birds

[dark_light]

The Liandrils build up their mana enough to return home. They do so; the hotel charges Isabella a steep fee for the room service and the stay itself but not enough to break the bank and not enough to represent damage to the premises or anything.

They teleport away from their daemons, experience a moment of barely-there discomfort apiece, and keep them in a well-warded closet together where they will not be readily discovered or vulnerable.

The Liandrils report on the situation to some other mages.

Some other mages are... even more concerned than they are.

This Isabella character has clearly got to go, or at least be brought under some reasonable semblance of control.

What is the obvious way to do this?

Well, to these mages, the obvious way is:

They scry on her owl. He is having a rest in this tree, correspondence about obscure magic attached to his leg; he's not near her, but as they understand it, that doesn't mean there's no connection to exploit.

They come in a group so they don't need to linger longer than is necessary to seize the bird in three pairs of coordinated hands and then disappear again.

Miles away, in her kitchen, with a vial of safflower oil in one hand and a spellbook in the other, Isabella collapses breathlessly to the floor and convulses.

Comments

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin is present in the kitchen, sitting at the table working on the project for Zeviana's cloudpine facsimile. He's making progress with Vern's help, and maybe has a working spell idea set up. He's thinking about how much the pine needles will factor in to cushion the cloudpine's drag when Isabella collapses.

"... Isabella?" he gasps, and he's out of the chair and by her side in a heartbeat. Adarin takes her hand. "Love? Love, what's wrong?"

Vernaia follows, fluttering to the floor and looking at Isabella with concern.

[dark_light]

Isabella squeezes his hand like she's dangling off a cliff. She seems to be having trouble getting the breath to speak, her eyes are pouring tears, and she looks -

Like Adarin felt, when Enathira had Vern.

Maybe worse. (Three sets of hands...)

"Path," she whimpers, when she's finally managed to draw in a wisp of air.

[prodigal_miser]

He tries to think of an appropriate curse word, but even with fluency in three languages - he can't think of one strong enough. It's an absurd thing, to think, in this situation, but it's the first thing he thinks of. The next is that he will kill whoever's responsible. It's still an alien feeling, even after Enathira. Even after he wanted to kill someone.

Adarin holds her. "I'll stop it," he hisses, blinking away tears. "It will stop, I swear. I will murder them."

He scries. He aims for Path, and that's easy because his other half is right there. (She's right there suffering, she's in agony, fuck, the woman he loves is breaking in front of him and he can barely think.) But he can't think. He misses things off of his checklist. All he can think about is how it must feel for her and how she must be in agony and how in the hell can those bastards do this to her?

The spell fizzles. He's momentarily stunned by the backlash of too much light, too much color, and the shock of failing a simple scry. He hasn't done that since he was eight.

[dark_light]

Isabella manages a great gasp, which she holds as though drowning, and scrambles to get ahold of more of Adarin than just his hand, and clings, hard enough to make it difficult for him to breathe too, fingernails digging into his back. "My Path," she whispers, voice thin and high.

[prodigal_miser]

"I- I'm.." he mumbles, then he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He cannot afford this. Isabella needs him. He can freak out later, he's a fucking adult and he will not stand by while this happens.

He wraps his arms around her. Then furiously, systematically, he goes down his checklist for a scry. He will fucking find these people and they will die. Not be stopped, not get Path away from them - they will die, they will never do it again. They will never do anything ever again.

This one works. He finds Path. There are - there are three of them, at least, and it's like his heart's breaking. Or maybe like it's stopped, he can't tell. One of them, surely. Oh, his Isabella's poor Path.

Vern retrieves his spell book - he needs to make a teleportation spell. He does, as he tries not to cry because they're touching Path. Adarin finds the teleportation spell. He fusses with it, to fix it for his purposes. Absently, he thinks about all of the backups and safeties in his spells to prevent anyone from getting hurt. He did it obsessively, he thought it part of his being - he will not kill anyone, that crosses a line.

He thinks about which ones are easiest to un-muzzle. Which ones would have the sharpest claws with the minimum amount of effort. He turns out to be incredibly creative when it comes to plotting murder. Adarin realizes with cold uncaring that he has lots of ways to kill people. He was only forcing himself to play nice. And now he isn't going to.

He makes the teleportation spell. Isabella is still clinging. "Isabella - Isabella, love, I will make this stop, but you have to let me go," he whispers, hands shaking. He doesn't feel anything but cold, seething anger and growing horror. Not even her nails, digging into his back. They should hurt, but he doesn't notice.

[dark_light]

"Adarin," whimpers Isabella, breath coming only in sharp pants. If she understood him this is not at all clear. She holds him tighter.

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin kisses her forehead, trying not to sob.

He considers taking her to her parents - but he needs his mana. He needs it to kill, he can't afford the time it would take to get to them, can't afford losing the power necessary to take himself and Path back home, to get him to Isabella as soon as possible.

"Vern - Vern, what do I do," he whimpers. "Fuck, I can't leave her like this, not alone, not now -"

His daemon is shaking. They share a look. There is an obvious solution.

