With them settled, she rises, the steps slow, shuffling as she goes to the door. Not that she did not trust them - but that she did not trust anyone. Each step shuffling on the slow limp of her steps. Her feet bare in her rooms, as always. That faint chime of anklets that pronounce the off timing to it.
The lock slides heavy, the heavy thunk of metal against wood. She presses fingertips against it for balance. Taking the slow breath in, in, in, the shot, the bite, the pained out. Easy, now, it's been a while, and at least there was no mirror to look at herself for it.
Do mages cast spells to silence rooms so others could not hear within it? It would be the first thing she learned to do if she had their abilities, and was stuck in their predicament. No matter, no matter. Shuffling back, she takes up her seat on the edge of the bed once more. Smoothing her hands out against her legs, dusting herself neat unnecessarily. "I would prefer to show you, first - you can ask me your questions after."
Which, it doesn't matter, it's what she's doing. She fishes the edge of her veil, and with the one movement lifts it to lay it across the crown of her head, settling against the flat gold disc and chain on her brow and in her hair. Her, certainly, below it, but, well, old. The long black hair streaked with grey from the temples down. The fall of skin as only time does to human bodies. The dig and weathering of sun and cold and war wounds. Scars that sit raised on the skin, white lines that pull, lines that dug in deeply. Her body twisted with its own weight and actions. She perhaps isn't even that old at all, but it is the life she has lived that carves her skin, her bones, her body hollowed out. Finally, finally, those eyes sit in the face they're supposed to.
Gives the one minute to take it in, old and tired and exhaustedly so. Her hand lifts to her belt knife, tucked in at her side, unsheathing it in a quick flick. Before there is a single thing to be said about it, her head tilts back, the blade rises and: she slits her own throat open in an upwards diagonal with an unerring accuracy. Not deep, but enough to make the point she wants. ( No - Wren, you are not rid of her just yet. )
The little silver phial, that was etched too purposefully to merely be decoration, of a snake that twists around itself to eat its own tail ( never taken off, always beneath her clothes ) is drawn out by the chain. The pause only in how her hand shakes faintly in tremors. The flick of the cap off with her thumb is too familiar to be anything else that she does often before she puts it to her lip. One harsh swig - and the effect is immediate. The cut begins to heal, and her body - to loses its age. Falling away, pulling back, her years retreating. It isn't painless, for why shouldn't be? It wasn't painless becoming this, after all. Though she makes no noise, her eyes scrunched tightly shut, her breathing coming quick, high, sharp. As her body healed itself, took back the time like it never happened at all.
Until, like a half-mad dream it might never have happened at all, almost, except for the very faint, white line left behind on her neck. Young, not more than mid-twenties, exactly as she'd first arrived. Clearing her voice with a sharp gasp of the breath she was holding, she settles back. Absently touching her fingers to her throat to pat the blood away. Smudging it between her fingers. Turning her face away briefly as she tucks the silver phial back below her neckline.
Lets that sit, taking the time to get her breath back from the pain of it until she's as settled as she ever will be before she goes on to speak. The explanation is broken down to its parts, what mattered to them, here and now. But, brief as it is, when her gaze meets Kitty's and determinedly flicks it back up. "We call it the blackwater. They say it was... a holy liquid, from God. Brought back by Knights on a holy crusade to save mankind. It is nothing, so I understand, to many of the things you have in this place. Nor do I possess any particular magic beyond this, before you worry on that account. I am no mage." And no doubt, they all could breathe a sigh of relief over that. "The reason it matters to you is that I may when I wish to, share how it is done and make anyone in this room the same. So, no doubt, could this Corypheus if he was ever to find out about it. I am sure I don't need to elaborate what Corypheus might do with turning his men to nigh on immortal soldiers that can heal near to fatal wounds in seconds that never age, how long he could make this war. Or what a... particularly thoughtful... blood mage, is it? Might do with myself should I be captured."
There. Laid out. The rest was - "I kept it from you as I found no reason to trust most of this place until I was absolutely sure what I should do." And her first plan, obvious by her sitting here in this state, had not worked. "For those who drink the blackwater, it is a duty, one we are bound to until death seems fit to take us, to protect those against impossible forces. But..." Well, she's trapped here, isn't she? And she is selfish, short-sighted, too hopeful, determined in her silence and unable to ask for help when she should, but not that sort of idiot. She wouldn't damn them just for her pride.
Rather, she takes up her blade - the long fine flat metal whip. Magni's work, fine as anything, carefully held. Placing it between her hands as she strides, right up to the middle of Wren, Thranduil and Herian, meeting each of their eyes, equally, bluntly. "... It is not for me to decide that fate, and even if I might become clouded to all else, I know my duty and I swear it to you. This is your homes, your fight. I submit myself to that. If my life is what you'd ask in order to protect that, I will give it gladly. You need only say the word. But you also have my assurance that should capture come to me, I will gladly strike myself down. To know I protect others, I would meet my own fate a thousand times. That is the oath I took."
No, she would give no apology like that - she holds so little value to them, save when they mean everything. But... Too many cowards had tainted that too long ago. Too much blood, too much pain. What good was it to something as solid as an action? She had already done one thing that could not be taken back, the only payment could be another.
And with it all said and done, carefully, she places the weapon - so very particularly - at Wren's feet, touches the ground in front of her, the once by the brush of fingertips, then up to her own brow. A reverence to the motion that could not be mistaken, and too much herself to be false humility. Her and her loyalty, all of it given over to right now. With it done, she steps back, raises herself up, back straight and proud to it. The rest - the rest was for them to ask, them to decide. Whatever else followed, she had said all that mattered right now.
