506-08-02 The End is the Beginning
From Crossroads Wiki
| The End is the Beginning | |
|---|---|
| RL Date | December 26, 2008 |
| Players | Kyrie, Athar, Briana, Gwyndolen, Iain, Leon, Lilith |
| Location | Keeper Plaza West -- Gateway |
| Crossroads Time and Weather | |
| IC Date | August 02, 506 |
| Season | Summer |
Plaza of the Keeper West - Village
Even after rounding the corner from the south, the quaint charms of the Plaza continue along the western road that leads towards the sea. Breezes frequently keep the area balmy in the Summer though more biting cold comes in the Winter. Shops and residences line the cobblestone road as guards continue to patrol the area. Most shops here seem to be geared towards clothing, jewelry, fine weapons, toys and other items that nobles may seek to purchase during daylight hours.
Lilith stands in the center of the Plaza, perfectly poised with her hands folded before herself. About her are a number of the pack, clawing and biting at a wall of emerald light that seems to encase her at about five feet away. The area is touched with the heady, seductive scent of her perfume, tonight chosen to be something primal and evocative. She waits not for the Hounds, but for their Master, for no matter how calm she may seem, she is well aware of the way that the Hunt's magic eats away at her own defenses.
The hounds that come are like the tide of the sea, rising and falling in a race of heated excitement. They throw themselves at the shield that Lilith has erected as if they will chew it apart, claw it asunder. It is the shell they must crack to devour the meat within. Their snarling, barking frenzy is a terror to behold as they converge on one spot, obscuring it from view.
Mostly.
When he steps into the plaza, the Huntmaster fits one of his terrible arrows into the longbow, bracing himself to pull the heavy string so that the weapon creaks with the power of it. He enters into the claiming of prey rarely, but on this occasion, an exception can be made. A rare treat, the quarry that has been run to ground tonight.
Iain is not supposed to be here. This is nothing meant for mortal men, but he has always and ever been weak for the unknown, addicted to the rush of seeing the rare and uncommon, the intoxicating draught of life's strangenesses. He sates it on far shores, he sates it in unfamiliar beds, he sates it with small bottles of things he he neither knows the name of nor cares to evaluate before pouring them down his throat...and so for that most precious of things -- experience, story, memory, the high of discovery -- he follows in the shadows of that supernatural host of hunters, hanging back, barely breathing but drawn onward inexorably.
Wroth, perhaps, to a fault, her eyes narrowed, Kyrie need not further encouragement to be after Athar. The only thing slowing her at all is Briana, and she gives her guard all the leeway necessary to pass through, trotting behind or bolting ahead of the woman if necessary. If it's to avenge her own that quickens her pace, she has no say upon the matter for or against. The daemonologist has her own reasons, no doubt, for seeking out the culmination of the Hunt that comes around full circle on the grounds of the imperial capital, perhaps to be rewarded for some diligence or witness to one of those few gratifying moments bestirring her black, black heart.
Kyrie's sentinel, Briana Helygen, keeps up, even though she is bleeding now and wearing metal armour, she refuses to be the cause of her Lady's distress. Her expression is somber though, as she holds her blade in her right hand, watching for any possible dangers. Her left hand she keeps near to Kyrie, as blood drips from it.
Some follow from wrath, some from curiosity, some from--
--some pull up short, swiftly, as they follow from Keeper North. Leon's hand goes to Athar's shoulder, soft words growled between the pair, a pained look striking his features as he turns his head away from the sight revealed there.
As cool and calm as ice itself, Lilith stands at the center of power conjured by her own Art, unmoved by the hounds that froth to get at her. Behind her veil, her features affix upon the bolt of the Huntmaster. Her hands rise to spread in the air at either side, palms up and out. "By the turn of the seasons, the heart of the sea of fire, the bindings of the White Grove, I beg your leniency, to speak treaty. My Lord begs forgiveness of His wrong to You, and would make amends!" she calls, a voice to stir flesh to imaginings of passion, while she lowers to a kneel in her circle of defense.
