chef_chocobro | MHA #18; Saturday Evening [10/07].

In which a nice quiet Saturday evening becomes very much not so much anymore with some unexpected visitors.

Together, Marc and Liliana had made their slow and painful way to Malchanceux Harris Apartments, all the way up to the sixth floor (although now Liliana had discovered elevators and that she loved them) and then to apartment 18. Part of Liliana wanted nothing more than vanish into her home, where she could be weak and vulnerable without fear, but her manor was so far and she knew she needed more help than what her steward could provide. And so she'd made the terrifying decision to trust, to believe, and let Marc bring her somewhere she could be taken care of.

A man's voice in her head, darkly amused. *Will you, Lili-flower? Are you sure? They don't have to harm you, they can just choose not to help...*

"Shut up," she mumbled. "Not listening."

His voice was replaced by dozens more, hundreds maybe. *...You carry the seed of destruction...shall rain...root of evil...annihilation...* Liliana couldn't muster up the necessary strength to tell all those voices to hush, so she just moaned, putting her hands over her ears as if that might help.

This was not the victory celebration she had planned.

Edited 2023-10-07 18:46 (UTC)

Luckily Marc wasn't the kind of guy who thought it was overly weird to spend an evening covered in somebody else's blood while you appeared to have a conversation with yourself.

Even so, Marc knew this wasn't the kind of thing Liliana should be alone with. Especially since she and consciousness didn't seem to be besties at the moment. So he wasn't exactly going to leave her on the floor outside the door and assume it would work out all right.

He knocked. Firm enough that if anybody was inside they'd probably have a fair idea that this wasn't someone who got lost trying to deliver Chinese.

Hey now. This was her own blood, thank you very much! It had just had the audacity to fall out while she'd been killing somebody else.

Now then, if you looked closely, these were somebody else's ashes she was covered in, but they were harder to notice what with all the blood.

Also she was helping. She also knocked, where her 'knock' was more 'raise an exhausted fist and let it thump against the door and then sag against the guy that had basically become your only support structure, since your body was currently on strike.'

Icon chosen for irony.

A brief moment of confusion passed at the sound of the knock hitting the door; Gladio hadn't heard that light second thump, but Ignis certainly had, and he could swear that something in the air had shifted, and, though it was faint, easily just a trick of his mind, he could swear he could smell a touch of blood in it. The firmness of that knock, though, meant Gladio was getting up off the couch without any hesitation or even conversation about it to go see who it was and what they might want.

"Marc?" That was hardly helping with the confusion, although that was....well, not alleviated, but shifted, slightly, when he saw who was with him. "Lilian--"

It was like a switch shifted in his brain, muscles tensing and attention alert as he stepped back from the door, opening it wide to usher them in as he called out over his shoulder, "Specs! You're going to want to get over--"

Gladio realized that Ignis had already joined him. There was a moment, when the door first opened, and that wave of that scent of blood seemed to crash into the apartment and invade his senses, but as soon as he heard Liliana's name leave Gladio's lips, he was on his feet and rushing over, knocking his thigh into the side of the couch in his haste, but that hardly mattered.

"--here," Gladio concluded, needlessly.

"What is it?" Ignis demanded, trying desperately to get a sense of the scene, but all he could do was smell blood. "What's going on?"

Edited 2023-10-07 21:36 (UTC)

With the door opening, Liliana briefly forget everything about her current situation, snapped to attention, pulling herself upright, presenting herself as Liliana Vess, Death Wielder, Defiant Necromancer, Blight of Angels and newly-christened Killer of Kothophed.

"I--" she said, and swayed reaching out to clutch whoever was closest as the world went swimmy. And she certainly didn't look like Liliana - exhausted, soaked with blood, the scars of her contracts still visibly etched onto her skin, red and sullen looking. She was still pale, colder even than her usual below-normal body temperature, and even holding onto someone, she swayed with exhaustion and the effort of staying even this much upright. "--am in need of some assistance," she admitted softly. Like it hurt to say. "If you would...be so kind."

Even if that closest wasn't Ignis, you could bet good money on the fact that he was going to make sure he became that person, bracing himself to support the distressingly exhausted weight of her body. He pulled her in and wasted no time in lowering her down to the floor, arm and body both to support her.

"You're alright," he murmured softly to her. "You're going to be okay."

Ignore the faint tremble in his voice of worry and concern and panic, especially with not knowing what was going on, but any such tremble was long gone when he began to bark out instructions to Gladio. "Quick. Pillows, cushions, to support her. And a glass of water, lukewarm, nothing too cold..." Although, really, with the chill of her body right now, he doubted it would be much of a shock to her system. "And warm water, clean rags..."

While Gladio went to do that, he took a moment to try and find her pulse, finding nothing encouraging there in the too faint, too slow, too distant thumping...but it was there at least, even if barely.

His head lifted toward where he assumed Marc was still standing by the door. "What happened?"

His head was swimming and his stomach a bit nauseous from more than just the blood on her, so he figured he could be a little forgiven for not waiting for an answer before his attention shifted back down to Liliana in his arms. "Why here? You should be at the clinic!"

Field patching and dressing and flinging potions and tinctures in the midst of battle was one thing, but he was hardly even remotely close to a medical professional!

"No clinic," Liliana said, shaking her head quickly. And then holding it as the room spun. "I don't know them, they're strangers and I--"

How to explain when it all lay so close to some of the most closely guarded of her secrets, those parts of her soul that had long since grown calloused and the idea of exposing them to light and air for the first time in ages hurt nearly as much as the rest of her.

