GoldenCat/ShadesOfEventide033

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Reporting to Darkness

Kanti walks away from the field hospital, set up in one of the larger cleared buildings in the spire, back towards the Palace of Timeless Winters, to find her prince once more.

Selina de Windia: Ah, there she is.

Selina has been looking for her -- looking for her when she is not with her master.

Temporary master.

Supposedly. After she finds the truth of how the boy has treated her. And how much she has corrupted the boy. If she has.

I will not do your work, Mistress. She thinks, moving up behind the Terrestrial, silently, stealthily. And then not. Allowing some noise, letting Kanti know she is there.

"Ah. My dear Kanti." Her tone is cordial. "Care to turn aside from your course for a moment? I have some things to ask of you."

Kanti: Something is hunting me.
Something is stalking me.

Kanti stiffens as the noises become apparent behind her, gradually tensing up as the noise gets closer, before she hears the voice, one that makes her freeze in her tracks, before she forces herself to turn around, black eyes looking to the Dark Angel with a mixture of fear and hunger.

"Of...of course, my lady Dark Angel." she says, as she drops almost smoothly into a curtsey.

Selina de Windia: That fear.

Why does it comfort me?

Why does it slake a thirst?

There were so many reasons, so many threads of need in what she had done half a decade ago. Some were easy to forget. Some were not. Some made her feel justified to remember.

This is not one of them.

In a world such as the one she lived in, Selina had wanted to cast fear. So many unworthy souls, so many who did not know her for the harbinger of death she wished to be. And so she had become one for true, to show them they must dread her. And now she was betraying everything she had fought and sacrificed even her name -- alone, in that terrible darkness -- to make, to join the Prince's cause.

And I am just one of many.

And I am disregarded.

And I am put aside for convenience's sake.

It feels good to see that fear in Kanti's eyes, she accepts. And to know she could put it in others. Even the greatest.

So, Charmaine, is this how you fell?

"We will talk in a private place, Kanti."

She makes a little gesture motioning for them to head to an empty building. If there is one around.

Kanti: Kanti rises to her feet with a fearful nod, some strange relief in her features, though the need and the hunger is still there.

"As you wish, my lady Dark Angel." she says, as she walks towards the buildings at the side of the road, one unlit and so probably unoccupied in the gathering twilight. She pushes the door inward then steps inside, walking through the deserted interior until she finds a lounge area, kneeling on the floor, lighting the room with her anima.

Selina de Windia: Selina does not do the same with her's -- doubtless the black light will put the spear-dancer further at unease. But she does not sit, she continues to stand, walking over to one wall, sighing as she leans against it. And looks at Kanti.

If I am ugly in my dread, so be it.

I was ugly long before I embraced the darkness.

But I will not turn from my path, as much as I hate it.

Skin deep beauty to die for. And hideousness to the core to make you do the dying. That is the Dark Angel. Her tone is conversational, curious. "So, how fared you with the Prince, in your time with him?"

Kanti: Kanti looks up at the Dark Angel as she kneels, nervous, on the floor of the room, lit in her own dancing flames.

"I have been well, my lady Dark Angel. The prince has been good to me."

Selina de Windia: "Now now, Kanti." Selina says, her prior tone still maintained despite her budding irritation. There will be no secrets from her -- not when it was she who gave her permission. "I require more than that, surely you know? I imagine you say She was good to you, or I have been good to you, when everyone knows we were not good for you. I need to gauge his worth in this, for your sake, Kanti."

And it was the truth. Painful to admit, but part of her will not let her with-hold it.

Oh, the irony.

Kanti: Kanti looks up at her in fear then, new fear, fresh fear.
you will take me away from him.
you will make me be apart from him.
I don't want to be away from him.
I would be with you.
... I'd like that.

"He ... holds me sometimes, he bathes me in a light so warm, my lady Dark Angel ... he let me spend time with Shaliya, who I haven't seen in so long. He saved my life, after the gound nearly swallowed me up after I fought octavion. He never made any ...demands of me that were too much. He ... he doesn't scare me ..." she looks away then. "...sorry, my lady Dark Angel."

Selina de Windia: So he was the shining little saint she had thought he was. For now.

How it galls!