Halting at the side of his cousin, Athar's dark eyes remain on the sight before him, his blade held aloft still, thought it would seem for little reason. He whispers words to Leon, though his gaze remains transfixed on the sight that is before him, of a Huntmaster and the Dark Lord's proxy supposedly made to beg in recompense.
The crooning murmur from the Mezelien is no doubt lost in the throng of dogs, though the cadence has a particularly melodic quality, keys repeated on themselves even if the words -- if there are any -- could alter some. Kyrie leans in a little to Briana, lending that modicum of support for the mildly injured woman. Her eyes, reduced to shimmering crescents, blacker and more impenetrable than the midnight sky, scour across the monumental form of the Huntmaster and the Consort of the Abyss beyond. If it is a sight not to be witnessed oft, if ever, by mortals, then she takes advantage of the opportunity afforded her, her other hand resting lightly and very briefly upon Athar's opposite shoulder.
Frenzied with the excitement of cornering their quarry, the scores of hounds called from across the city rise as one around the magical shield Lilith has raised around herself. With claw and tooth they rip at the shield, emerald sparks exploding where contact is made. Snarling and barking, they are possessed of a single purpose; to rip out the demoness' throat and feast on her blood. Sensing her imminent defeat, they howl in unison, their voices lifted to the moon and the stars in triumph. The sound cools flesh, chills blood, weakens the knees of all mortals in the area.
There is no reticence in Iain to observe. Eyes the color of lapis remain hungrily on every detail from the place he's secreted himself, back to a wall with his hands on the stone behind him as though concerned the siren sound of the forbidden made real might convince him -- weak, flesh, mortal, man -- to do something regrettable, to move any closer to the scene playing itself out in the glittering and fell verdant light. The breath catches in his throat as the hounds bay and portend demise, insides turned to liquid fire, and he swallows heavily and lowers his profile in what thin shadows he's hidden himself in...but he does not look away.
The bow in the hands of the Huntmaster seems to shift, as if the carvings of leaves and animals along it were alive. The black bolt is leveled toward Lilith unwavering, the menace and deadly intent of it almost felt; it is not evil, but it is dangerous. The Lord of the Hunt's topaz eyes focus upon the woman in the circle, considering. A low growl edges from it while it considers the kneeling figure of Lilith, even the wild magics not immune to the lust that Lilith conjures in any creature. The sound of a slow and deep breath rasps in and out of his o'erlarge chest while he scents the perfume of her, the carnal heat and temptation. Were he mortal, the answer might differ. Instead, the ancient creature offers a low, growled answer.
"No."
The arrow is let fly without mercy.
Whatever Athar's words, they seem enough to content Leon with remaining back, at the plaza's entrance, a hand at his temples. Unlike the others, he does not watch the events playing out before mortal eyes: his own are turned down, away, and he observes what can be heard instead.
Breathing heavily, and yet keeping upright, Briana's left hand is again offered to Kyrie. She makes no comment simply standing sturdily. Her complexion is pale, but she holds the blade in her right hand, a defensive posture warding Kyrie from whatever may approach. Her eyes take in the spectacle. For once, she actually seems affected; she blinks and swallows. And then she does speak, very quietly, to Lady Fang. "Now, Kyrie.. whatever you do, needs to happen now."
Where the leaping hounds surround Lilith, held at bay by the emerald sheen of her magic, the bolt pierces the defenses with a sound like a thunderclap. Slicing through her own sorcerous effects, the bolt takes her deep in the left shoulder, sinking in as the skill of the being quests for her heart. A gasping scream is wrenched from Lilith with the bolt's meaty thunk into her flesh, and blood drips immediately. The defense is shattered, and the hounds spill in toward her, atop her, fangs and madness seeking to consume the figure. Her shriek rises from within them, blotting out the sounds of the hunt even, and then several bodies are tossed back in blind unconsciousness. She should not be able to win through, one figure against such power, but she is less mortal than those who dwell in this Empire now, and she breaks free from the pack to try to flee to the south. A trail of blood falls like rain, and the shaft of the Huntmaster's arrow remains embedded in her body, like a flag planted upon land to claim it.