"I'll be okay. I just...Marc didn't think I should be alone." Yes. Marc didn't.

Oh, was that a faint, derisive, skeptical grunt wedging its way out of Gladio? Nah, bro, he was just getting pillow and handing them over to Ignis; must have just been the wind.

Ignis took the pillows and, when he realized that that was all Gladio had gotten at that moment, added another terse demand, "And towels?"

"You didn't say towels."

"Yes, well," Ignis snorted irritably, "I figured it went without saying, unless I'm gravely mistaken and this isn't blood at all but rather some deeply questionable new perfume choice."

And then, to Liliana, softer, he said, "I don't think it works for you, darling. There is such a thing as being too on theme."

The levity was for his nerves, but the conversation just to keep her engaged, to keep her present, to keep her there and away from that brink he could feel her so desperately teetering on.

Edited 2023-10-07 22:49 (UTC)

Dammit, Ignis, it hurt to laugh, but Liliana gave a soft, gasping noise of amusement anyway, though she ended up clutching his arm immediately afterward.

"I have to say it, but you...might be right," she agreed. "I'm not a fan of this at all. And it's quite overshadowing my triumph." She raised a hand to his face, then dropped it before her blood-tacky hands could muss him further.

*He's going to send you to the clinic, Lili-flower. He doesn't understand.*

Liliana tensed, but otherwise tried to ignore the Raven Man's words.

Well, credit to Ignis and Gladio for leaping into action before Marc could even get a word out. Hey, it was an emergency, who needed talking when taking care of things was more important?

"You guys got this?" Marc asked, just to be sure. Not that he had any particular skills to apply here but he wanted to be sure before he left them to it.

It took Liliana a moment, but she looked up at Marc. "Thank you," she said quietly, the the awkwardness of someone who didn't do thank yous like this often. "You saved my life. I..."

She floundered for what was supposed to come next, failed to find anything good, and so reiterated, "Thank you."

Well, you know, when someone showed up at your doorstop with the blood-soaked body of a woman you were hopelessly, madly tumbling into love with, barely clinging onto life...some things took a bit more of a priority.

Gladio drew in a bit of a steeling breath, his grunt this time a lot less likely to be passed off as anything else, shaking his head and feeling really glad that the rest of Ignis' instructions gave him a good excuse to head into the kitchen, while a desperate part of Ignis wanted to let out a very honest no, but he was steadily trying to convince himself otherwise.

"Yes," he breathed out, with a nod. "I think so. Unless you know better than either of us how to handle a situation like this, but, if that were the case, then I don't suspect you'd have needed to come here in the first place." And even though he looked up toward him again, he knew there were things he just couldn't convey with a glance, so he hoped he had sufficiently poured enough of how much he meant the next words into his tone. "Thank you, Marc."

"Yeah," no such gratitude from Gladio, just a sort of tight dismissiveness as he nudged Ignis in the shoulder to let him know he was handing him a glass of water, "thanks."

"I tried getting her to the Clinic," Marc said to Ignis, since it wasn't hard to guess who Liliana wanted taking point here. "She insisted I bring her here instead. Maybe you'll have more luck than I will."

"Don't worry about it," Marc said to Liliana ~~to make ping flow easier~~. "Catch me up on what the hell happened when you get a chance.

And with that he headed out.

"He didn't think I should be alone," Liliana repeated softly. "He's...not wrong, I suppose. But I just don't..." She trailed off. "Strangers. I don't---"

*..shall rain...root of evil...annihilation...*

She leaned against Ignis, and that feeling he'd had before, of a texture that was neither scar nor tattoo but something of both. Only this time, the textures stay and they're everywhere.

And then somehow things manage to get somehow both better and worse, all at once!

Ignis' confidence was starting to wane, faltering just like whatever faint heartbeat still remained inside of Liliana's body. He had hoped that the water used to gently clean the blood from her skin would have helped to warm her, but she still remained cold, colder than he'd ever felt her before. He was running out of options, running out of ideas, short of just keeping her aware and keeping her hanging on. And she was stubborn, he knew she'd hold on with everything she had, but he was beginning to doubt whether that was still enough, and whether he should simply defy her reservations about the clinic and take her anyway. In her current state, between himself and Gladio? The odds weren't in her favor. She'd never forgive him for it, but, well....it wouldn't even be the most drastic thing he'd ever sacrificed for the life of someone he...

*He's thinking about it. You can see it in the way he looks at you. Looks at his friend. He's thinking about it.*

"Shut up," Liliana whispered. "Just shut up."

*There's an easy way to solve both problems. Just reach out. Pull. The poor besotted fool will probably be grateful. Tragically loyal, remember? Do it, Liliana. Heal yourself. You don't even have to take it all...*

Liliana bit her lip, fists clenching. She didn't trust herself to stop. Not right now.

*This is pathetic, Liliana.* His voice was like a whipcrack. *You're the Mistress of Death. You defy it, you don't bow to it. And what, now you're going to dance around it because of some stupid schoolgirl crush? I'm disappointed.*

"Just stop it," she murmured. "Get away from me."

*Or have you forgotten, my Lili, what waits for you in the Void. Who waits for you. Is that it then? Have you finally decided it's time to face what you've done?*

"No."