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The lock slides heavy, the heavy thunk of metal against wood. She presses fingertips against it for balance. Taking the slow breath in, in, in, the shot, the bite, the pained out. Easy, now, it's been a while, and at least there was no mirror to look at herself for it.
Do mages cast spells to silence rooms so others could not hear within it? It would be the first thing she learned to do if she had their abilities, and was stuck in their predicament. No matter, no matter. Shuffling back, she takes up her seat on the edge of the bed once more. Smoothing her hands out against her legs, dusting herself neat unnecessarily. "I would prefer to show you, first - you can ask me your questions after."
Which, it doesn't matter, it's what she's doing. She fishes the edge of her veil, and with the one movement lifts it to lay it across the crown of her head, settling against the flat gold disc and chain on her brow and in her hair. Her, certainly, below it, but, well, old. The long black hair streaked with grey from the temples down. The fall of skin as only time does to human bodies. The dig and weathering of sun and cold and war wounds. Scars that sit raised on the skin, white lines that pull, lines that dug in deeply. Her body twisted with its own weight and actions. She perhaps isn't even that old at all, but it is the life she has lived that carves her skin, her bones, her body hollowed out. Finally, finally, those eyes sit in the face they're supposed to.
Gives the one minute to take it in, old and tired and exhaustedly so. Her hand lifts to her belt knife, tucked in at her side, unsheathing it in a quick flick. Before there is a single thing to be said about it, her head tilts back, the blade rises and: she slits her own throat open in an upwards diagonal with an unerring accuracy. Not deep, but enough to make the point she wants. ( No - Wren, you are not rid of her just yet. )
The little silver phial, that was etched too purposefully to merely be decoration, of a snake that twists around itself to eat its own tail ( never taken off, always beneath her clothes ) is drawn out by the chain. The pause only in how her hand shakes faintly in tremors. The flick of the cap off with her thumb is too familiar to be anything else that she does often before she puts it to her lip. One harsh swig - and the effect is immediate. The cut begins to heal, and her body - to loses its age. Falling away, pulling back, her years retreating. It isn't painless, for why shouldn't be? It wasn't painless becoming this, after all. Though she makes no noise, her eyes scrunched tightly shut, her breathing coming quick, high, sharp. As her body healed itself, took back the time like it never happened at all.
Until, like a half-mad dream it might never have happened at all, almost, except for the very faint, white line left behind on her neck. Young, not more than mid-twenties, exactly as she'd first arrived. Clearing her voice with a sharp gasp of the breath she was holding, she settles back. Absently touching her fingers to her throat to pat the blood away. Smudging it between her fingers. Turning her face away briefly as she tucks the silver phial back below her neckline.
Lets that sit, taking the time to get her breath back from the pain of it until she's as settled as she ever will be before she goes on to speak. The explanation is broken down to its parts, what mattered to them, here and now. But, brief as it is, when her gaze meets Kitty's and determinedly flicks it back up. "We call it the blackwater. They say it was... a holy liquid, from God. Brought back by Knights on a holy crusade to save mankind. It is nothing, so I understand, to many of the things you have in this place. Nor do I possess any particular magic beyond this, before you worry on that account. I am no mage." And no doubt, they all could breathe a sigh of relief over that. "The reason it matters to you is that I may when I wish to, share how it is done and make anyone in this room the same. So, no doubt, could this Corypheus if he was ever to find out about it. I am sure I don't need to elaborate what Corypheus might do with turning his men to nigh on immortal soldiers that can heal near to fatal wounds in seconds that never age, how long he could make this war. Or what a... particularly thoughtful... blood mage, is it? Might do with myself should I be captured."
There. Laid out. The rest was - "I kept it from you as I found no reason to trust most of this place until I was absolutely sure what I should do." And her first plan, obvious by her sitting here in this state, had not worked. "For those who drink the blackwater, it is a duty, one we are bound to until death seems fit to take us, to protect those against impossible forces. But..." Well, she's trapped here, isn't she? And she is selfish, short-sighted, too hopeful, determined in her silence and unable to ask for help when she should, but not that sort of idiot. She wouldn't damn them just for her pride.
Rather, she takes up her blade - the long fine flat metal whip. Magni's work, fine as anything, carefully held. Placing it between her hands as she strides, right up to the middle of Wren, Thranduil and Herian, meeting each of their eyes, equally, bluntly. "... It is not for me to decide that fate, and even if I might become clouded to all else, I know my duty and I swear it to you. This is your homes, your fight. I submit myself to that. If my life is what you'd ask in order to protect that, I will give it gladly. You need only say the word. But you also have my assurance that should capture come to me, I will gladly strike myself down. To know I protect others, I would meet my own fate a thousand times. That is the oath I took."
No, she would give no apology like that - she holds so little value to them, save when they mean everything. But... Too many cowards had tainted that too long ago. Too much blood, too much pain. What good was it to something as solid as an action? She had already done one thing that could not be taken back, the only payment could be another.
And with it all said and done, carefully, she places the weapon - so very particularly - at Wren's feet, touches the ground in front of her, the once by the brush of fingertips, then up to her own brow. A reverence to the motion that could not be mistaken, and too much herself to be false humility. Her and her loyalty, all of it given over to right now. With it done, she steps back, raises herself up, back straight and proud to it. The rest - the rest was for them to ask, them to decide. Whatever else followed, she had said all that mattered right now.