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

[chef_chocobro]

Even though it seemed like this week had provided copious examples of attempts to the contrary, it turned out that Ignis actually couldn't spend all his spare time with Liliana and would, in fact, spend time with other people, too. Well, with the other person he spent all of his spare time with. He certainly wouldn't want to overstay his welcome, and they were both clearly the sort of people who had lives beyond the blissful bubble of each other's company that they'd come to discover and had other things to do that day...

...Well, it seemed Liliana did, anyway. Ignis...had a make-up training session to attend to to appease his roommate, after which there was to be take-out because he was quite frankly a little exhausted and wanted to unwind a little with food made by someone else for a change and a glass of wine. And to at least make a marginal attempt to distract himself from wanting to be somewhere else and in different company again already.

No offense, of course, to Gladio.

"So," said Gladio from the couch, no doubt already leaving dusting of rice from his take-out container around where he sat, "what should I put on? Cooking shows to make you mad, or sports shows to make me mad?"

Okay, he took that back. Some offense to Gladio, after all.

[[ for those who know who they are and with some helpful little morsels of OCD like the rice Iggy'll find in the couch cushions later; CW for someone almost fucking dying ]]

Comments

Re: The Second Interruption.

[stykera]

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?"

Re: The Second Interruption.

[deathsmajesty]

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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[chef_chocobro]

"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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[stykera]

"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?"

Re: The Second Interruption.

[deathsmajesty]

"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."

Re: The Second Interruption.

[stykera]

"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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[deathsmajesty]

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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[stykera]

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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[deathsmajesty]

"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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[chef_chocobro]

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...

Re: The Second Interruption.

[deathsmajesty]

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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[stykera]

[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..."

Re: The Second Interruption.

[deathsmajesty]

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.

Re: The Second Interruption.

[stykera]

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?

...Inside Stark's Mind

[deathsmajesty]

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.

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[stykera]

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.

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[ghostsofthepast]

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.

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[stykera]

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.

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[ghostsofthepast]

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."

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[stykera]

"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?

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[ghostsofthepast]

"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."

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[stykera]

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."

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[ghostsofthepast]

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

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[stykera]

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

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

[ghostsofthepast]

"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.