But now for the difficult part. "And you? You lay with him, yes? Have a care how you do so -- what pleasures you show him. You must not corrupt him with decadence and vice, Kanti. I have been charged to do so, and I will not. So neither shall you."

Kanti: "Yes, my lady, I lay with him." Kanti admits, with only a little shame in her voice. "And kneel for him. He desires nothing outlandish from me, my lady Dark Angel." Kanti says.

"He never comes on me wrapped in the Void." she whispers, a mixture of need and relief in her voice as she speaks to the Dark Angel.

Selina de Windia: But you did not answer my question, little Terrestrial.

"Outlandish, mmm. Pain mixed with pleasure, domination and submission, things to twist the spirit into petty and degrading games of vice." Selina muses, expression becoming more neutral.

"And those things, you will never offer him." Her voice does not become threatening, only...certain. "You will not corrupt the Prince, Kanti, and if you do I shall devour you. Even your fear will not save you if you bring that to the Prince. Know this."

• Kanti just freezes, looking up at the Dark Angel terrified. To terrified to even speak.

Selina de Windia: "Yes," She says in a low tone, guessing. "You offered that to him already, didn't you?"

The Windian's gaze remains affixed on Kanti. "I will forgive that. You did not know better. You did not know that one more terrible than I, wishes him to taste corruption."

"Even as I hate him, I will not suffer that."

Kanti: "...I...I...I...I'm sorry my lady Dark Angel ..."

"He..he... gives orders so naturally .... it...it does not matter if I am in the bedroom or out...he .... he commands as you do, my lady Dark Angel. He ... he does hurt me sometimes ... but ... afterwards he is the warmest ... he takes the hurt away from me, onto himself."

My lady Dark Angel ... he knows of sin. If you take it from him, that will simply give it more power.

Selina de Windia: "Then I will have to have a word with him. Away from his buffering allies." Selina concludes. "Enjoyment is one thing. I will not have him become a monster like Her. If he does, I shall destroy him utterly."

Selina chuckles, looking at Kanti. Enough on that subject. "I wonder, Kanti. Do you know what it is like to hate someone, and love them, at the same time?"

"I think you do, but tell me anyway."

Kanti: "You....you should not hurt him, my lady Dark Angel...please ... don't take me from him..." Kanti pleads as she speaks of destroying him, and then chuckles. "He isn't a monster..."

Then she asks her question. "Yes, my lady Dark Angel, I do." is all Kanti can say in answer.
I know just how to love someone, and to hate them.

Selina de Windia: The Windian shakes her head from side to side, slowly. "And I shall not, most likely. But still, I must speak with him."

"Perhaps you do not know it as I do, so let me explain." Selina moves off of the wall, smirking slightly. "The Pale Angel and the Prince -- I hate them both. And I love them. They have something I cannot ever enter, and I am left outside. A secondary pursuit, a diversion. My attraction -- my affection -- for the former was voiced first. But it was denied until a place had already been filled."

And she feels it, coiled up inside her, wound tight. Tighter lately. Squeezing out the resentment.

"And it will never heal -- it is too late for that. It will fester inside, grow, slowly. And I must never act upon it, despite how much I would enjoy killing them both now. For my love and...for other things."

She brings a hand up to smooth her hair, it brushes her face accidentally. Tears shine on the black glove.

How dare my body betray me.

As it betrayed me with him...

"So tell me, Kanti," Her voice is soft, malevolent, mournful. "Is how you love and yet hate, the same as me?"

Kanti: Kanti almost recoils in horror, as the Dark Angel recounts her hate of the boy she loves ... and hates, and of his lady, of how she would enjoy, would thrill to kill them. .. and how she would not, for love for them.

"No, my lady Dark Angel, it is not." She says softly.

"My hatred does not fester, my lady. It is a fire that burns in me. My love does not consume me, my lady. It is a fire that warms me. I have loved ... and hated ... every master and mistress that I have had. I could not let that fester, let that grow."

"I love Her, and hate Her so much that it hurts me sometimes, my lady Dark Angel, but neither feeling goes stronger or weaker with time."

Selina de Windia: "I see." She replies to Kanti, consideringly, brushing the tears off. That must never happen again.

