PRIDE BEFORE A FALL | Closed.

[limier]

WHO: Lakshmi + Coupe, Kitty, Gwenaelle, Helena, Iorveth, Marcoulf, Merrill, Solas.
WHAT: Fade cannonball
WHEN: You can't make me date you
WHERE: The Free Marches
NOTES: OOC Post, Discussion plurk.

This is routine.

A rift, high above the ruins of the Hammer’s Edge Bridge. It cuts into the sky, green and pulsing as a wound to spit out spirits like misery. This is routine — but the position is precarious, so near to a cliff ledge. Watch your footing, a fall promises only sharp rocks and water below.

The task is straightforward: Close the tear, or provide a diversion for the Rifters doing so. Keep yourself alive, and keep your hand to the task, no matter how it aches. When respite comes, it’s a matter of seconds: The Rift stabilizes, and,

And Lakshmi breaks from the group. Moving fast (too considered for the pace, every demon dodged, never a misstep on the odd root or rock) as she sprints for the edge. Maybe you tried to grab her, stop her, stop someone else from grabbing her.

She launches herself legs out, flatly determined in her aim —

Maybe it’s only that like it or not, she’s going through that rift. Maybe it’s that there’s no good reason not to join her. Maybe it’s that everyone else is jumping too.

Routine, right?

 

Comments

Kitty | The Field

[rathercommon]

[ One moment, it's an open field of battle. The next, it's closed and dark. There's a musty smell of confined spaces, of decay. There are obstacles - looming pillars, dangerous in the blackness - and there are others, out there. Calling out pitifully - please, help me, don't leave me. Spirits shuffling and helpless and frightened and lost.

And in their midst - in their midst is one who can see in the dark - one who laughs and whispers to himself. He'll move, and one of the others will cry out and then go suddenly, terribly silent. No one even fights. They just die.

Kitty, in the darkness, raises her hands to her mouth, eyes wide with horror. ]

[limier]

[ Everyone dies.

They usually do more than that: Shudder, struggle, strive. Dying is a process; time dilates about those seconds, blooms with the base instinct to survive. A life may gutter,

It seldom snuffs out clean. ]

Kitty, [ Where are they? Where, in more than the most obvious — this isn't anything like the stories she's heard. It's far too much like them. Hushed, intent: ] We need to go.

[rathercommon]

[ Her voice is quiet - frightened, small - and when she speaks, it might well sound like nonsense. ]

Silver. Do you have any silver on you? If it comes - it can't abide silver.

[limier]

Yes,

[ It's not a lie. It's also not easily-accessible. A gauntlet extends for Kitty's hand to take (the silver). It'd be a hell of a thing, to die tripping over a rock in the black: ]

The darkness. Back or through?

[ Towards the laughter, else away — they've little hope of more complicated bearings. Something scrapes, drags across stone from behind. Flames crackle into life from the end of Wren's blade. ]

[rathercommon]

Away. Away from it.

[ The light is a comfort. Her breath comes a little easier, not to be in complete darkness. She twists around, searching - ]

There. The door to the tomb.

[ And then she sees the gauntlet held out to her, and she shakes her head - ]

Keep it. For yourself. I can fend off its magic better than you can. [ A hell of a thing to say to a templar, but she seems certain. ]

[limier]

Do not be foolish —

[ Comes the first, automatic response, sword held aloft to illuminate the doorway (still too distant). The trouble of seeing is being seen, but there'll be time for that once,

Once the spirit's gone. A spirit this is, but who can say how much Kitty's mind might press against it?

Hissed, low: ]

— What do you mean?

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty hesitates, eyes searching Coupe's face, as though by staring hard she can determine whether or not the woman is trustworthy. It seems she decides she is: after that moment, the words come tumbling out - ]

I'm immune to magic. Have been all my life. I don't know why, not really, but - I've used it to fight demons and spirits before. So if it goes for you, if it tries to hurt you with magic, let me get in the way and take the blow.

[limier]

Do not be foolish,

A breath. Thoughts spreading too far for the knowledge of it to catch. Do not be foolish, immune or otherwise (if the girl believes it, might that make it true?) Kitty's a slight thing. The wrong bit of debris could end this.

But they don't have an abundance of time to argue. She's blocked and hauled men before — can do so now, if need be. Better that the girl's not watching for it. Not ready to fight her, when they may need fight this thing ahead.

A nod,

"You are armed?"

Confirmation.

[shri]

[ The blade is in her hand before she even knows the truth of what lurks in the dark in front of them. Stepping forward, her hand at Kitty's shoulder that isn't to turn her back but to give - a sense of distance, there was someone there behind her. Coupled with that slow slide of metal from the sheath. ]

Kitty. [ Her voice low, under her breath. In the same wa, she knows how to pitch loud for battle, she pitches quiet for secrecy, now. ] What manner of beast is this?

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty jerks at the touch on her shoulder - but then she swallows hard. She's trembling just a touch. ] I don't know. I don't know if it's - It's not possible for him to be here, but - if he was taken out of my memories - Can the Fade do that?

[ Stop it, Kitty, pull yourself together, if you can't she'll die, everyone will die again. There's an itch on her cheek; she rubs at it with the heel of her hand and wipes away tears. She gulps down a steadying breath. ]

If it's - from my memories - it's named Honorius. An afrit. And too powerful to - We can't fight it. We've got to run. [ And then, clutching at Lakshmi's sleeve - ] We'll split up - he's only going to want to kill me, for stealing.

[shri]

It seems it can. [ Because as she looks, the spirits that just die - change. It makes her swallow on a familiar fear. The women that look as Lakshmi often dressed, their veils drawn. The men with their head wrapped in turbans, a string tied around their chest. Dying, dying, dying.

Leave her? To a demon that wants to kill her? Like this?