Edited 2023-10-07 23:15 (UTC)

Ignis could feel Liliana fighting, could feel her struggling against...everything, more than likely, and despite those words that he misconstrued to be directed at him in some sort of understandable delirium, he only held her tighter. "I'm not going anywhere," he murmured back. "I'm right here, I'm going to stay here, until you--"

"Iggy," Gladio tried to softly interject, "I really think--"

"No," Ignis breathed out harshly. "Not yet. Just...go to the medicine cabinet. Check if there's anything...anything at all...that might help. Google it, or something. Just...there's got to be something else we can do..."

"Yeah," Gladio murmured, fully aware that Ignis could hear him, but he dutifully went to disappear into the bathroom, "it's called 'medical professionals...."

For all her muttering about 'shut up' and 'go away', Liliana didn't seem to be in a rush to actually get away from Ignis, leaning against him, head lolling on his shoulder, once again doing an excellent impression of a broken doll. "Trees," she muttered. "Trees. Plants of any kind. Small creatures?"

Full sentences are for suckers.

She sighed. "Wasn't s'posed to be like this. Happy. Perfect day." She laced their fingers together; hers remain frigid.

Stark had been downstairs ~~sulking~~ alone in his apartment when he'd been overcome by a sense of something being wrong. Something nearby needed to be dealt with. Someone nearby needed help.

This didn't happen often here. It had been some time. Not since that time the days kept repeating and people kept dying.

So he'd gone upstairs since the feeling was coming from there. He found the door to #18 open and stepped inside, staying just past the threshold.

"Can I help?"

Liliana usually felt like death. She embraced it long ago, took it into her soul, stitched it with her Planeswalker spark, woven it into every shred of magical power within her. Death already cast a very long shadow over her.

And now it was closer still, practically breathing down her neck. The call of the Void was loud around her, almost deafening.

She startled when Stark's voice came in through the doorway, tensed a moment like she might flee, and then relaxed when she recognized Stark's voice and shrugs, a little weakly.

"Stark?" Ignis' attention shifted from where he was trying very hard not to practically crush Liliana's poor hand from holding it so tightly, unable to keep a flood of relief out of his voice. "Yes. Please. If you think you can..."

Conveniently, Gladio was then returning from the bathroom, having...briefly considered the small succulent on the window sill and then firmly dismissed it, and then blinked a little to see Stark standing there.

"Hey, look," he said. "A medical professional."

Sort of. He worked at the clinic, that counted.

"I can help," Stark said softly. He was already moving to kneel at Liliana's side. She felt like death and she felt like she was dying and this was what he was for.

"What happened?" he asked as he unbuckled the strap at his neck and leaned over her. "What did this?"

"The contract..." she whispered, in long shaky breaths. "I think that the magic...and the Chain Veil...maybe because I was killing him...I don't know. But they all started bleeding out as we fought. I think. I'm not really sure?" She huffed a soft laugh that was mostly a painful wheeze. "I was kind of killing him at the time. And he was trying to make conversation...it was a lot."

"Rest," Stark said softly. "Just rest."

That was the best thing to do. It might be the only thing to do. As far as he could tell she was very close to crossing over already.

He laid a very gentle hand on her forehead, tugging his mask free with the other. The light normally kept contained by the metal spilled forth, bathing Liliana in a warm golden light. A light meant to feel soothing. A light meant to help.

For a moment, Liliana let herself get lulled by the warmth, by the light. It felt...soft. Like her mother's hands on her face, that year she had the fever and everything had hurt, except her mother's hands.

And then she felt it. The cold. The bone-chilling cold. The hallmark of the Void. It was reaching for her, from behind the light. This wasn't healing.

This was death.

She was on the precipice of the Void and Stark had come to knock her through it. Her body seized and she tried to look to Ignis, to Gladio, to let them know what was happening, but she was so cold, so slow already--

But she wasn't alone.

Stark was merely there to hold open a door that had opened on its own!

"It's all right," he said quietly. "I'm here to help."

This felt off, somehow, but he wasn't sure why. Something about it wasn't right but she needed help and this why was Stark existed. To help like this.

"The Void will have you, Lili. Its hunger will never die. It will have us both."

The Void wasn't just waiting for her. It was trying to pull her in. Deep within it, black on black, claws of darkness were reaching for her finally making good on a promise made two hundred years ago.

Lilana looked up at Ignis, eyes wide with fear, mouthing the words help me.

And, of course, Ignis couldn't see it. He couldn't see anything, but the things he could feel right now, from Liliana's body in his arms and Stark's proximity and the slight, subtle warmth coming off of him, a sharp contrast to Liliana's deathly chill. "What's happening?" he asked desperately, not even knowing where to throw his focus to find Gladio.

But Gladio could see, but that didn't mean he understood and he shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted, "but it doesn't look great."

"Gladio!" That was not what Ignis wanted to hear. "Do something!"

But he didn't know if he should; he didn't know if he could. He didn't understand what he was witnessing, but he did decide, right then and there, that he was going to watch very closely, for some sort of brink, some moment where he could be sure that not intervening would be worse than if he did...

Liliana let go of Ignis' hand, trying to push herself up, trying to scuttle away, all thoughts of pride lost in the haze of fear and survival instinct.

[continued from here]

Everything about this was wrong.

Stark gasped again and fell backward, mask clattering to the ground beside him.

"I...I didn't..."

Which was when Liliana lunged for him, more a collapsing flail than a proper attack, latching onto his arm and yanking with what little black mana she had remaining. But not his body, but at his glow.

And then began harvesting his lifeforce for her own. The scars on her body began glowing a brilliant purple, but do not bleed.

