Inside the Estate, Sidra, Glacia, Late Afternoon
There were a lot of things Karla had wanted to do as soon as they entered the estate. Look around again and see how much had changed from her memories. Find old servants and friends and see if they were as glad to see her as she was them. Drag her friends by the hand and show off the home she'd grown up in. Make an inventory of every hideous
( Read more... )
Lemmik lurked in the halls of the estate, covered by a Green shield. He was unworried about being caught, only the bitch-Queen and her Whoremaster at Arms were strong enough to sense the blank spot that denoted a sight shield of a lower ranked Jewel and they were both busy in the great hall, dispensing "justice."
Not that he thought Ludmilla's pretty speech would be enough to save him if they got their hands on him. And Hobart would happily name him the real arson as soon as look at him. The smart thing to do would be to ghost out of the estate and not look back until he was in Little Terreille, reporting Glacia's total lost to the High Priestess of Hell.
That was the smart thing. And Lemmik was a smart male. But first there was just a bit of unfinished business to attend to...
Reply
Maybe he'd just go and collapse in the room he'd left Joni in. He wasn't thrilled about being kicked out before he could see Karla mete out justice to the bastard that had caused all this grief, but at least there was a kitten to keep company with, just down the hall.
So at least that wouldn't be so terrible.
Reply
After all, most other people that Lemmik set out to kill didn't go and insult him by surviving. And they especially didn't survive, and then come back to help some bitch-Queen overthrow the Territory he was working on winning over for the High Priestess.
Lemmik didn't make a sound as he expanded his shield, drawing the blue bastard into it and stepping forward to press a dagger into his kidneys, though it wouldn't have made a difference if he had. His aural shield was as thorough as his sigh shield was, and really, it was far more satisfying to see the landen freak jump when he pushed the blade against his back solidly enough to draw blood.
Now he would speak.
"Walk," he purred. "One foot in front of the other, toward the front door of the estate. Nice and easy. Try anything funny, and I'll blast your brain into ash, you landen bastard. But please don't. I'd much sooner have the satisfaction of taking you apart slowly when we've made it to Terreille. Or maybe I'll give you as a gift to the High Priestess. Let her take her anger out on you."
See how loudly a victim of witchblood smoke could be made to scream.
Jonothon didn't have much choice. He curled his lip, but didn't say a word while they walked, right for the door, passing by people in the hallway who didn't so much as afford them a second glance. And then, from there, they went through the door, walking straight for the crowd still gathered outside. The people wanted to know what justice their new Queen would declare for the people who had all but destroyed their home.
They just walked through the crowd. Walked through people gathered who looked right past them, and continued walking, in the deepening shadows of dusk, through Sidra's streets.
"Dare I ask," Jono murmured once they were a few blocks away from the estate, "who the hell you are?"
"You could." Lemmik pressed the blade even more solidly into Jonothon's back, silently delighting at the hiss the blue bastard drew in between his teeth. "Do you really think you'll get an answer? Turn left, into this building. Talk again, and I'll cut out your tongue. Maybe mail that back to your Queen. Is it the same ridiculous shade as the rest of you? Maybe I'll send her your cock, instead. See if it does the posters any justice."
He marched Jonothon into the building he'd picked out, a tailor's shop that had been mostly burned out in the rioting.
"Now," Lemmick purred, sounding quite pleased as the lingering smoke and ash in the air caused a noticeable change in the sound of the freak's breathing, "I'm going to tie your hands so you don't get any ideas. Hold this."
To the landen's credit, he didn't scream when Lemmik buried the dagger to the hilt in his shoulder. Still, he seemed to be distracted enough that a moment taken to grab some rope wasn't going to lead to any great heroic overtures, either.
Reply
Her own emotions and those all around the estate were high, and she couldn't sort out any particular distress at first. But the sudden jolt of pain she felt when Lemmik stabbed Jono, even blocks away, made her gasp and clutch at her shoulder. Back in Fandom, she'd always tried to keep a empathic thread to her friends, and that habit hadn't changed in Glacia. Jono was in trouble.
There wasn't time to alert anyone else. She focused on the pain and teleported herself to the burned-out shop, looking frantically around for Jono.
Reply
Not that pulling it out was actually a good idea.
Jono didn't notice Raven's arrival, too busy trying to focus on getting up and getting out into the open before the Warlord Prince that had grabbed him could return from wherever he'd gone off to get rope from. But there was the lingering smell of smoke in the air making it difficult to breathe, and everything was a little dizzy, really.
