RP:Your Presence Softens My Pains
Part of the The God of Undeath Arc
Summary: While most everyone looking to stop the self-proclaimed God of Undeath have picked fights with everyone around them, Kanna sets herself to work creating mementos and gifts for her new friends. Khitti joins her as Kanna creates her gift under the pretense of a commission, and the two nercomancers discuss recent events, including Khitti's conflict with Lanlan and what might happen next when they go to their respective homelands in search of the relics.
Ginger Snapped Bakery and Sweetshop
Bricks in varying red and orange shades make up the outside of Cenril’s most popular bakery, denoting the type of clay used in their composition, amongst other things. A sign hangs just above the darkly-stained cherry wood door--the sign also made of the same material--with the name ‘Ginger Snapped Bakery and Sweetshop’ spelled out in red and orange jasper, while large bay windows located on either side of the door, bears faux cakes, pies, and other desserts as a way to entice shoppers into coming inside. In the bottom corners of the windows, nearest to the door, are signs stating ‘Bigotry will not be tolerated in this establishment’ and anyone acting or speaking in such a manner is promptly thrown out. On the inside, several large glass cases are set up, spanning the entire eastern wall of the building, as well as half of the southern. Each case is equipped with several shelves, all of which are dedicated to holding any type of baked good one might think up, as well as a section solely for varying types of truffles and hard candies. On the wall behind the serving counter is a list of teas, sandwiches, and other things not shown in the cases--like catering and wedding cakes--and their prices. The entire left side of the building consists of several chairs and tables of varying composition, made up of the same darkly-stained cherry wood as the sign outside, as well as a side door that leads out into a garden where guests can dine at their leisure. The dining area inside the building is a sizeable one, complete with booths, tables and chairs, and even a small side room for parties or for those that’d like to dine in peace. The most striking feature out of the entire inside of the bakery is a magnificently painted mural depicting various fairy tales, the most prominent ones being those in a sort of wonderland filled with talking playing cards, an angry red queen, and lots of white flowers being painted red, while the other features a gingerbread house with two children snacking on the outside of it as an evil witch lurks inside. As per usual with restaurants of any sort, it also has a massive kitchen with several stations set up for employees to work in their own designated areas, as well as a magical oven that bakes in a quarter of the time of regular ovens, and a two compartment sink for the end-of-shift washing of dishes. In the southwestern corner of the kitchen, there’s a door that leads out back to the street behind the bakery and a cherry wood staircase that leads up to the second story.
Kanna sits in one of the few dark cherry wood chairs that face the kitchen, and beyond it, the staircase to the second story as she works. Golden rose hues light up the bakery as the sun sets over the Sage Forest to the west, and make the gemstones in Kanna's hands light up as she gently files them down by hand with a mithril file into the shapes that she wants. Just beneath her station is a small basket for the filings to catch so that they can be used for the flowers when it comes time. With the dinner rush just ending, Kanna has commandeered two more chairs, one to hold the basket of supplies from her shopping trip with Valrae, and one for the flowers she's selected for Khitti to pick from. She’s content to zone out and hum to an old melody as she carefully rounds out the edges of the clear quartz star, occasionally breaking her silence to bother patrons or staff to ask for a fresh set of eyes to tell her if one side of the star looks longer than the others. The bard continues like this until Khitti has finished with her daily tasks, or gets fed up with them enough to come look at flowers and gemstones, whichever happens first.
Khitti was just finishing up the cake she’d made for today’s meeting with Kanna. This one was a chocolate fudge cake with chocolate chips, dark chocolate fudge frosting, and maraschino cherries on top. It’s look was simple though, she didn’t go through and dress it up with the typical fanfare that came with most of the cakes in the case to be sold, knowing that Kanna would probably appreciate anything she brought. A bit of ice cream is stolen from the freezer, a scoop of vanilla bean for each plate with a large slice of the cake, making sure to get a cherry on top for both of them. She’d eventually bring the plates out, along with a pot of peppermint tea. “Hey, you,” she said, setting the stuff on the table and settling in. And when she did, she eyed all the stuff Kanna brought.