She would not have it, she would never have it. Her hands grip either side of Kitty's face, turning up between her palms to look down at her. Flatly. Seriously. All determination of fighting things too big, too much. ]

Afrits? Like Jinn? [ Those aren't her stories, but there were as many Muslims in her soldiers as there were Hindu's and otherwise to give her a thousand names for a demon. Lycan or otherwise. ] We are not separating. You are going to go first, towards the door. You are going to keep moving and not stop until you are out. Do you understand me? I will follow after you, do you understand? I can front it's attacks.

[rathercommon]

No.

[ Her hands come up to grip at Lakshmi's wrists. She's terrified, plainly terrified, shaking and pale in the darkness, but in spite of that, she goes on - ]

You haven't got resilience. I have. I can - survive its magic. You'll die right away.

[shri]

Kitty. Unless it kills me in one blow, I cannot die. There is nothing it can do to me that has not already been done.

[ She holds fast, holds steady. Grips her hard enough to almost hurt and tips her forehead against Kitty's takes a deep breath. If she shakes, it's hidden, but there is the lie, so too is she terrified. So too does she feel the shake all the way down her limbs. ]

I have lost so many children. Do not let me have to do it again with you.

[rathercommon]

[ I'm not a child - But that's not relevant. More relevant: ]

What do you mean you can't die? Everyone can die.

[shri]

They can, they do.

[ She swallows, blinking the memories that have no time and place here when the desperation mounted. Her gaze breaking only to look and make sure the spirit doesn't come closer to them. ]

Don't ask me that question right now, I will explain it to you once we get out of here. Just trust me.

[rathercommon]

[ But she shakes her head. Desperate, clutching - ]

Come on. We can both go. Come on.

[shri]

[ She jerks her hands-free. Her smile pulling wry, quick and grim. ]

Do you know what I find most frustrating about you English? You never believe anyone else of their own ability until there is no other choice. I am a warrior, and very, very, hard to kill.

[ She grabs the back of Kitty's jacket and hauls her with a strength that isn't possible for someone her size, perhaps not necessary, but she makes sure that Kitty can't mistake the strength in these limbs. ]

I can get you time to escape, even if I cannot kill it. Then I can live long enough to escape as well. So you are going to go first. You are going to keep running, you are to remember 'the Queen of Jhansi told me to run as fast as I can or she will never forgive me for getting killed because I looked back.' Then when you have made it to that door, find something to bar it with. Wait until I jump through and slam it shut behind me. Understood?

[ It's stupid, there is every single chance all her bravado counts as nothing, and she will die. But she has to make sure Kitty escapes this room. Has too. It was not worth the rest of her life if she did not. If this was how it was done? So well be it, she would see it done and she would see it done gladly for her mistakes. So she talks like there will be no mistakes, that it will go exactly as it is meant too. That nothing awful will happen. ]

[rathercommon]

But -

[ Kitty is brave. She is brave. But at the end of the day, she's also practical. And so as much as she wants to stay, she can't. She left Mr Pennyfeather behind, in that dark tomb, and she left Anne, and Anne had asked for her help, and Mr Pennyfeather too, and she'd left them. So she won't stay behind now, either. Not when it'll be the both of them who die if she does.

Her tears are flowing freely now; she uses the heel of her hand to smear them away. But she turns. And she goes, running off into the dark, hoping desperately she finds the door.

There's a harsh scraping laughter. Attracted, perhaps, by the sound of Kitty's footsteps, the demon leaps forward. And he's a terrible, frightening thing - a skeleton dressed in what is recognizably the suit of an English statesman, wearing the golden death-mask of William Gladstone. He bears a sword in his right hand. He doesn't attack yet, instead cocking his head at Lakshmi curiously. "You're not one of my little mice," he says. Then, cheerfully - "But you can die too." ]

[strangel]

( Helena growls low in her throat, as she steps between Kitty and the creature. She moves in a low crouch, bow in hand, and arrow already partway drawn as she starts to prowl forward, and glances at Kitty over her shoulder. )

Run now. Go to Iorveth and others.

[rathercommon]

No, no -

[ Kitty grabs desperately at Helena - catches her collar, good enough, and tries to yank her back physically. She's serious about it, desperation giving her hands a wild strength. ]

It'll kill you. You don't even have resilience - It'll kill you. You've got to run.

[strangel]

Many things try to kill me.

( None of them had succeeded yet, but the desperation in Kitty does make her pause, setting a reassuring hand over Kitty's. )

Monsters can fight monsters.

[rathercommon]

[ But Kitty doesn't let go. Instead, she says, desperately - ]

You're not a monster!

[strangel]

( Helena's expression turns baleful as she steps closer to Kitty. Of the two of them, Kitty is taller. Helena grabs wrist of the hand holding onto her and twists it sharply outwards, wrenching it down, so she can attempt to pull Kitty around and shove her forwards, hoping to make her stumble away from Helena and in the opposite direction of the monster.

For a moment, the light crackles, and Helena is covered in a bloody soaked wedding dress, face slick with blood, and then she looks as she had before.

Regardless of if her attempt to break Kitty's hold and push her away worked: )

I still try to protect. Go.

[rathercommon]

[ Against her will, a little whimper of pain comes from her throat when Helena grabs at her wrist. She's all the more stubborn-looking afterwards for allowing that little sign of weakness: her jaw sets mulishly, and she grabs at Helena's wrist in return. Terrified as she is - she's not leaving her behind. ]

If you stay behind, I'll die with you. Come away.

[strangel]

( Helena stares at Kitty, baleful. She will not move, the little cat. She is too foolish.

There is a moment of brief, blistering fury, before she looks at the demon, and begins dragging Kitty away from it. Even if Kitty comes willingly, with Helena following her instructions, somehow Helena manages to make it a drag. )