Reply
She tried to guide him back down to the ground so she could tend to his injuries. "Do not try to stand. Let me help you," she said, inspecting the dagger. She'd have to pull it out before she could heal him.
"Who did this to you?"
Reply
"Oh, do we have company, now?" Lemmik was standing in an adjacent doorway, a length of sturdy twine in hand, looking bored. "Another of the landen pets Hobart's little bitch-niece has been flaunting?"
He lifted his chin toward Raven.
"Nice of you to pay us a visit. Now, if you'd be so kind, he and I have some unfinished business to attend to."
Reply
"Whoever you are, you will surrender yourself and come with us to the Queen's estate to face punishment for your crimes."
Yeah, that'll work, Raven.
Reply
"See, you'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" He leered at her for a moment, took note of the Jewel on her forehead, frowned momentarily as he wondered at it. That wasn't really the Red, was it? No, it couldn't be. "Except I'm not in the habit of getting myself executed just because some ox-faced freak didn't have the courtesy to die in the smoke."
Things would have been so different, if he had.
"So... no, I don't think so."
And that was a blast of power from his green Jewel aimed toward Raven. Lemmik really only intended to kill one of Karla's landen pets today, but if a second one was so intent on joining him...
Jono was going to try to get up again. Right about now, that seemed like the sanest plan at his disposal.
Reply
"You did that," she accused. "You lit the fire to create the Witchblood smoke. You killed all those people!"
Reply
The great black bird that had deflected his Craft was unexpected, something he'd never encountered before. But it was hardly surprising. He already knew that Hobart's niece ran with freaks, after all. His Jewel flashed green and he stood his ground, readying to throw another blast her way.
"How rude."
Reply
As she spoke, she used her powers to send tendrils of shame at him, trying to worm into his mind.
Reply
"Bitch," he spat, throwing another blast from his green, broader now, so that it filled the room, kicking up ash and knocking the blue landen freak back to the floor. "You're a Black Widow, too, trying to trap my mind in your web?"
He would kill her, kill them both, before she could do any lasting damage, and then... then he would...
He couldn't go back to the High Priestess empty-handed.
He'd kill them slowly, bring her back their heads, perhaps...
He wanted to be sick.
Reply
Then the green blast hit her, and she stumbled back again and heard Jono fall behind her. "Hurting him is the last mistake you will make," she hissed, holding up her hand and directing the black wings of her Soul-Self to wrap around Lemmik as she called forth echoes of Yllestad's pain.
"Feel what you have done. Feel the pain of the deaths you caused, the lives you cut short. The sorrow of those left behind. Feast on what you have wrought."
Reply
Lemmik had felt pain before, of course. One didn't serve the High Priestess of Hell without knowing how pain felt, intimately. He'd learned, over he years, to embrace it, to hold it close like an old friend. He'd felt pain in every shape that pain could come in, and so much of his strength came from the way he could adapt to that feeling.
This... this wasn't pain. There were not words for what this was, sweeping over him, filling him heart, body, and mind with raw nightmares, weaponized. It was enough to rip noises from his throat that no animal could create, enough for him to curl into himself while he screamed so harshly that his throat bled, that he choked on it.
Lemmik knew exactly how it felt to have his insides torn apart by smoke, knew what it felt like to mourn everything he'd ever loved, knew despair and terror and agony so rich he could taste it.
Lemmik screamed, and Lemmik fought, lashing out so violently with his Craft that his Jewel shattered in its setting. And he didn't notice at all, the fact that the blast of power served only to rip into himself, to rip apart his skin, his eyes, leaving him broken and bleeding and, unable to fight against the dark wings that had pooled around him, dragged him so far into the Twisted Kingdom that, even if the cause of his screaming were to cease, he wouldn't dare come out again for fear that the agony would start anew.
Lemmik didn't make a noise on the floor, in the ashes. There wasn't enough of Lemmik left to try.
"Jesus Christ," Jonothon murmured from his own spot on the floor, staring at the face of his kidnapper, so twisted and broken that he was barely recognizable at all.
Lemmik wasn't dead. But Lemmik was so twisted and broken that death would have been a kindness.
Reply
Later what she'd just done would sink in. For now, she turned to Jono and knelt down beside him, her eyes still red, her expression oddly calm. "I will heal you now," she said. "He will trouble us no more."
Reply
Leave a comment