Kanna sets the file down and runs her finger over the blue silk ribbon holding her hair back, content to touch something that’s not rough for a little while. “There you are!” She says, her eyes lighting up when she sees Khitti, and absolutely glittering when she sees the deserts. “Oh wow! Thank you!” She says gratefully, setting the file aside and the gemstone in the center of the table for Khitti to approve of. Taking the cake and ice cream instead, Kanna points to the star with her fork. “I’ve imbued this with bardic magic to amplify its natural magical properties. Apparently it’s the same kind of clear quartz that’s used to make scrying orbs, so it can store and amplify any kind of magic you put into it. It made me think of you and your Black Tides mastery, but I can add it onto another crown if there’s other gemstones you were thinking of.” Kanna pauses, realizing she neglected to breathe during all that. Being human again still took some getting used to sometimes. “How was your day?” She adds meekly, popping a bite into her mouth.
Khitti tilted her head as she stared down at the star-shaped quartz, eventually taking it in hand. Despite it being one of the more basic stones amongst all the crystals that witches tend to use, it still had its uses, a lot of which Kanna had already mentioned. And yet, despite this, it still called out to Khitti, “No… You know, I think it’ll work. It’s probably better for me to have a sort of catch-all crystal than ones that are specifically for dark and light magic.” She nodded, more to herself than anything, then set the crystal back on the table, looking to Kanna again. “It was alright,” she said, with regards to the day and how it went. “Making cakes helps with stress relief for me, so it’s better than it could’ve been.” The witch offered the bard a smile. “And you? Where did you get all this stuff at?”
Kanna tilts her head at the cakes, returning the smile. “It’s just a bonus that the cakes you make are the best in Lithrydel too.” Kanna uses her foot to slide the chair with the basket closer to Khitti. Inside are an assortment of wooden branches and sprigs, along with other gemstones, notably a stock of large milky-blue geodes. “Val took me on a date today! She picked out the chalcedony and the yew branch, so those are reserved, but I picked up hazel, willow, gorse, and there’s wood from a peach tree in there as well, but I’m not sure what I can do with that since it’s a little too soft to use as a base on its own.” Kanna trades her fork for the handle of a teacup. “It’s not nourishment for the body and heart like cooking is, but knowing that people are happy with what I can make to distract from stress makes me happy.”
“I’m glad you’ve found a hobby you like,” Khitti said, taking up the basket Kanna brought. “It’s good to have at least one with the line of work we usually find ourselves in, even just as necromancers. Studying and working with the darkness can be taxing, especially for the living.” She plucked the peach branch up and inspected it carefully, then the willow one. “The peach could be paired with something sturdier, like the willow. Something that can support it, when it cannot support itself.” She went quiet for a moment, her head lifted somewhat, olive-green eyes fixated on nothing in particular in the distance as something occurred to her. It reminded Khitti of her and Brand. ‘Peach’ was his nickname for her, stemming all the way back from when they were enemies. But moreso than that, Brand was like the willow, flexible and sturdy enough to support Khitti when she needed it. It was the same for Annette and Khitt too. “I’ll take both the willow and the peach, if that’s alright?”
Kanna looks over at the nothing that Khitti fixates on, then turns her head back and tilts it to the other side. “That sounds like a line from a fairy tale. Because that sounded so romantic, I’ll allow it.” She teases. She would have allowed her to pick two regardless. “May I?” Kanna puts her tea down and looks over the branches, one in each hand. Bringing her hands closer together, both woods seem to gain a livelier color, then begin to stretch outwards towards one another as they intertwine themselves. “I’m also glad that I could use this gift of mine to create beautiful things instead of to harm people. The first thing I ever did with this gift was to hurt. Seeing necromancy applied solely for combative purposes instead of used in ways to make this world just a bit better...” She trails off. As she does, the branches curl at the opposite ends, forming a perfect circle of woven willow and peach branches. “You know, I memorized that really old Larketian book of flower meanings? I think if you’re looking at symbolism in more ways than one, this is just as romantic. The water willow is the branch of freedom; enchanted wooden wreaths made from them were given to prisoners caught from the Elven-Vampire war as a token of their freedom. The peach blossoms, however…” Kanna waves a hand over the crown, and delicate petals blossom out from between the willow branches. “...Mean that the recipient has the giver’s heart captive. To combine both, I think would say something like ‘Even if you set me free, my heart will always be yours.’”