Gwyndolen enters away from the crazy, with an unkilled marine at each shoulder. One of those shoulders is tightly wrapped, the arm splinted and the sling bound to her chest. She moves quickly, not quite a jog, but close, her expression single-minded determination born of intense anger. She stops short, though, at the scene in the plaza, drawing up alongside Athar and Leon and just staring. Her sword lowers somewhat, though her guards' don't: "What the /fuck/?"
"Goddess, remember what she did to Yours. Forgive me if I err against Your will." It is but an uneven whisper as Kyrie steps away, the liquescent burn of her whisper lost in the howling and yapping. She plucks an arrow from her quiver with bloody fingers and settles the thin black beam against the sombrous crescent held firmly in her left hand. Some atramentous vision of Night's prodigal daughter, perhaps only Leon, Briana and Athar perceive the trembling between her shoulders and the almost wordless tension caught in her body responding to the horrific echoes filling the evening sky. Terror has its place. Where the Consort flees, she sights down the missile with her fingers bracketed firmly around a single incandescent lick of cuprous flame almost painted against the bow's surface. The action in the end is one practiced and visceral, the pull back upon the string and the release that sends off her parting farewell.
The daemonologist fires.
The Huntmaster is already drawing another quarrel as the first shaft flies true, rending asunder the magic that protected Lilith and wounding her grievously. As the hounds bay upon the trail of Lilith, following her attempt to retreat, his lips peel back from his teeth in a fashion much like a hound's snarl.
The second quarrel is loosed toward the besieged female, and the horn is tugged from his hip again to blow a cadence of blood. It is something to stir the hunt into the frenzy of the chase, the endgame. Even creatures who are now human can feel the call of the chase, predator and prey.
Like the coils of a great black and silver serpent, the hounds flow after Lilith. Those that run, leap free from the earth, following their master's quarrel's as though they were arrows shot forth themselves. Those that cannot run, crawl, dragging their bodies, unable even at the threshold of oblivion to give up the hunt. A field of tiny scarlet flowers cover the cobblestones in their passing.
The first bolt finds its home in Lilith, and Athar's gaze is stolen away from Leon, though a hand remains to the young man's shoulder. As the second flies, and the weather witch lets her own bolt fly true, his dark eyes watch them seek out the form of the Consort of the Abyss. "The Hunt moves," he says to the guardian at his side, and begins to move himself, following at a safe distance behind the mass of hounds and towering Huntmaster.
Whether it be by the call of curiosity or the braying of the horn, it is impossible to tell.
As the Huntsman's prey flies, the hounds bay, the horn sounds, Leon's eyes flicker ever so briefly in their wake. The latter, especially, seems to stir his blood, and he needs none of his cousin's soft words to see him following -- following with swiftened steps, perhaps turned less wisely than they might be in the wake of horn's beckoning cry.
It is nothing wholly cognisant, no calculated cause or reason that finds the Arx scion trailing the hunt. There is rational thought, true enough, but his blood -- already prone to running hot for a hunt -- is up, lashed onward by too much allure, by the power of the horn, the intoxicant of the demon's shriek and the sanguine river of blossoms erupting from the mundane dust of the street. He stoops only long enough to snare one from amidst the rest before he pursues in earnest, agile and quiet.
Gwyndolen just stares, enthralled by the spectacle, perhaps literally. At no point do her marines let down their guard, but they don't look as reluctant to follow as they did upon arriving, and they make no move to try to stop the ambassador as she, too, heads after the Hunt, trailing alongside the Purists.
Bleak oblivion await and it will have a dark mortal handmaiden to witness its onset. She sways upon her feet and grasps another missile, putting her faith in the bow's gifts than her Breath-granted Art. The Mezelien follows the Hunt, as if she had any power to resist its clarion call, her steps light enough as she follows the inexorable current that pulls her upon. It is enough to try to support Briana as she goes; she doesn't bolt past her guard, for all that her body seems to yearn for a quicker result than it possesses.
