Bloodstained Reunion (closed for boarrowedyourwife and maybe aheadofmyself)

[unhandme]

Sola-ui knew she had died. Even though she had no memories of how she had met her end, it was impossible for her not to know, what with her body being riddled with bullet holes and the unique feeling of knowing her heart has already stopped and her blood had congealed in her veins.

However, even so, her body did not rot. Nor did her consciousness disappear. She had no breath and no heartbeat. She needed no food nor water. Yet her body still moved and thought like one still alive. The bullet holes and the stump of an arm now seemed natural to her body. As if she had always borne them, even she was just born.

Perhaps, she is in hell. Certainly the dark, barren landscape would indicate that. As would the chronic burning pain and itch she would receive from her blood-caked wounds. But something else occupies her mind. And it is that something else which makes her feel like a damned soul.

Diarmuid is not here.

No matter how she searches, she can find neither hide nor hair of him. Nor can she find any trace of Kayneth (not that she cares). In life, she could only watch as the hero ignored her in favor of her ill-tempered fiancee. Had he gone back to the man he insisted was his true Master after her death? Now, in death, was she to be eternally deprived of her hero's presence?

Technically, she knows that it is a very plausible thing. She is but a normal human while he is a hero. They could never head into the same afterlife, if she even had one upon her soul returning to the Root.

But a miracle had occurred. She had continued to live this twisted life after death. What was it for, if not to meet him again? Surely, her love would not meet such an abrupt end.

"Diarmuid? Diarmuid? Where are you, Diarmuid? Come here. I love you..."

She chants with her cold, cracked lips, wandering through the dead landscape with tears flowing out of her eyes. She doesn't know how long she has kept at this, or how much longer she must continue to do this. Maybe she would search for an eternity. But she won't stop. Not when there's the slightest hope of them meeting again.

Since she is already dead, she can walk and walk and keep on walking day and night. Even if she doesn't know the difference since both look the same under the dark sky. She doesn't know how far she has walked, or if she has even left the place she "woke" in.

This day, however, the landscape changes. Where before, it had been completely barren, now it played host to a strange mansion pained in dark tones. It is constructed in the Victorian Gothic style, with pointed arches and steep gables The windows are nailed shut, but the door is ajar.

Since she is already dead, Sola-ui figures she has little to fear from whatever monsters may lurk its hallways. Thus, she steps inside with little hesitation.

The inside is as somber as the outside. Though it might have looked splendid once, right now its floors and furniture are covered in dust. The wall paper is peeling. The entranceway chandelier had fallen down and shattered into glass shards on the faded rug. It is a house as dead as the landscape outside it and the woman within it.

As she steps into the house, for the first time since her death, Sola-ui experiences fatigue. Her feet hurt. Her wounds itch. Her throat is sore. She wants to rest.

So she drags herself into a sofa and awaits whatever might come find her.

Comments

[boarrowedyourwife]

"And what of me? What if I don't want you to love me?" Diarmuid stalks over to where she is standing, eyes narrowed. "Do I get no choice in this? What gives you that right! I have spent too much of my life letting others make that choice for me. For once I want to be the one who decides!"

[unhandme]

"Then decide! And change that decision however you see fit! I won't give up no matter what you say!"

[boarrowedyourwife]

"How can you tell me to decide when in the very same breath you tell me my decisions don't matter because you will just keep doing what you are doing anyway?" Diarmuid feels the urge to hit her rising and he almost does it, before stopping with his hand in mid-strike. He looks to his hand a moment, then to her, and back again.

What is wrong with him? Why is he being so violent? Even if she is trying him beyond all patience, he shouldn't be letting himself hit her.

He lets his hand drop, turning away from her to hide the uncertainty on his face. Very quietly he whispers, "What is wrong with me?"

[unhandme]

"I..."

Her expression softens as she sees him hesitating.

"I don't think anything is wrong with you. It's just that you're a little confused. Everything's change a good deal, after all."

[boarrowedyourwife]

Diarmuid laughs a sad and hopeless sounding laugh, turning to face her at the same time. He holds out his marked hand, shaking it so that she cannot miss the lines on it, "Look at me! Look at this!" How can you see me and say there is nothing wrong with me? These marks should not be here. I should not be so violent. So angry! I am....was a knight! What happened to me? What did he do to me?"

Suddenly, he starts shaking, dark tears tracking down his face. He doesn't know what to do or what is going on and the longer he remains like this the harder it becomes to not just give into the dark pool of hatred and rage that lies deep within him.

And whose calls have done nothing but grow louder since he stepped into this house.

[unhandme]

"A-anyone would be angry or scared if they had to die once. And you...by what you said, you didn't have a good death."

She watches him, unsure if she should abandon her current task to hug him or comfort him in some other way.

"I could ask the same thing. How this..."

She gestures at her body.

"...Could happen to me. And yet I'm still alive. Just give it some time. I'm sure by then your pain will be gone!"

[boarrowedyourwife]

"And doesn't that bother you even a little?" His voice shakes and those tears that might be deep red or just black continue to stain his face, "You and I both know that you should not be alive. Not with your body in such condition! And I should not be alive either. Even a servant cannot survive their heart being destroyed!"

Diarmuid turns, looking around the house, but not really seeing it, "What kind of magic could cause this? And why? What is the point of trapping us in this place!"

[unhandme]

She crawls over to him, standing up on shaky legs and taking his hand.