It happened because it hurt that much.

Then it should not be voiced again.

"Maybe it will fester forever, Kanti." She says in a measuring tone. "Maybe it will disappear in a year. But for now, it does fester within me, and I do not see the end of it."

"But yours extends to me as well. No, do not fear, I am not angry." Selina looks consideringly at Kanti. "Do you wish to hurt me, sometimes? If you think you could?"

Kanti: "I ... I wish I could help that, my lady Dark Angel ... I would not see if you in continued pain if I could help, my lady."

She winces then, as the dark angel asks her question, and then gives a small shake of her head. "I would not hurt you, my lady. I love you ... too much for that. But..." she looks down at the floor, ashamed and afraid. "... but sometimes I wish to kill you, my lady Dark Angel."

Selina de Windia: She had often wondered this. And now she had her answer to the question.

"You wish to kill me?" Curious. "Because I am Void, because I can devour those you love? Because I am cruel?"

Kraken: Kanti looks up at her, somehow strangely calm as she speaks, an unconcious adoption of some some of the stances of the Saint as she kneels there.

"Because I hate you, my lady."
"Because you are a monster, my lady."
"Because you are the Void, yes, my lady."
"Because you are cruel, yes, my lady."
"Because I don't want to see you in pain, my lady."
"Because I could never hurt you, my lady."

"So that is why I would have to kill you, my lady. Because I could not hurt you."

Selina de Windia: Such honesty! Well, she still is not satisfied.

"I see -- but still I am curious." She raises an eyebrow, and braces herself back against the wall, wings spread downwards lazily. "Did you think I ever do anything mean to you that was out of malice?"

Kanti: You hold me in chains when I could be free.
You talk of killing Her, hurting Her when you know I love Her.
You talk of killing my prince.
You represent the anathema to everything I believe in.

You are a monster.

"No, my lady Dark Angel."

Selina de Windia: Selina looks at Kanti closely. "Are you quite sure? That sounds too simple an answer to be true."

Kanti: "I have seen your malice, my lady Dark Angel. It is not something I could endure." says, as though that explains it all.

Selina de Windia: "Oh, I have hurt you." Selina says without doubt evident in her tone. "When I came to you and Fiona cloaked with the lust of the underworld, you ran in fear after. But not on purpose. I am sorry for that."

Kanti: "I did not say you had not hurt me, my lady Dark Angel. But you asked me of malice."

Selina de Windia: "I think all those reasons, in a way, are why the Pale Angel loves the Prince more than I." She says with a rueful, self-amused tone.

"But sometimes a monster is best for things. And sometimes not. I picked the role of the monster, long ago, because people already thought me one. And so I committed a crime to match the punishment I had already been given."

Kanti: Kanti can say nothing to that, and so, she does not.

Selina de Windia: Selina sighs again, looking at Kanti, shaking her head. She moves up off the wall again, and walks up to Kanti, then leans down and pets her on the head. "I'm sorry you have to be around monsters like me. But I am concerned for the Prince, despite my jealousy."

Cael: Cael announces his presence by openning the front door of the house and walking along the corridoor, to step into the room.

"I am most releavied to hear that someone else does." is all that he says by way of greeting.

Selina de Windia: Selina looks up, quickly, from her stooping position and straightens up, looking suspiciously at Cael. The distant sadness she had as her expression is gone now. In place of it is...guardedness.

"Yes, I imagine you are. How much did you hear of our conversation?"

Kanti: Kanti almost doesn't flinch as Selina pets her, before eying Cael with concern, glad Selina is between her and him.

Cael: Cael smiles disarmingly at the two women, though most of his attention is on Selina, body naturally assuming a pose that tends to make those in his presence relax.

"I heard a little of your instructions as regards the prince on my way to the hospital, and then I heard your ... admission of your ... nature." Refering to the words just spoken.

Selina de Windia: That half makes Selina more at ease with him, in a way. And in another way, it inflames her suspicion. People who do this, in her experience, are trouble.

"You stuck around to hear the rest." She says, somewhat offended in tone from being spied on. "Not that the rest is any secret after the battle."