Edited 2023-10-08 03:51 (UTC)

This was even more wrong and this hurt and Stark could barely manage a scream as he tried to push Liliana away.

What was happening?

And if Gladio was waiting for a good moment to intervene, well, this was all definitely it.

First and foremost: "Iggy! Give her space, let her go!"

Even if she was already lunging away, Ignis would have liked to have said that such a directive was unnecessary, but that would be false, because when Liliana started to push herself away, his first instinct was to reach for her and pull her back in what would feel like a terrible mirror of actions taken that morning, which seemed, by now, like it had been ages ago.

But he did move, crawling backward from all of it, and it was a good thing, too, because now Gladio could focus his attention on pulling Stark away from Liliana, and holding Liliana back away from Stark, with a very helpful bellow of "Break it up, you two!"

He was getting this distinct feeling that help had gone right out the door a while ago.

Liliana howled as Gladio dragged her backwards, still trying to clutch at Stark. "You tried to kill me!" she screeched. "You were pushing me into the Void! Your help nearly killed me!"

On the plus side, she looked much better. Still absolutely awful, but no longer literally dying.

Stark was flailing desperately for his mask.

"I didn't push and I wasn't trying to kill you," he managed to gasp out. "You were already going!"

"I was getting dragged through!" Liliana gasped out, still flailing in Gladio's grasp. It was something between fury and a sob. "I c-could feel it reaching for my throat. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak."

"You tried to what?" asked Ignis, who knew very well that he had not misheard, but there was some small portion of him that really, really wished he had.

Gladio, meanwhile, while keeping himself firmly between Stark and Liliana, reached down to pick up Stark's mask and hand it to him with one hand while the other still held Liliana at bay. He was carefully observing them both to look beyond the initial shock and confusion and rage bouncing between them.

"Stark," he said, "I think you should go."

And, after a moment, turned him toward the door to usher him toward it. "Come on."

Stark snatched the mask out of Gladio's hand and held it against his face.

"What did she do?" he asked. "It hurts."

Everything hurt right now. His head, his heart, his body. His shoulders sagged as he shuffled toward the door.

While Liliana was screaming in her mind, held captive by her own failing body, the entities that were currently using it as a time share had no such limitations and they threw themselves into the fray.

*...swallowed up...annihilation...You carry the seed of destruction...* The voices of thousand thousand spirits rush towards him on wings of sharpened memories and dragging him into them. There was a flash of an image, Liliana bound in the embrace of a horrific creature, with wings and a lower body of a snake. He dragged his claws over Liliana's skin while she writhed in agony, tracing whorls and lines in precise and deliberate patterns, crooning and laughing all the while.

Just a flash and then it was gone, and the whispering voices were back, spinning Stark round and round into darkness. And when the light returned, he stood in a tomb made of worked stone, with lit torches ringing the vast hall. Alcoves were carved in regular intervals, each with a gigantic, tusked skeleton in them, standing upright. Directly in front of Stark stood a massive humanoid creature, almost ten feet tall, and correspondingly wide and heavy. Its - his - arms dangled down, knuckles brushing the ground at his feet, and tusks jutted from either side of his head. An ogre.

Usually, Stark got glimpses of things from those whose deaths he attended to. Flashes of memories. Pieces of them to carry with him for the rest of his days. That was what it meant to be a Stykera. You helped them cross over to the other side and they left a part of themselves behind within you.

Being so firmly within memories, if that's what this was, wasn't the natural order of these things. This felt too strong. This felt too strange.

He would have stumbled back, if he could, but he was kneeling and he was busy.

Maybe, as an idea, he could be less busy? That seemed like it would be super good for everybody.

"I am of the Onakke," he said, his voice so deep that it was heard as much as felt, a vibration in the bones. He held up a shield large enough to cover his chest, made of some black metal and decorated with bones. More bones formed a necklace around his thick throat and hung at his waist. "Guardian of the dead. Here to stop you. You must stop. You must close the door. You may not have the vessel."

Whispers started, hundreds of voices rising up, a loud susurration that made eyes water and jaws clench. "...nurtured the root...strong enough...the vessel..." they whispered. "...hallowed earth...the void's first breath..."

The whispers did not stop, just got louder and more insistent until they were all that he could hear, a wave of "the vessel...the vessel is ours...the vessel...shut the door...SHUT THE DOOR...SHUT THE DOOR" that tried to swallow him, that crested and broke--

And when it did, they shifted, displaced by the hubbub of an outdoor marketplace situated in a deep green jungle. As darkness settled over the jungle, Onakke merchants and artificers were packing up their goods and starting to disperse. Stark saw spectacular artistry in every booth and cart, the work of artisans whose awkward size belied their incredible talent. Delicate handiwork, from chainmail so finely knitted it looked like satin to jewelry that gave the impression of never ending fractals to woven images that looked ready to step off the fabric and into the real world.

For a moment, all was peaceful and quiet. But that moment didn't last. Ogres paused, looked around, cocked their heads to listen. Then Stark heard it, too, a low roar in the distance, but growing louder with each second. Across the square, he saw one ogre running wild-eyed out of the jungle, shouting words he couldn't make out as those nearest to her dropped their goods and launched into a mad scramble.

The running ogre fell on her face, but her body sloshed forward as if melted, turning into a black smear on the ground around a scattering of bones. And around her roiled a purplish cloud that washed over the remains and surged onward, extending new tendrils ahead of it as though it were dragging itself along the ground.

And every ogre it touched suffered the same deliquescent fate. A touch. Screams of agony. And then they hit the ground, liquefying into puddles of black goo.