Khitti smirked at Kanna’s teasing and handed over the branches, seemingly mesmerized as the necrobotanist worked her magic (both literal and figurative) on it. “I’m jealous of it, honestly. For the longest time, I only had the black tides. That subclass of necromancy is mostly used to harm people and that’s all I saw it as. And then I got the light magic, eventually, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with it. Magic that healed or did anything else than hurt people was foreign to me. Doesn’t help, I guess, that my homeland doesn’t like magic, so it was just always a bad thing.” Darkly painted lips twisted into a slight frown as she remembered what she’d learned lately, about home and her ancestors. She shook her head, then looked to Kanna again. “I’m just glad I’m not alone now in the Necromancer’s Guild, when it comes to wanting to use necromancy for good, sometimes, instead of always using it to harm.” The woman went on about the Larketian flower meanings and tilted her head, listening carefully. “That sounds… a little too accurate when it’s applied to me personally,” she said, smirking again. “It’s how I am with Brand. And Khitt with Annette. I’m pretty sure those two are our soulmates because if we lost them or they left us, I don’t think we’d ever love again.”
Kanna lets out a shy laugh at Khitti’s praise. “I think a lot of problems could be solved if we used flowers instead of violence.” After a pause, she adds in a quieter voice, “I wonder if I ever had memories of my homeland that weren’t unpleasant. I suppose when we take our field trip tomorrow, we’ll find out.” Kanna takes out one of the two flowers she knew Khitti had requested before, the fire lilies of Rynvale, and uses her magic to fuse them one by one in the grooves of the braided wreath. There is a moment of silence as Kanna fuses them all, then withdraws the black azaleas, using them to plug any remaining holes where crystals will not be. “I’m jealous too, to be honest. You found love. I think someone who has committed as many atrocities as I have forfeits their right to gain something as precious as that, but having new friends helps soften those pains. Oh, there’s a flower for that too, I think.” She says idly as the crown begins to take form, its color palette of orange, pink, and black becoming reminiscent of the last vestiges of sunset outside the bakery.
Khitti smiled faintly at Kanna’s wonderings. “I hope that you find some. I have some, but not as many as I wish I did.” She mused over this and their future trip to Kanna’s homeland, watching as the bard continued to work. “After reading the books I stole from that library, I almost feel compelled to return to my own homeland, but I’m not so sure if it’s a good idea. There’s that gnawing feeling of needing to make things right and overthrow the Council that rules over Dhavislaav, but it could be for nothing. As soon as I leave, they could just return to power again.” The necrobotanist spoke of her own jealousies, and Khitti smirked at it for a moment, her expression softening somewhat another moment later. “The things you did… They cannot be changed. But, they don’t necessarily make you -you-. You never fully gave in, no matter what. You still clung to that humanity that was stolen from you. A bit like I did with vampirism, really.” She tilted her head somewhat. “What flower is it?”
Kanna mulls over her reassurances of the good inside Kanna that she still had trouble seeing in herself, and her musings of returning to her own homeland. Unlike Kanna, Khitti’s homeland was bustling with those who would remember her, and from the sounds of it, possible misdeeds. She withdraws a spool of silver wiring, and a golden flower that looks almost like a little golden crown. She pinches the stem to sever the flower so that the rest of the flower remains the same. In her hands, its petals turn a radiant dragonfruit shade of pink, and shift inwards, turning the umbral shape into something more resembling a hyacinth. “It’s called the milkvetch. ‘Your presence softens my pains.’ If your presence could soften the pains of other magic users in your homeland, even if it's just long enough for them to escape to Lithrydel, or even Rynvale, wouldn’t that make the effort worth it?”