The fight to win free of the hounds is not without cost, and Lilith's black garb is tinged with red as she finally gets to a spot to truly run. She might as well not be in skirts, all her regal and feminine mystique sacrificed as she wrenches the skirts up with one hand and begins to race away from the hounds, the Huntmaster. It is then that Kyrie's arrow finds her back, winning a sound of pain on the night air, and a moment later the shaft of the Huntmaster buries itself in a spot along her spine. The brutal strength pitches her forward and to the ground, hands splaying out to try to catch herself.
Then the pack swarms over her, obliterating her from view. Her screams rise on the night air, panic and terror and pain giving way to hysteria before the sound weakens, fades, eclipsed by the snap of jaws and the triumph of animals.
It is with a bizarre sort of morbid curiosity that Athar Soranus watches as the hounds make final work of the Abyssal Consort, her screams finally muted and replaced with the most grievous of injuries, and the sounds of the hunt coming to its climax. But he does not flinch from the sight, nor the sound, watching with an expression carved from stone.
The Master of the Hunt lowers his bow to his side and begins a slow, circuitous approach to the boiling turmoil that surrounds Lilith, all of it his own devising. The fury of the hounds is something preternatural, a metallic scent thick in the air thick and heady as the screaming ebbs away, leaving only the canine sounds in its wake. His skewed paces, with their inexplicable grace, bring him closer to the site of destruction, the bloodstained muzzles. He watches the feeding frenzy with his fire-opal eyes, unstringing the bow as he does so. Finally, the Lord of the Hunt turns a look about, taking measure of those who are about as if he held the mean by which all others were measured.
Two halves. Iain contains two halves within himself, influenced at odds with one another by forces beyond his ability to disregard: the one pants and snarls for blood, snaps at the end of a short chain, sympathizes with the hounds in their mad chase to rhythms set and defined by the accelerated beating of his heart. The other half weeps for the destruction of something beautiful, seductive even in its fall: the sight of Lilith disappearing beneath that writhing, living mass of silver-sable backs is a knife in his easily-fooled belly, each of her screams a bright lance against which the reptilian part of his brain yearns to defend. Neither impulse is wholly his own but he feels them keenly even so, caught up in tides more powerful than any of his own native resources.
The result is something like brief paralysis as the chase ends, and he stands drawing long gulps of air, squinting into the dark as restless fingers twirl the blossom in his hand by the stem...but even that falls to stillness when what was moments ago something to be looked at...starts looking back.
Centuries has she seen, freedom and bondage, the beds of kings and emperors and those who would call themselves gods. Her thrall has enraptured and destroyed so many, but all stories come to an end, even that of the most beautiful and intoxicating creature seen in the empire's history. Tonight, Lilith meets her eternity, and whatever may lay beyond for one of her race.
All this and still, Leon does not watch -- does not spare a look for Lilith's demise or the hounds that bring it about, does not look up from the cobbled stones at the screams, at the end. If one could listen hard as one can stare, he does, and he spares a word at the end for his Soranus cousin. Only when it's finished, when his pace slows as the pack finally achieves its prey, does his gaze rise to skitter past the Hunter and toward the hunted -- or what remains of it, be it hound-battered corpse or mere memory.
The hounds, bloodied and satiated with the flesh of the Consort raise their voices to victory. Sable hair, alabaster flesh, ivory bone; there is nothing left of their feast save the tattered fabric of her gown. Bellies filled, several of the hounds move to circle the mis-matched legs of their master, whining anxiously. Others turn their radiant eyes to the crowd that has gathered to watch the feasting, low growls warning. Of their fallen brethren, several stalk forward to lick wounds and share the taste of Lilith's blood from their muzzles.
Whatever he would judge, the dark-haired girl standing slight ahead of Athar Soranus and Briana Helygen submits herself to the entirety of the gaze. The moons herald despair views upon the fall of the one beloved of the Abyssal Lord that one claimed dominion upon the realm risen from the sea and tormented the people spread across it now. Not for an instant does her gaze steal away from the final moments of doom that perhaps her hand shall pen into a book to be locked in a dusty vault, giving testament to Lilith's final moments, those capstones upon a long, shadowed path she cannot know in its fullest save where it so briefly intersects with hers. But it has to be enough for scion of House Mezelien to pass even this difficult, sanguine vigil unmoving, her midnight eyes catching the reeling images in duplicate where the gorgeous and the animalistic merge together into a near frenzy. Hours might pass before she pulls in another breath, answering the screaming command of her aching lungs, hours still until that is once more released. Everything else is forgotten and fails to exist to her.