It was over in minutes. In just minutes, the marketplace was gone, the roiling fog covering its Onakke victims, the stately buildings, swallowing the hubbub of life and leaving only the horror of death.

And the whispers returned. "...swallowed up...annihilation..."

And the scene changed again.

Stark wasn't trying to take any vessels! Stark was just trying to do what he was born to do and help the dying.

He was aware that his body was still kneeling beside Liliana but he was unable to move. He was unable to do anything besides watch the unfolding horrors being presented to him.

He might have let out a whimper but any sound he made was too far away for his own ears to hear.

Now he was in the devastated remains of a sick room. If he had shown up in any other area, that might have been where his attention had gone, to the room that had clearly been the scene of a horrible battle, bodies in servant uniforms torn asunder, their faces contorted in horror and pain.

But the memory actually put him was flat against the wall, and in front of him was a nightmare creature, once a young man but now a horror. His eyes were black and glossy and sunk back into his skull, and his pale skin now gray, and waxy and tight. His cheekbones jutted from his face and his lips were drawn back away from his teeth. Gashes had been raked down his chest, possibly with his own nails, but no blood spilled. He had his hands stretched out, reaching for Stark, and engulfing him in shadow. Claws of darkness clutched at Stark's body, lifting him from the ground and snatching at the motes of life and strength that remained in his body. He choked as shadows reached into his mouth, seizing the breath right out of his lungs. He felt as cold as death itself, suffocating as though he'd been buried alive, trapped in the viselike grip of this monster's magic.

And reflected in that creature's eyes was the reflection of a young teen girl, with pale skin, long black hair, and wide, horrified, violet eyes.

""The Void will have you, Lili. Its hunger will never die. It will have us both."

He stood right in front of Stark now, looking up into his eyes, his clawlike hands upraised as if they, not his spell, were holding the alien in the air and squeezing the life from him.

"Join me, Lili," he crooned. "All the torment of the Void will be ours to share forever."

"This isn't right," Stark forced out, gritting his teeth. "What is this?" Whether he said it only in his mind or whether his body echoed the sentiment he couldn't be sure.

And then he was being squeezed too tightly and it was too cold and everything was wrong and his body certainly let out a strangled noise. Loud enough to be noticed by the others in the room, certainly.

Did the glow from his unmasked face flicker or was that merely a trick of the light?

"I think that's about enough of that." A smooth and urbane voice caused the memory to pause. "Allow my Lili-flower to keep some secrets. She's so guarded of her mystique."

This man was tall and had a noble air, dressed in a suit of black and gold that showed no signs of his passage through the trees and brambles. White hair crowned his head, tousled by his hood, but the hair at his temples was black and swept back over his ears. His eyes—strangely gold, like the embroidery on his clothing—seized and held her gaze.

"Vessel of destruction...Root of evil...Our vess--"

Around the strange man, the memories shattered and the chorus of howling voices was cut off at once. "You're giving her to him, you know. I'd really rather you didn't, if it's all the same to you." He smiled. "In fact, I must insist. We have plans for her. And those plans don't involve her soul being fed to the void."

Stark gasped for air as he watched this newcomer.

"I'm not giving her to anyone else and I'm certainly not feeding her to anything," he protested weakly. "I...she needed help."

"He waits for her, past the doorway," the golden-eyed man said. "Can't you feel him reaching for her? She needed healing."

"She was already going," Stark said. "I could feel it! This was all there was left for me to do!"

"She's the Mistress of Death," the golden-eyed man said with a shrug. "She would have gotten over her squeamishness and healed herself."

He gave Stark a crooked smile. "In fact, she still might."

And then he disappeared and Stark was free in his own mind once again.

When the dust settles and, hopefully, the bloodstains haven't set entirely.

With neither Gladio nor a target for her fury to keep her upright, Liliana had only a few minutes of energy left to make it to the couch to sit down, rather than falling over. "This was a mistake," she said softly. "I shouldn't have come. I should have followed my instincts and gone to my manor. I was a fool."

*...the vessel returns...harbinger...carrying destruction...*

*BE SILENT!*

Mercifully, the voices ceased.

Edited 2023-10-08 04:49 (UTC)

Confused and bewildered and still with his heart racing from everything that had just occurred, Ignis heard Liliana moving again, speaking again, in more than just ragged gasps and groans, and his relief was so strong that he wasn't sure he could trust his legs to support him if he got up. But he risked it, he chanced it, pushing himself up so that he could follow her over toward where she sat on the couch and join her, reaching for her hands, her wrists, when he sat.

He wanted to feel whether her hands were still so unbearably cold, he wanted to feel the stronger heartbeat of her pulse, needing the confirmation that it was over, she was better, she'd made it through.

And just one slightly pleading question: "What happened, Liliana?"

She was still so very cold. And her pulse was no longer as thready or irregular, but it was much weaker than it should be, her breathing faster and shallower. But compared to how frail she'd been when he'd first held it, it was a practically a miracle.

She was weak and vulnerable, but she did not feel like she would expire in his arms.

A long pause while she brooded over her answer. What she'd say. How much she would say. Even how she would say it.

"I killed a demon tonight and nearly died for it," she said, voice hard. "Because I am a fool."

He could feel her trembling where she sat and she did not lean into him for whatever comfort he could offer.

But she didn't take her hands away from his, either.

Edited 2023-10-08 05:03 (UTC)

And something was telling Ignis that this encounter went a but beyond the Iron and Red Giants he was used to.