Vernaia makes a sound, in her throat - and then she is in Isabella's arms, forcing her way there, getting between Isabella and Adarin.

[dark_light]

Isabella's arms are bare; he hasn't gotten around to enchanting her armor yet. She feels it, when Vernaia insinuates herself: feathers and intimacy the other way around from the one that's making her want somebody to die, her or them. She's startled enough to go limp, to release Adarin, to say - "Vern - you - can't -"

[prodigal_miser]

It's not the same as it was before. It's not - it doesn't hurt. He can think, he can feel, and it's like Isabella's - there, in his soul. Hurting, in agony, reminding him that the woman he loves is being tortured. It's not a pleasant feeling, by any means, but it's not debilitating. He can function.

Vern doesn't say anything, she just cuddles closer to Isabella, whimpering.

"I love you," says Adarin. Then he teleports to where Path is.

[dark_light]

Isabella doesn't clutch at Vern the way she was clinging to Adarin. She lies limp on the floor, just - refraining from batting the kagu away from the circle of her arms. She has enough presence of mind to leave plenty of escape route if it turns sour. But she doesn't turn down the offered comfort

"Path," she whispers again.



Her daemon is surrounded by three mages, screaming without words, and there are more mages in the room, and none of them are pleased to see Adarin.

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin doesn't care if they're pleased to see him or not. He does not make demands. This is not a negotiation.

Of his repertoire of murder, he chooses the easiest. Shield, with a contingency removed - a continuous object will not be separated from itself. The first two mages touching Path die within a second. Bisected, the both of them. He also doesn't care that it's not a humane death, it's the easiest and fastest and so it's what he uses.

[dark_light]

The other mages have a few combat-applicable spells of their own. They start muttering their own reminders and mnemonics -

[prodigal_miser]

It's strange how things as so - slow, now. How they seem to take forever to react, to fight back. He'd practiced his reaction times with shields, didn't he? Completely silently? It's so easy it's absurd. It's like they didn't even know they shouldn't have done this.

The ones obviously casting die. He is not feeling creative, despite his creative ideas before he arrived. No, he's going to use the one that works. Slice, slice. Bisect, bisect - he can kill more than one at once, if they're close to each other. He does that, he is systematic. The last touching Path also dies.

[dark_light]

Path's wail cuts off abruptly.

One of the other mages dives for the limp, panting owl, who hasn't the energy to do more than slightly shuffle away from the lunge.

(One runs for her life. One has fallen to his knees over a murdered relative. One is backed up against a wall, screaming.)

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin kills the one that lunges for Path. Beheading, this time. He doesn't even care, it's just something that needs to be done. Absurdly, a Wikipedia fact about the brain surviving a while longer after beheading pops into his head. He doesn't feel anything but calm satisfaction that the mage is dead.

It's not even like they're strangers, like he can vilify them. He could name every one, if he wanted to - most of them have families. He can't bring himself to care.

Impassively, he looks at the surviving mages in the room. Any ones that look like threats?

[dark_light]

Kneeling-over-dead-relative looks mad enough to attack, if not necessarily collected enough to pull it off.

Path flings himself off the table he's sitting on to dig his talons into the front of Adarin's shirt. He does not, in so doing, make contact, but he's not being careful either.

[prodigal_miser]

"Try it," informs Adarin, in a cold voice, detached voice. "And I will kill you. Don't, and I won't."

There is no hesitation in his eyes. He just killed - what, half a dozen mages? More? He thinks it's more, he wasn't counting. One more is nothing.

"... Path," he says, when the daemon flings himself at him. Adarin's watching the potential threat and trying not to lose his nerve at the thought of touching Path right now, hurting Isabella even more. "Path, I don't want to hurt you."

[dark_light]

"Home," says Path plaintively. "Can you? Do you have enough -? My Isabella -"

[prodigal_miser]

"I have enough," asserts Adarin. He has the spell ready, he thought it out before he came here.

He looks at the surviving mages in the room, before he goes. The same cold, detached stare. "There will not be a repeat incident," he says.

Then he casts the spell, and he takes them home.

[dark_light]

Path drops off of Adarin's shirt to the floor as soon as they're there, shuffles forward to his witch. She eases away from Vern to sit up slowly, owl in her arms, tears streaming down her face, absolutely silent.

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin scoops Vern into his arms, shaking and - and covered in gore. Neat was not on the top of his priorities. Killing them was.

"A-Are you okay?" he croaks.

[dark_light]

"N-no. I'll - it'll - no."

She has her fingers buried in Path's feathers, her lips pressed to the top of his head.

[prodigal_miser]

He nods. He sits onto the ground, next to her, shivering.

The first thing he can think of to say is that he botched the first scry and he could have been faster. In a low, wavering voice, he says, "Isabella - Path, fuck, I'm so sorry, I - I should have been faster, I -"

[dark_light]

Isabella lifts one trembling hand and puts a finger over his lips.

"Thank you," she murmurs.

[prodigal_miser]

He nearly sobs, but manages a nod. He doesn't say what he wants to: But I botched the scry I could have been faster. This isn't about him. Not right now.

"You're welcome," he says quietly. "I - is there - anything I can do?"