Everything save the Huntmaster, he of ancient times and tidings, whom Kyrie finally regards no matter the cost to herself for fulfilling that impulse.
Finally, now at the end of that creature's existence, Briana sinks to one knee; she reverses her grip on the blade so that she can raise her right fist to her heart with the blade directed to the ground. She mumbles a few quiet prayers there, lost in the noise of the howling hounds. At the same time, she clenches her left fist, closing it on the wound she opened there for expediency's sake, and then she rises to her feet, taking her place beside Kyrie once again, though she does not dare the Huntmaster's gaze; her own regard is left to the minions, and keeping her blade in a safe guard 'gainst any that might approach her ward.
There is no prayer from the lips of Athar Soranus, no exultation at the felling of a creature of darkness to this being, this timeless Master of the Hunt. While the Consort is laid low, and the Dark Lord himself delivered a stinging slap across the face, there is nothing of the Light in this victory. The cost has been paid in a river of blood, and the Huntmaster viewed as little better then what was cast down.
Gwyndolen watches, immune to whatever good sense or fear brings Leon to look away so determinedly. If the adrenaline of vengeful fury drove the ambassador before, it is the shock and awe of events utterly unexpected that sustains her now. She observes as intently as ever but more openly, her gaze broadly directed as the Hunt reaches its zenith and its interest in the apparent prey wanes and that in the impromptu audience waxes. Then the Huntmaster is eyed for the first time, the details of his person (if the term can still be used in such a case) taken in. Perhaps there is a similar legend in Tyr, perhaps it is instinct, or maybe she just gets something in her eye or gets distracted by a shiny thing across the plaza, but the ambassador lowers her gaze.
And so Iain, who feels very strongly that he is not amongst the dogs welcome to circle this particular table for scraps -- not that he wanted any, but under pressures he can't understand the mind arrays strange metaphors -- begins to take slow backward steps, eyes on an oblique angle to the ground. Those slow backward steps take him further and further from what he moments ago chased in a sort of spellbound madness.
It is time to go.
The Huntmaster's fire eyes take their fill of those gathered, inhuman and unreadable. No further words are spoken, although one of his gloved hands reaches down to ruffle at the fur of a hound while the canine licks blood from its chops. Without fanfare, the one who has hunted so many beings, human and demon and races unknown and unfathomable, turns to depart. He passes through the pack of quicksilver dogs, walking toward the south. His gritty voice bears back the message, "Finished. Your human is freed." And then the figure departs, taking the pack along with him, the magic of the wilds borne away from the city of humans and attempted order.
It's only, finally, when the Lord of the Hunt has departed that Leon glances back, now, to where he had been -- glances, and regards for a long moment, his eyes unreadable: of fear, there is nothing; of curiosity unsatisfied, so much. But what is here is ended, and he turns his eyes to his cousin, now, and with no hint of smile he spares a murmured word before turning back toward whence he came.
One step, two, and as soon as the Huntmaster's progress takes him beyond the immediate vicinity of where Lilith breathed her last, the Mistian aristocrat glides forward with alacrity in her steps. She stops short to use the arrow to capture the remnants of the gown off of the ground, the point snarled in a velvet whisper of the drapery and lifting it up. The words Kyrie speaks are to the wind and the stars, eternal in their courtship of the earth's warm face, sufficient to take away the truths and oaths uttered this night as any. With the raiment taken, that scrap claimed as her own, she withdraws upon a different tangent than she arrived from, leaving her dwelling in the shadows with a discarded scraps of material.