He was quiet, silent, for a good, long stretch of a moment, holding her hands still, but gently rubbing them with his own, so she could feel their warmth, so he could just remind her that they were there.

He was still holding them when he stood up again. "Come on," he said. "We should get you out of those clothes. I'll draw you a bath. Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat."

He could sense her studying him; she'd clearly expected him to interrogate her more, to try to find out the whats and hows and whys of it all and his sudden change of topic threw her. She was caught between suspicion and appreciation, unsure of his motives.

"You don't think it would be better I go?" she asked quietly.

"I think," Ignis stated, firmly, though the edges of his words betrayed some of his exhaustion, as well as all that relief, "it would actually be the worst thing right now."

And he wanted to add, though, that if that was what she wanted, that he wouldn't stop her, but he wasn't sure he could make that promisr.

She took a step forward. Just one, but she was closer to him than before.

"Why?" she asked, and she no longer sounded hard. If anything, she sounded confused.

"Because you've just come back from the brink of death," Ignis reminded her, "and you shouldn't be alone."

He knew that feeling, and, even more than ten years gone, it still made his chest ache.

"Besides," he added, lifting her hands up to his lips, "I don't want you to."

There was no change in her posture or demeanor for his first reason.

But she softened for his second, stepping forward to embrace him. Pausing, when she looked down at the absolute mess she was. And then doing it anyway, wrapping her arms around him and tucking her face into his shoulder. "I'm hungry," she admitted. "But I--" Another pause. "You're messy, too," she said instead of whatever she'd intended to say originally. "You're wearing a fair amount of my blood."

It had gotten to the sticky stage of dried by the time Marc had delivered her here, but cradling her had still managed to transfer a fair bit from her onto him as well.

"Does it at least look good on me?" Ignis couldn't help but ask, though when he wrapped his arms around her a drew her in tight, it was clear that the lightness of the comment was meant to counterbalance the heaviness in that embrace. "We should both get cleaned up. My tub is not nearly as luxuriant as yours, but I'm sure we could make do."

"I have yet to see anything that doesn't," Liliana said quietly. "...But it's still not something I'd like to see you wearing all that often."

Her tone was light but there was a wealth of emotion beneath it. His blood, her blood, blood in general. It didn't matter, she preferred him without it liberally spattered on him.

"I don't suppose that offer of a bath comes with the possibility of you washing my hair, does it?" she asked, starting out with that lightness but losing it partway through to plaintive hope.

"It comes," Ignis informed her, simply, plainly, as of there be no other possible response, "with whatever you want it to."

It was very nice shampoo, too. Chocobros were notorious for their love of hair products, after all.

Another long moment where she just looked at him. "You spoil me," she murmured, only this time it lacked it's usual arch drawl, replaced by something more filled with wonder. And a kiss, soft, small because there is still so much blood, but fervent.

She let Ignis draw the bath, stepping into it with a sigh as the hot water hit tight muscles, and for a long time, was just content to sit in their tub, pressed against him, letting soap and water perform their magic.

Eventually, she said, "Kothophed - the demon I killed tonight - is the reason I'm here. I've been hiding from him."

Ignis' first thought, to these words, was, admittedly, a very selfish one, wondering with a dull ache if that meant, with the demon now dead, she'd have no further reason to stay. And who could blame her? With everything she'd done, and everything she'd been through, and the multiverse now right where it should be, entirely at her fingertips.

He was trying not to dwell on it, and instead on the fact that, at least in this moment, what he had under his fingertips was her warmed, still-cool skin, as he brushed them over her shoulder and leaned in to kiss it lightly.

"What happened," he asked quietly, "with him, that would have driven you into hiding?"

She was trying to figure that out for herself. And deliberately not thinking about how it was the existence of planar portals - that was, portals that let even non- Planeswalkers travel the Multiverse - that had spurred her into final action.

Trying to not think about a silly question, what would be your perfect day? and how she'd immediately thought of Nephalia with its silver beaches...

"From the minute he carved the words into my skin that said they owned me, I was trying to figure out how to free myself," she said steadily. "Eventually, he sent me to fetch an artifact that could help me do just that. So rather than return it, I ran. Well. Planeswalked. Asked an... acquaintance of mine for a place to lie low while I figured out how to use it. He sent me here, set me up with the Consortium. And here I've been."

She leaned against his chest. "I do not take well to being owned."

"I can't imagine anyone who could think that you would," he said quietly, which was a very different thing than being able to understand why someone might still want to try, especially with his own complicated tangle of emotions in that regard, the ones that had him repeating to himself daily, like a mantra, just how fleeting this was destined to be.

The next question on the tip of his tongue, so what now?, was something he was not ready to ask, nor was he ready to have answered, nor did he believe Liliana had the answer to yet, anyway, so he did not ask. It was a question that would get answered inevitably; why bring that pain on himself any sooner than necessary? And it had been a very long day...

But it pervaded every corner of his mind in that moment, leaving him with nothing else to say. So he just left it at that, pondering the irony of the fact that, as he said it, he couldn't help just wrapping his arms around her.

She did not feel like she was getting ready to run. If anything, she snuggled in closer, pulled his arms in tighter around her, lacing her fingers through his.

"There are three others," she said. "Griselbrand, Razaketh, and Belzenlok. I will not be free until they're all dead."

Her laugh was full of bitter, ironic amusement. "I don't set myself easy tasks, apparently. Especially given that Kothophed was the closest that an elder demon can come to being 'low-hanging fruit.'"