“I honestly don’t know. The Council rounds up anyone that shows even a hint of magic use. They cared little for the fact that necromancers destroyed my village and turned my family and friends into zombies. And they were disappointed that I was the one that killed off the necromancers--they didn’t even get the luxury of burning them themselves. They are -that- bloodthirsty, that fixated on ridding Dhavislaav of people like us. I don’t really know if there’s even any magic users left there. The only reason why I’m alive is because someone suddenly got a conscience and felt sorry for me. They were doing it in Khitt’s timeline as well, though he had the good fortune to not have to deal with them personally before he left,” Khitti explained, a heavy sigh following it all. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and picked at her cake finally. The ice cream had almost fully melted, but it soaked into the cake and made it a bit better. “This is why what Lanlan had said at the meeting hurt so much. The doubt, the paranoia. As if I don’t have enough of that stuff on my own. Despite being a magic user himself, he sometimes reminds me of the people on the Council. He cares little for the things that he says, so long as they hurt people, and he only cares about himself.”
Kanna listens to Khitti’s concerns and admittance of the discomfort that was the public fight. As she does, wires of silver are severed with what might be a slight abuse of curse-casting necromantic magic, this curse in particular being the one that rots precious metals. Neither her nor Val had thought to save enough gold for a wire cutter. “I saw it a bit differently. It's hard to tell because his complexion is naturally gray, but I used to have similar skin; you could see the darker grey of his cheeks turn pale when you said Dominic was upstairs. He was scared, Khitti, not for himself, but for you and everyone else who had gathered. I don’t know him as well as you do, though. You’re right though, he was out of line, and when he wants to lash out, he goes for the most hurtful thing possible.” As she crisscrosses the silver wires over the starry quartz, she adds, “But. If he really didn’t care about others, he wouldn’t have gone into such a dangerous place alongside us and risked his own safety, he would have waited outside.” As Kanna holds up the near finished crown, she adds again, “But I could be wrong. He pretended that he didn’t care about my Larketian flower book, but he looked up something in it regardless when he thought I wasn’t looking. I think he doesn’t want people to know that he cares more than he lets on.”
Khitti just shrugged. “I don’t really know him at all, to be perfectly honest.” She mulled over the rest of what Kanna had said, letting out a faint ‘hrmph’ at it all. She wasn’t -as- mad at the drow, but there was still some irritation there. As the bard held up the crown, the witch eyed it carefully, taking stock of the woman’s handiwork. “It looks amazing, Kanna,” the witch said, mustering a smile for her friend. She quickly finished up her cake and pushed the dish to the side, her attention turned then to her tea. “What all is left to do to it?” She wasn’t trying to rush the bard, of course. She was merely curious as to what more there was to do. To her, it looked finished, but Khitti had never crafted such a thing before to know for sure.
Kanna smiles proudly, her heart immediately full from Khitti’s praise. “I just have to attach the last piece here…” Kanna takes some wire and affixes something to the crown that faces her so the necromancer can’t see it. “Perfect! Okay, where’s my little mirror… Ah!” Kanna looks like a Frostmaw giant on Yuletide morning as she holds up the mirror from her pockets. “Madame, please close your eyes.”
Khitti raised a brow and smirked at Kanna, “Hmm I dunno. Don’t know if I can trust you.” She was clearly teasing and hoped the necrobotanist wouldn’t take it personally. Quickly, she fixed her hair, pulling her long wine red braid over one shoulder and smoothing out the fly-aways. “Alright then. Go ahead.” She closed her eyes and waited.
