangers gait, his steps growing more deliberate as he approached. Perhaps he recognizes her from prior work, or simply means to pay respect to a member of the entertainment for this evening- but whatever the case, the stranger pauses a few feet from her. There's a hoarse noise akin to a throat being cleared, before his pallid fingers slip to the inside of his vest. The flourish is almost clumsy, but what's held between the figures digits is a rose, nigh translucent as though it were crafted from ice, save for the lick of blue flames which seems to dance in the petals. It's this object which is ever so courteously extended to bard. Kanna gasps with delight and reaches to take the rose in her hands. The man and the room fall away into darkness below her, leaving Kanna and the tagalong to her memories floating in the abyss. “Ranok?” Kanna calls out, dressed in heavy winter gear, and still holding the rose with a name that was likely something overly poetic. There’s a flash of a scene outside of from where they can reach, of the runesmith laying in a puddle of ice, blood, and oil from his metal arm and armor.
The bard screams in terror as she tries to make her way to him. Even as blood and oil drips from the wicked edge, something erupts from the darkness. Hands. Hundreds of hands, boiling over, erupting towards her. Stand and fight or trying to run, they moved fast, stampeding Ranok's motionless body and they'd be on her, grasping at her skin, her clothes. Pulling her hair backwards, their grip tightening. One latches over her mouth so she couldn't even scream, the hands were plucking at her. The horrifying scene bypasses Quintessa completely, though some hands make attempts to grab at the changeling’s feet. Something oily sounding speaks her name, mockingly. "Kanna...Kanna...come to me...look at me, Kanna..." She can't feel anything but the icy grip of the hands as the cold snakes up her body, her name echoing in the hall. And then a light appears. As she looks towards it, perhaps believing this was the oft touted 'white light' to go into, she'd realize it was not white. But blue. Electric blue, to be precise. Another one winks into being beside it. Then another. More spark into life, fiercely burning, and her whole sky begins to light. The blue fades back into darkness again, all but another light, this one weak but warm. The mocking voice, begging her to come back wasn't so mocking, but his, repeating steadily. "Kanna. Listen to me. Come back to me. Come back to here. Kanna. Look at me." Abruptly, the memory asserts itself into its true location in some sort of grand foyer, aged with disuse. The feelings of fear and despair for the nightmare recede as the source of their effects was held off. A blue light burns over Ranok's shoulder, noticeably dimmed, as it was tasked to bathe the three of them in the aura it projected. Kanna was held so tightly to his chest to maximize the effects, and to contain her struggles. His armor thrums with energy, as steady as the heartbeat against her own. When Kanna finally stops trying to flee, to fight, and to curl, Ranok would, hesitantly, relax his grip, letting her see his very much alive face. The man was pale, as if he'd seen a ghost himself, and his face scoured with neat lines, fresh blood drawn. She'd clawed him in her attempts to escape, but he hadn't let her go. "...Kanna?" Draeta fades and the heart beat fades down, and the sound that filled their ears was replaced by the howling of the wind. "Are you...with me now?" Ranoks voice was almost hopeful as he cups the bard’s face with his fleshbound hand. Kanna’s eyes widen as her hair turns silvery again, indicating that she has become her current self again. “I do remember. I promised you a life debt for saving me, even as you joked that you didn’t want my life.” The scene temporarily shifts back to elsewhere, some kind of tavern room where there’s a flicker of the smell of Mental in the distance, and a deep rumble of a paired with Kanna’s laugh. At this point, Quintessa seems to face the door. When she tries to turn around, the room shifts back to the grand foyer as if the memories are jumbled from their sudden return, or because Kanna has just enough sense to remember that she’s not the only person in the dreamscape for the sudden intrusion.
The memory returns to somewhere from right before some kind of fear spell had taken hold of Kanna, though she’s still in an embrace. “I wish I had some inspiring thing to give you. To tell you that the world is not so bad, and that we can fight the good fight... The world has good and bad people in it, Kanna. It is the good we protect, it is them we save. You are one of them… Did you wonder why I spent so much effort saving you, Kanna? Because I could see you are good. That you hold an innate belief that the world is just, even with the horrible things that could happen. Even I could see it. I felt it worth protecting." The figure gives a sort of shrug and heaves himself to his feet, and fingers extend to the bard to help her up, too. "Come, now. We need to finish this. One way or the other, we need to end this." Kanna allows the man to pull her to her feet, but she pulls back from Ranok, who fades back into the background as she resumes her ghoulish form. “Everything I’ve done since becoming undead… I can’t redeem myself from that. He saved me because he trusted that I was good, and instead, he saved a monster.” The floramancer says quietly as other memories flash by in rapid succession, scenes warping around with nauseating swirls of viscera and gore of all those who died begging for their life. It only lasts a second, Quintessa even sees Karasu’s terrified and bloody face standing above Kanna. As the bulk of the memories seem to have passed, the bard opens her eyes, though the dream does not quiet end. In her hands of both her real self and her dream self is the enchanted sky-patterned furisode.