"Only at first. But as long as I can still think and feel for myself, you are more important."

She pulls his hand up to her face and presses her lips to his fingers.

"As for the second point, I don't know. Maybe they wanted a heroic spirit to toy with, but I'm no more than a human woman."

[boarrowedyourwife]

"I will not be anyone's toy! I have suffered enough!" And this, he realizes deep in some part of his mind, is another example of how changed he has become. There was a time when Diarmuid would gladly suffer to keep others from having to do so. It was his job. What he lived for.

Now the idea makes him sick especially when the suffering is for the amusement of a nameless, faceless power.

"I will not do this! I refuse to dance on their strings!"

[unhandme]

"And so you won't. I'll free you."

Never does she pause to think that he would want to be free of her.

[boarrowedyourwife]

Diarmuid just stares at her in silence for a moment, before pulling away from her. He turns his back on her looking out at one of the boarded up windows. However, his pull away from her isn't nearly so violent as his other pulls have been. His voice is suddenly a lot calmer too. Almost as if he has come to some kind of decision.

"We will free ourselves. I probably won't be much help since I do not know much about how magic works, but if you want something from me, just ask."

[unhandme]

She nods.

"I'll keep that in mind. Even if your knowledge can't help, you can do some heavy lifting, right?"

She points over to the chairs and table.

[boarrowedyourwife]

Diarmuid follows her gesture with his eyes. Though confused by what good moving a table a chairs will do, he is thankful to have the distraction since he needs something to focus on besides that dark, angry howling inside of him.

He crosses to the furniture in a few steps, pausing to look back at her once he is standing next to them, "Where do you want me to move them to and why? Is this suppose to help us somehow?"

[unhandme]

"Turn them over and examine them for markings. Destroy them and check their individual components if you must. Just because this ward surrounds the house does not mean its origin is on the walls or floor."

[boarrowedyourwife]

Diarmuid looks at her in silence for a moment before nodding and setting to work. Honestly, as much as he might hate to admit it, he is impressed that she thought of that. Maybe it is just because he knows so little about how modern magic works, but he hadn't even considered something like that.

"Can you tell me more about what I'm looking for? Markings is pretty vague. I don't know anything about this kind of magic..."

[unhandme]

"Runes, fancy writing, foreign symbols. Anything that looks out of place. Especially if it's glowing or emitting some sort of power."

She isn't surprised that Diarmuid knows little of modern magecraft. After all, he was a knight, not a magus.

[boarrowedyourwife]

Diarmuid nods and sets to work examining one of the chairs. As he does, he scoffs lightly, almost to himself, "Even as much as you magi look down on runic skills, you still use things that are much like them. Why am I not surprised?"

[unhandme]

"The components of a bounded field are much more complex and variable than anything created from runic magic. You have to remember that."

She seems to have regained much of her old flame, acting smart, composed, and haughty, as opposed to her lovesick behavior second before.

[boarrowedyourwife]

Diarmuid raises an eyebrow at that, though he doesn't look up at her from his work. He's already taken one chair apart, checked it over and is moving onto the next one, "I think you underestimate exactly what can be done with runes by those who know them best. I expect they could put you modern magi to shame with their ability."

He is, of course, thinking of one practitioner in particular--one whose stories he had grown up on--but he is sure there are also other, more modern, examples of people out there.

[unhandme]

"Perhaps they could in the past, but such a system is hard to learn, and there is little guarantee that the spells will work because they depend so much on surrounding mana. The state of magecraft is not what it used to be in the past."

This was why magi were so conservative and buried themselves in their research. They sought to return to the past, to the Root.

[boarrowedyourwife]

"Perhaps," the word is distracted, as if he is hardly listening to her at all. Diarmuid finishes the second chair and then sets to work on the table, turning it over so that he can look at the bottom first. What he see there causes a smirk to curl the corner of his mouth.

"Would this be what you are looking for?" He points toward a slightly pulsing glyph in he middle of the table's base.

[unhandme]

She traces her fingers along the glyph, feeling its magical power.

"I would say so. Or, at least, part of it. Now, wait and let me try to undo it."

She works slowly. She has never worked with a bounded field of this level of complexity before, and she had no crest to assist her with her spells. Besides, the faster she gets done, the greater chance Diarmuid would run away from her once he can leave...

[boarrowedyourwife]

He watches her work in silence. Honestly, while he might not know a lot about magic, there is one thing he can tell. This glyph seems to be emitting energy that is a lot different than anything he has felt before.

"It feels odd. Is it just because the person who set it was trying to hide its presence or is it something else entirely? Should I be looking for other glyphs like it?"

[unhandme]

"Perhaps. I don't know enough about this spell to tell if there's more than than one origin. Or if any of the origins need to be destroyed in order."

Her voice is steady, but she feels uneasy on the inside. She has never been a good magus, but she cannot feel the heat of her circuits activating or prana coursing in her body. Perhaps it is to be expected since she is technically dead, but she can feel the energy of the sigil carved into the chair.

[boarrowedyourwife]

He continues to watch her quietly, though his mouth presses into a frown as times passes and nothing seems to happen. A closer look not only alerts Diarmuid to her unease, but also to the fact that while he can sense an odd sort of energy from the glyph, he can feel nothing from her even as she is suppose to be working to deactivate it.

"What is going on? Is there something wrong with your magic?"