Kanna giggles, her laugh more childlike than the actress facade she usually presented to others. Carefully, Kanna stands and places the crown upon Khitti’s head, then sits back, holding up the hand mirror for Khitti to see. “Now you can open them.” The last addition, and the largest of the quartz crystals resides at the front of the crown, shaped into a crescent moon that falls just over the Khitti’s brow. The other clear quartz crystals are polished and shaped into small stars, wrapped in silver wire to give the illusion of captured starlight when the light strikes. Trumpet-shaped fire lilies from the volcanoes of Rynvale, black azalea from Vailkrin, and delicate peach blossoms from the beachside gardens of Cenril have been intertwined along the crown, creating a sunset-like palette of colors over a willow-branch wreath. In the lantern lights being lit across the streets, the soft fires reflect in the quartz stones, casting orange lights across the bakery. “You look like royalty, my dear.” Kanna says happily.
Khitti opened her eyes and stared at the crown as Kanna held the mirror for her. She lifted a hand to her forehead, touching the crescent moon lightly. “Aww, Kanna. It’s wonderful!” The redhead thought about something for a moment, then smirked. “Khitt likes it too. He might even wear it himself at some point, I think.” The smirk faded, the longer she watched the mirror, her line of sight shifting from the crown down to herself. She wondered if this was the sort of thing the first Khatja von Schreier wore. What was she like? How did she live in the days of Dhavislaav before the war? Was she happy? Tears started to well up in Khitti’s eyes as she stared, both hands idly playing with her braid as a way to soothe herself. The witch soon shook her head, mustering a smile for Kanna. “I didn’t think anything would top the firelily crown I had for my wedding, but you definitely did it. Thank you, so much.” She sniffled a little and did her best to ignore her watery eyes. “Oh right. How much do I owe you?” Khitti reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a pouch of coins.
Kanna clasps her hands together, delighted knowing that the other version of her approved of the magical crown as well. She quirks a brow with a mischievous smile. “Why would you pay me for a gift? I didn’t pay you for the diadem, and you won’t pay me for this either. Now we each have a crown of friendship. Oh, I hope Valrae likes hers too, but I’ll have to finish it tonight before we go.”
Khitti nodded at the bard. She knew better than to argue when it came to gifts, even if she did want to repay her for it. “Thank you, Kanna. And I’m sure she will. And speaking of the trip, I should probably head upstairs and get things sorted for tomorrow. Even if we are going via Camina instead of a ship, I still pack a bit anyway. Just in case we get stranded there or something. It’s the same precautions I usually take before I head to the Shadow Plane, unless I know I’m going to be in Helshade the entire time.” She stood up and grabbed up her plate and now empty teacup. “I’ll have breakfast ready in the morning if you want some. Been having a craving for steak and eggs lately, so I might as well make it for everyone else too,” she said with a smirk.
Kanna surprisingly blanches at the suggestion of steak and eggs, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “Can I have a big mushroom with my eggs instead? Ever since the curse was removed, I… haven’t been able to handle the taste of meat. I know that sounds silly.” She says, packing up the hand mirror and helping Khitti move the dishes to the sink. Trying to change the subject as quickly as possible, she adds, “Also, I’ve brought a big box of anti-curse and anti-poisons. The lake where the last onniont is, it's on the abandoned island, and there’s no documentation saying what caused it to be abandoned.”
Khitti blinked at Kanna, outwardly cringing. “Oh. RIGHT. Sorry. Uhh. It’s funny, sometimes I have the opposite problem. Out of nowhere I’ll get this craving for an almost rare steak. Formerly being a vampire is weird and it’s been years and I’m still not used to it,” she said, still sort of cringing. “But! Mushrooms will be picked up from the Tranquility in the morning! Some of Brand’s crew are vegetarians, so we’ve got a decent supply.” As the two headed to the kitchen, Khitti would listen to Kanna’s explanation about the lake and let out a ‘hm’. “You should tell me more about this place…” Her attention would be almost solely on Kanna and her retelling of what she found in her book about her homeland as she dealt with the dishes and started to clean up the kitchen.