Quintessa slowly changes into her present day self, or at least the self she saw herself as; Hardened. Tall. Powerful. The dress and veil fade away like dust in the breeze to leave behind the torn velour catsuit she had worn under the cloak and robes used during the Night of the Living Dead Girls. “If Ranok is alive,” the changeling begins, looking to Kanna with a small glimmer of hope in her eyes, “I can help you find him… It’s the least I can do to make up for a lifetime of wrong.” Quintessa’s hopeful glimmer disappears at the sound of the dreadful voice, her mismatched eyes flicking up to view the multitude of hands that reached out for her. The dark fae recoils instinctively, but as the foul magic reached her being she recognized immediately what it was. “Fear Magic?” Quintessa’s hand moves to swipe away the hands that pass through her, dispelling what could reach her through the sheer will of her disbelief. After all her time studying necromancy, there was scarcely a terror spell or symbol of horror that the strange woman did not recognize. “Kanna! This isn’t real! It’s using your own worst fears against you!” But the dark fae’s words of comfort are spoken in vain as she struggles to push herself through the surge of the bard’s emotions. By the time she takes her side it is over, the voice speaking words of reassurance of Kanna’s goodness, words that the changeling takes to heart. “The world has good and bad people in it… It is the good we protect, it is them we save…” Quintessa now knew what she had to do. “It’s not too late for us, Kanna.” she says, conviction ringing strong in her voice. “I’m not ready to give up. People will hate us for what we’ve done, they might even try to kill us, but so long as we fight to make things better, then we can die knowing we did what we could. I promise you Kanna, I will cure you, I will restore you to the human you must have been and I will do it without sacrificing my own humanity. I promise- I-” Quintessa’s form starts to fade from the dream realm, her magic waning far too much to maintain the connection. “I will save you Kanna!” (Kanna) (kanna) In the waking world Quintessa takes in a long, ragged breath as she reels back away from the ghoul, falling back on the floor with a groan as her body recoils from the pain of her injuries. There she lies, staring up at the rotting rafters as the memories of the dream rattle around her skull. She wanted to save her, save Lithrydel, but could she contend with the powers of the God of Undeath? Would Alithyk Caluss simply destroy the wretched girl now, especially since she was nearly powerless? With a growl full of agony she lifts her body to rest on her elbows again.Quintessa had much work to do in an effort to reverse what she’d done, but had no idea where to start.
Outside the door, an owl hoots, followed by a short exchange of some nocturnal animals that results in an abrupt screech. A light rattle as the wind throws leaves or twigs against the walls of the derelict cabin, scratching the wood in a forlorn sort of way. The moon casts a cruel shadow of a claw, the thin watery light a bare breath in the near darkness of the room. The shadow bob and weaves as the wind plays with its caster, a sort of rhythmic chant of motion. Back and forth, heedlessly and unheeded by the room's occupants. As the girl's delve into memory, the world around them passes in slow ticks, and the branch sways, sways, sways...and stops. The clawed form of shadow was a stopped silhouette on the floor. The fingers seem to elongate and the shadow seemed...wrong, somehow. That it contained volume was a good start. And that it seemed to be slithering across the floor, swallowed by darkness by another. The trace of its passage was only a slight bulge on the floor in the darkness, and it slithers towards the two girls, growing in size. Reaching the feet of the girls the shadow pauses, and then erupts into a cloud of darkness that defied even their night vision. Two forms take shape, quickly, twisting and binding themselves back into the material. One was a slightly short figure hooded unnecessarily in the darkness, with hands clad in black gloves, boots of dark leather. As a matter of fact, it seemed that it was all dark materials on his body. The only truly distinguishing feature was ornamentation around the rim of the hood, some forboding lettering that recited some poem. "The Mysterious Strangers visits upon you, and this truly touching scene." At once, a recollection might form. Years, it felt like, an orientation in a fortress in Rynvale, and the borderline absurd seriousness of a fellow bounty hunter. What was not absurd were the blades that dripped darkness unsheathed and dreadfully close to skin. The other was a slender looking man, features resolving into a set of plain features.