And that reaction, in that moment, was everything, strong enough to push even through those defensive barriers Ignis had been building around himself nonstop pretty much from the start. Squeezing her hands now held in his, wrapping himself into her even more, he closed his eyes and lowered his head to bury a raw, grateful sigh into Liliana's shoulder. And he held it there, for a moment, before he could trust himself with any other response.

"Hardly any challenge," he finally murmured, into that shoulder, interrupting his own words with a gentle kiss, "in easy, that doesn't seem to suit your style. Besides, there usually is a progression, with these sorts of things."

There was a pause, as he rested his chin now on her shoulder, before he added, somewhat cautiously, "And you wouldn't have to do it alone. I'm sure there are vast differences, between your daemons and mine, but I do have experience. With immortals and gods and dead kings as well..."

Another pause, another heartbeat of stillness from Liliana before she was craning around to look at him. "You would just...help me?" she asked, sounding baffled. "Without me even asking, you would just... volunteer to go up against three of the Multiverse's most powerful, most evil demons?"

Who did that? Who just watched somebody nearly die in their living room and think to themselves, 'Ah yes, this battle is one that I should sign up for as well. For funsies'?

Honestly, up until this last month, Ignis had been feeling dreadfully bored since arriving back here, really...

And while he couldn't exactly look back, he did feel the turn of her head and her eyes now on him and turned his head toward her in kind.

"Well," he stated, plainly, simply, he felt perhaps even a little obviously, "it would certainly be better than you trying to go up against them all by yourself."

It had clearly gone so well for her this time, after all.

Liliana huffed. "He didn't even have the chance to touch me," she informed him. "I left him in ashes around his gaudy throne room and he the most he could do was beg."

She'd nearly been taken out by friendly fire, thank you very much. Or whatever the Chain Veil was.

*Vessel of destruction...*

She was ignoring you, stupid spirits.

She also very nearly subjected Ignis to a frosty few moments, but her curiosity outweighed her displeasure. "And what in Phyrexia is Stark?" she snapped. "When he offered to help, I didn't know he meant with dying!"

Edited 2023-10-08 15:30 (UTC)

The light kiss now against Liliana's shoulder at the start of that potential frosty few moments was an apologetic one, and it became even more so with her question.

"I don't know," he admitted, shaking his head lightly. "I'm sorry. If I had had any idea that that was what he meant, I would have never..."

And he was still terribly unclear on what had happened, but, with the wide gaps in his perception of the event, Liliana had still managed to actually recover somehow, and for that, even if he didn't understand it, he was grateful.

That had once again been Liliana taking care of herself, thank you. She'd been doing it for two hundred years ~~and it had only gotten her enslaved by four demons~~.

"I should hope not," she sniffed. "Doesn't he work at the clinic?"

See? She had been absolutely right not to go.

"He sat down and took off his mask and glowed at me and at first it felt comforting. Soothing. Like my m--" She stumbled over that and then pretended that she hadn't, like a cat that had fully fallen on its face but wasn't going to acknowledge it. "Like warmth and softness. But rather than healing, it was just... telling me that it was okay to let go. To move on. That he'd help me pass. And then..." She stopped and just shuddered.

"Bad," she managed to say. "Then it got bad."

And she'd been so weak, so helpless. Everything she'd fought for two centuries to never feel again.

The intake of Ignis' breath at the words for how Stark had been apparently trying to help--to move on, to help her pass--matched the tension that suddenly caused the stiffness in his body, tension and a dull reminder of pain burning over his scars.

Then a long hesitation before he ventured, "Bad how?"

A long breath, and then said with the same lightness he'd heard that morning, when she'd dismissed their conversation about perfection, "Like something was trying to drag me down, slowly by inches, but inexorable." A sigh, like it had been all so very tedious, "And it was choking me, so I couldn't breathe. Or speak. Lying there--" On his lap "--unable to even whisper for help, even if I'd wanted to."

Which she had. Desperately. She just wasn't going to say that. For reasons.

Edited 2023-10-08 19:14 (UTC)

And him, the whole time, able to feel that something was going terribly, horribly wrong, but unable to do anything to actually help. In fact, having made it worse in his desperate attempts to find any help at all.

Ignis didn't say anything, at first. What could he say, besides an endless litany of apologies that wouldn't do anything to go back in time to change anything? An endless march of apologies for which he could only even half-heartedly feel because, even if he didn't understand how, it had lead to her here, now, better...far from good, but at least not nearly lifeless and helpless on his living room floor.

He didn't say anything still, not knowing what to say, but he did lift one of her hands in his, and, feeling the slight echo of something she's said not too long ago that felt like it had been ages when their fingers had been similarly laced--Happy. Perfect day.--to kiss her fingertips in lieu of the words currently failing him.

He couldn't even reassure her that it was over now, at least. Not when she'd still had three more to look forward to.

"So I lifelinked us," Liliana said softly, deliberately turning her mind away from that moment. And exactly what it had reminded her of.

"And through that," Ignis guessed, his voice reflecting hers in its softly, "you were able to pull yourself back?"

"He wished to use his glow to kill me," Liliana said, voice resolute and unforgiving. "I decided to use it to stay alive, instead." Then, in a drawl. "I am aware of the irony, yes."

"I much prefer your application," Ignis stated firmly, letting it be known for the record where he was going to stand on the matter.