Still breathing heavily from all the running and such, Briana accompanies Kyrie through the messy remains of battle to the body of whatever that creature might be. She waits and watches while the Lady extracts the scraps of the dress, and then walks alongside her when she leaves. Briana's expression is once again composed and somber, although the blade is still held only in her right hand, her left fist clenched as she moves. Her gaze moves over the area assessingly. Her posture lacks the rigidity it normally has, however, and there's a tightness about her eyes; she's tired.
"She'll be angry with me," Athar remarks, glancing over at his cousin. "Be safe." As he watches Leon depart, he glances about to take stock of the situation, calling to Iain. "Lord Arx, isn't it?" he asks, while he watches Kyrie and her guardian move. "Help me see to any survivors?"
It's Athar's voice that finally tugs Iain's attention off of the ground, causing him to pivot slowly and affix the baron with blue eyes that are aeons away from the present, all of his mortal faculties still recovering from having sipped of something they weren't meant to witness. They almost visibly focus, and he offers the man a sharp half-bow, which is really rather impressive given his obviously stunned state. "Ay, Excellency."
Gwyndolen lifts her eyes again as the Hunt departs, finally taking a step back and turning to look about the plaza. She blinks when Athar speaks, seeming disconcerted by such normality, and then turns towards the Draughten and the Guardian, and gestures with her sword towards the place Lilith fell and Kyrie picked up her dress. "Who was she?" she asks, unspecific.
Where the Concubine to the Lord of the Abyss met her end, there is a glint of something black and shiny among the rags. One of the hounds gathers something in its jaws as the pack departs.
The last remnants are splinters of wood, those too eventually ending up in the Mezelien's possession until there is naught left but memory scarred upon the minds of the men and women left to watch this day. Apparently too late for the black, shiny object, Kyrie nonetheless possesses the rest of those mortal remains extracted from among the feeding frenzy. She replies quietly to the query given, "The favoured of the Lord of the Abyss," in a shriven, fair whisper. Kyrie raises conflicted, dark eyes towards Athar and the others past him, measuring them each in turn, as though for the first time. The rush of the hunt is over, exhaustion teetering in together with weary witness.
"A demon," Athar enunciates that fact with a note of unmitigated disgust. "And yes..." A tired hand waves in the direction of Kyrie Mezelien, "The favoured of the Lord of the Abyss. His Consort. I imagine he is howling with an unseemly rage right about now." He lets out a slow breath, and sheathes his sword. "Help with the wounded, if you can? I think it's to be a very long night..." And off he trudges, to begin the slow task of identifying who might still be saved.
"Ay. I should've known, me, before ever I saw her. She's been behind more than one bullshite mess I've been witness tae," Iain comments dryly, proving in that moment of frank and undecorated black humor that he's being restored to himself by degrees.
He becomes slowly aware of the white-knuckled grip he has on the sword in one hand, glancing down at its blood-streaked blade dispassionately before shifting it to his opposite, popping those strained knuckles with a tone of relief as his eyes tighten. It makes him wince to resheathe the blade while it's bloodied, but resheathe it he does, glancing at Athar's back and then turning to head without further comment after him to lend his aid where he may.
Gwyndolen glances between mage, baron, and lord, and nods slowly. "I see," she says, her reticence as much a mark of returning normalcy as Iain's blunt speech. 'Helping with the wounded' takes a moment to register, but the ambassador's blade is reluctantly sheathed as she nods, her companions even more hesitant to disarm. The trio set about helping as they can, though with a nonfunctioning left arm and no skill with healing Gwyndolen is not overly effective. She can tell whether someone's dead or not, though, and marines are good at dragging people about, at least.
It might be too late to offer assistance, but at the very least, Kyrie nods her assent. She falls back a few steps, her burden to be contained in her quiver for lack of anywhere else to hold the objects, the bow slipped over her back. Her tread is not totally heavy, but she moves as though through the echoes of a dream where the people around her are phantasms and she uncertain whether the ground is fully real. "One day, perhaps you shall tell me of it?" she whispers to Iain as she walks past him to catch up with Athar or find the route ahead. The air around her cools slightly, unable to maintain any semblance of excess warmth as the storm-witch leeches out the profound heat of summer almost unconsciously.