Reptilian eyes, a scattering of red scales around the face that forbade any attempts at growing facial hair. A tall frame made to look wider by the addition of two wings, held tightly to his body. His armor and garb was much less matched then his dark companion, featuring some simple scale mail and leather greaves. He, too, held a weapon but the spear in his grip was firmly pointed upwards. Another old bounty hunter, who might be recalled to answer to the name 'Kessien'. Kessien did not look exactly comfortable with the situation, but his expression was one of determination. Mysterious Stranger, who spoke words that dripped a sinister sort of smirk, speaks, each word an oily hiss, "Seems you girls have some answers us boys have been looking for. Gave us a long old run around, you did. We been waiting for you to come back to give us some answers you might have." Twin daggers bob with the words. MS looked as if he knew how to use them. The hooded man continues, "All that waiting might make a man anxious for a little entertainment. Maybe you gals might supply?" There's an unbridled eagerness behind the words that most women of the world might recognize. A slightly chilling proposition for anyone to hear. Kess shifts on his feet, his tongue darting between thin lips nervously. The draconian seemed to be on the cusp of something, wavering. But, suddenly, his resolve hardens, and he speaks, "No. That wasn't part of the deal. I didn't bring you into this so you could...could have sport with them." Fingers that were covered in small, delicate scales tighten around the haft of the spear. MS keeps the slow dance of his daggers, and the words that drip from the hood carry menace to them. "You telling me what I can't do now, are you? You brought me in, did you? You were flailing about on this job until I came in and now you're thinking you're in charge here? Let me prove you wrong." The daggers whirl around quickly and all at once, the so called Mysterious Stranger was darting forward to seize Kanna into his grip as Kessien gave a shout of either surprise or dismay. For what end was unknown, but given his demeanor it couldn't be good.
Kanna allows her dreamself to stand alone in the expanse while the Mysterious Stranger and his companion silently begin to enter the scene. When she holds the garment close to her chest, only one of two reminders of the home she can only remember faintly, she thinks of the person who got it for her. Her first and only vivid memory of taste resurfaces then, the taste of snowbee honey, smoke from the Mental plant, and the sharp tang of iron. jolts awake fully the second the unfamiliar voice pierces her ears. Kanna, memories fully restored, tenses with alarm as she grabs as Quintessa’s arm, pulling herself in front of the weakened changeling. “More goddamn creeps in our lives!” The ghoul’s flight or flight kicks in immediately, her features turned into a snarl. As the Mysterious Stranger seizes the woman’s hand raised in what appears to be defense, her mind races to Amante. How had they gotten past him?! There is barely a moment’s calculation as she realizes what it she has to do. In the same manner she had reached for him, she reaches back, digging the metal claws on her fingertips similar to those on the creatures she once commanded into the Mysterious Stranger’s throat. Activated by the pressure, the metal slides backwards over her fingers, allowing fungal spores to be released into the lecherous man’s bloodstream. Soon the bounty hunter would feel pressure in his very veins before the mushrooms attempted to break out of any escape they could find. Downstairs, she hears the wolf bark wildly, having heard the commotion upstairs. Thank Daedria he was safe! Glaring to Kessian with a wild look in her eyes, she will then raise her other clawed hand to do the same. Nothing he could say could save him now.
Quintessa lifts up a hand to cast a spell like she had done a thousand times before, the arcane energies gifted to her from her cursed bloodline sparking as the whims of her aggressive gesture. However, instead of a powerful current of electricity manifesting at her fingertips, her magic fizzles harmlessly, leaving the changeling absolutely unable to defend herself. When Quintessa sees the way Kanna reacts it becomes clear that she didn’t have to. A proud smile spreads on her blood stained lips as her hand falls back to the floor. “Instead of his mushroom in us, your mushrooms are in him. What a turn of events.” A fit of cruel laughter escapes from her chest followed quickly by a groan of discomfort as the mirth sends a wave of pain through her body. Now was not the time for crude humor.