"I was...tempted," she murmured. Or, well, had been tempted. "To do that. Earlier. Before he arrived. But I wasn't sure--" She idly rubbed a washcloth over her leg, a moment. "When I've done that before, it was until either they were dead or I was completely healed. And this seemed like a poor time to experiment."

There was a long, long pause after that, so long that maybe Liliana might have started to suspect that Ignis might not say anything at all, but then, he did.

"You would have only been doinv," he said, his words very slow and steady and chosen with heavy, deliberate intent, "what needed to be done."

"I likely would have," she said, looking dead at him, making no bones about it. She was who she was, Ignis. And you should know that. "Rather than dying. But then Stark tried--and I no longer worried about if I could stop."

She was who she was.

And Ignis was who he, and she should know that by now, surely. It was a combination that did not bode well for him any way you sliced it, and yet he found it impossible to actually care.

If he'd known...

...but it would seem his ignorance actually had worked in his favor for once, and he had a hard time feeling bad about that, too.

He hadn't even asked; he just assumed...

He'd gotten off easy.

"Come on," Ignis said, speaking after enough time that it got caught in his throat a little, as he shifted around a new complicated tangle of emotions that was going to be quite the task to unravel, "let's get you put of this quickly cooling water and into some nice, warm clothes, on a good soft bed..."

Liliana let him help her out of the bath, wrap her in a towel, and lead her into his bedroom. Silent and thoughtful, but also absolutely exhausted. Sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for him to hand over pajamas, she said, almost too quietly to be heard - well, by anybody but Ignis anyway - "I would have asked. For you, I would have asked."

Gladio, too. Depending on how desperate she'd been. But that was more out of enlightened self-interest than because she actually cared for permission.

But Ignis, she would have asked.

Ignis' hands, shiftinv and searching through a dresser drawer, stopped at that. The pause lingered, before his head turned her way. Just for a moment, and he turned back, selecting a pair of silken pajamas with, almost purely out of coincidence, a deep purple paisley pattern on them.

"You wouldn't have had to," he said, probably unnecessarily, "but I appreciate that.

"These," he then said, handing the pajamas out for her, "have always fit a bit snug, so I'm sure they'll be a suitable enough fit."

Don't encourage her worst instincts, Ignis. That was how Darkfire happened.

Liliana stood, letting the towel fall from her body, and reached for the pajamas. Look, even if Ignis couldn't appreciate it visually, Liliana was a woman of drama and aesthetics. "Such quality," she murmured with clear approval. Again, their fingers brush, her fingers much warmer than they'd been before the bath. "Thank you," she murmured. "I didn't--" Again, that pause, but this time she pushed on and made herself finish. "I didn't know where else to go. Other than to my house, but I would have been alone."

Oh, worry not. The effect was not lost at all; Ignis could greatly appreciate that soft, subtle sound of the towel hitting the floor and pooling at her feet.

And his fingers lingered against hers as much as they could, appreciating that newfound warmth in them even more than the touch itself.

His head shook lightly. "I'm glad you came here," he said. "I'm glad I could be here for you."

Even as utterly and dismally ineffective and unhelpful as he may have been.

The whisper of silk being drawn over skin, and then she stepped forward, cupping his face and brushing her thumbs over his cheeks. "I am not used to having someone to whom I could go." She pulled his face down for a soft kiss, first his mouth and then his forehead. "I'll try not to overstay my welcome."

"Impossible," Ignis insisted lightly, resting his forehead against Liliana's as he brushed a hand through her hair at her shoulders, as if arranging it a little so it fell just so, just right. "You're welcome for as long as you need...

"Or as long as you want, anyway," he amended. "It'll only be a matter of time before my roommate attempts to drag you into early morning runs."

"Absolutely not," Liliana declared, her hands falling to his shoulders. "Before noon, you know I cannot be held responsible for my actions."

Don't make her move back to her place to 'sleep in' until the construction started.

"Just promise me one thing," Ignis said, smiling for what felt like the first time in a while, still a faint light thing, because it was still Ignis, but warm and calling up the those halcyon hours of their actual morning. "Promise you'll escape before he gets the opportunity to talk to you about Cup Noodles^TM."

Edited 2023-10-09 01:28 (UTC)

"He eats his noodles in cups?" Liliana asked from a position of enviable innocence.

"I've already said too much," said Ignis, the kiss on Liliana's forehead an apology of sorts. "But yes, he does. He makes them in that cup, and calling them noodles is being kind."

"Okay, but now I'm curious," she said with a laugh.

"Tomorrow." Was that a promise? A threat? Quite frankly, it could be whatever the hell she wanted it to be, in light of that laugh. "I'll show you what I mean tomorrow. Right now, I think you're long overdue for crawling into my bed and falling asleep in my arms."

Liliana could only nod at that, weary almost beyond the telling of it. She didn't want to fall asleep, because she knew what would be waiting for her when she did, but she also knew that she couldn't push it off much longer. She wracked her brain for something like a risqué joke, just to further solidify how very fine she was, but even her clever mind couldn't come up with anything.

"Yes," she said quietly, drawing him over to his bed. She tried not to sound grateful, but she couldn't deny in the privacy of her own mind--

*...harbinger...carrying destruction...*

--in the relative privacy of her own mind, she had wanted to be held by him very much, but hadn't been able to bring herself to ask.

Because we can't be having the world ending quite yet.

Of course not! Lily still has three other demons (and a surprise dragon!) to go!

MHA #18; Saturday Evening [10/07].

The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

Re: The First Interruption.

The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

Re: The Second Interruption.

...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.

Re: The Aftermath.