Daggers drop to the ground, their edges tattering into shadow and scattering in threads, rather then clatter to the ground. A leather clad glove darts to his throat, and the Mysterious Stranger stumbles back, making a choked sound. No longer did his voice sound sinister, but garbled, "You...bitch...". In his throes, the hood is thrown back, showing pale skin, already turning bulbous. The man collapses, shudders, and is still, with only the sound of popping as mushrooms force their way out of his skin. Kessien was shouting something incoherent, trying to get his spear around in the close quarters but unable, but the moment was over and now he was face to face with two somewhat murderous ladies. As he had not partaken in the torrent of memories and promises of being better people, he was in no position to appreciate the irony. But, of course, on the other hand, their demeanor was understandable. Clutching his weapon defensively in front of him, the haft across his body and the head of the spear still upwards, he nonetheless cedes space, backing away, "Wait, wait! I didn't want any of this! I just...wanted to talk. You guys are the only ones that have the whole story. Look." His wings unfurl slightly but there isn't much room to manuever. "That stuff in the desert, yeah? You weren't the only ones to think to look there, but it was all broken. But something happened there, I just know it. All I know you guys got there first, there, right? So I wanted to ask you what happened, but it got hard to follow you, so I thought to team up with that guy...and I didn't realize just how wacko he was until it was too late. We're friends here, right? We all want that big bounty, yeah?" But seeing as Kanna wasn't exactly in the mood for chit-chat, and Quintessa was looking as an equally dreadful backup...and he was in, literally, a corner, the draconian pauses. His arms lower, the spear dipping down, "Okay. Okay. No, it's not about the bounty. Why would I team up with some obviously self important jackass just for some money? Nah, that ain't my idea of fun." The weapon dips lower, "I want to find Ranok because he's my father. Well. Not father. Adopted father, I guess? It's a little complicated. He saved my life nearly ten years ago when I was a slave." Slender fingers tipped in a small claw raise to his collar to tug it to the side. The exposed skin was twisted and braided around his neck, the light scattering of scales that would have gone down the sides to meet his collarbones forever ruined, "Found me in the Sage with a few other slaves. Freed us, but the slaver bastards liked their insurance policies. Had been giving us poison in our food and the antidote in our drink. Low grade stuff, but enough to make you sick as hell if you tried to run. But I was too small at the time, and it would have killed me. When Ranok came through...doing that thing he does. You know, like some big damn hero, fighting the good fight. Freed us, but realized I was sick by the time he got us somewhere safer. Took me under his wing and gave a piece of himself to save my life. Something he didn't have to do. My own dad, my real dad, sold me off to be some freak show, and my dragon mother was off living her best millenia long life elsewhere. No one else saw much in me but what I was worth in gold. He saved my life twice and then made sure I could...live a life I wanted. I picked a combat school. Get strong enough to maybe do what he did." The man wasn't quite meeting the eyes of anyone in the room, and it might strike as just how young he looked. He couldn't have been any much more then twenty at the outside. "I want to get him back, not to just pay him back for saving my life, but because that's what he'd do for me."
Kanna advances on Kessian with the intent to protect the dark fae the moment he mentions the bounty. Greedy little-- “Father?” Kanna echoes, the sheer bewilderment enough to make her pause. Scratch that earlier statement. Exactly one thing could save him now. “Ranok is your-- wait.” Her face scrunches again, not in fury or self-defense, but in confusion. Actually, there was the faint recollection of Ranok saying something along those lines, though she was never truly sure if he had been serious or not. The bard’s lip twitches as Kessian retells the story. She lowers her hand, looking from the young draconian to the corpse, still blooming with a sickening kaleidoscope of mushrooms. Oh dear, they were going to spore soon. “Aye, I know how much Ranok hates the slave trade. I wonder if I could ever have a competition with him on which of us hates it more.” A knowing smile is given to the weak changeling as she crosses the room with a sigh that indicates that she has given up on murdering the draconian. The window is thrown open, the storm having since faded away to a drizzle. There’s a slam at the door downstairs as the third member of their troop arrives with reinforcements for Quintessa’s deteriorating condition. Should Quintessa object to Kessian’s story, Kanna will shake her head. “No, it does sounds about right. Ranok was the one who found a place to take Sayuri too after we recovered her from a brothel in Cenril, the one that I was meant to be sold into once.” She thinks on this as she recovers the furisode and places it back in the rucksack. In the paneling of the floorboards, another item is recovered, one that a certain telemancer would have killed for had he known that Kanna’s condition had broken the soul-bind on. The heirloom floral dragon-zither, folded in its carrying case of mother-of-pearl foxglove flowers with stems of amber, returns to its rightful place at the side of its last guardian. Despite being shaken from the realization of her true nature and the crimes she had committed, she knows there’s work to be done. Just like when she was human, she will have to relegate her mourning and future spirals of guilt to the witching hours. Kanna kneels in front Quintessa, brushing the ebon hair from her face. The ghoul smiles a motherly smile as she says, “Hon. You’re in love with her, right? Be a hero for her sake if not your own. Kessian and I can investigate these leads while you rest up.” The ghoul kneels and presses a kiss to the changeling’s forehead. Had Kanna’s skin always been so warm, or was it that Quintessa was just cold? The answer is unclear as she pulls away, letting the Orange Witch and the Blue Demon get ready to take her back to Vailkrin. “Thank you for protecting me.”