Cael: "You misunderstand me, Dark Angel. Between hearing those two snippets of your conversation, I was, as I said visiting the hospital to find the Lady Krauser." Showing no hint of annoyance at her implications of his nature.

"She was not there however, which is why I heard the second part."

Selina de Windia: "Well, you did not say you were going back when you mentioned the latter." Selina says sheepishly, still irritated he is coming in to bother her about it.

"What of it?"

Cael: "It is actually the first thing I overheard that I would speak to you on, since there seems to be little point in speaking to you on your nature ..."

"I am curious about what you actually hope to accomplish with them."

Selina de Windia: She frowns at Cael. Well, no setting that aside, then.

"Do you know what has happened to this poor girl?"

Cael: Cael smiles apologetically down at Kanti, who still seems glad she is behind Selina, before he looks back to the Dark Angel.

"The prince has told me something of what has happened to her, yes. I would not claim to know the full story."

Selina de Windia: "She is still connected with the person who did that to her, so I have heard." Selina shakes her head. "She is also very disturbed from it, and may give our Prince the wrong idea through no real fault of her own."

"It is one thing to taste certain types of...pleasures. It is another thing to do it in inexperience and with someone who may have a hard time saying 'no' or 'stop'."

Cael: "The connection was not something that was mentioned." Cael admits, giving Kanti the merest concerned glance.

"It is indeed another thing entirely, and one I think the prince will benefit from. In that situation, the prince must be in control. He is not an immoral man, to take advantage of her."

Selina de Windia: "He is young, is under considerable stress, and is extremely inexperienced." Selina says. "He may not be, but then again, he may. I would far prefer he does not get high on the idea of absolute power over someone."

Cael: "As would I." Cael nods in agreement to Selina's statement. "I am just not sure that outright forbidance is the way to go about ensuring this ... forbidden fruits always tempt more."

"I am instead ensuring that he does not get the idea of absolute control in first place, and that however he might wish to treat her, he must remember that she is a person and that he still cares for her, as he so obviously does when you speak of her to him."

Selina de Windia: She thinks for a few moments. "It probably is not, but what about the Pale Angel? ...I suppose there are not many people for him..."

Funny, that. She could teach him plenty of things, but it is the Lover's plan she does that at all. Which is why she must not do it.

Or maybe she is trying for that result.

That is a mess all of its own. Either way, there is no way to divine the intentions of a deathlord. Fickle old ghosts!

"I am willing to bet she would consent to being tied up for her perfect prince." Selina says ruefully.

Cael: "If she even enjoys that sort of thing.... what would doing such things to someone who did not enjoy it and was doing it just to please him teach?" Cael asks of her reasonably.

Her reaction to it might be almost worth any trouble it causes though....

Selina de Windia: "Hah." Selina says, making a little flourish with her hand. "You and I would probably never get that willingly from her, I am sure. Not without undue and rather rude magical interference. But him? Oh, I am willing to believe she'd do much for him. However hesitantly. I find it somewhat sweet, but that's young romance for you."

"But that is not the point." Selina continues, shaking her head. "What do you think he'd get out of that arrangement? You have already said what you think he'd get out of one with Kanti."

Cael: Cael makes a small disappointed face. She wasn't going to ask the pale angel after all.

"I think that would depend entirely upon how much she enjoyed it. If she does not, that might turn him aside from the idea in it's entirety, or it might turn him aside to seek other outlets. If she does, then you merely have the fact that both of them are inexperienced, with all the inherent dangers there."

"Then there is merely the effect that Alex making this request from her at all would have, which is not something I would lay bets on, were I that way inclined."

Selina de Windia: "It might also show him that the activity in specific does not dehumanize someone, it's just another way to enjoy...that...with someone."

"Then there's always me." She makes a small sound that sounds like 'urgh'. "Being tied up by a 14 year old Solar is...um, embarassing."

Cael: "I don't think that Kanti would show that it dehumanised either." He says, evenly. "Unless it was taken too far. And then it becomes the same as the consequences of the abuse of any other power he will come to weild."

As the woman mentions herself, Cael cannot help but do a small double take.

"I must honestly say that you did not strike me as the sort of person who likes to be so bound...fourteen year old solar as the Dom or no." He gives a small shake of his head.

Selina de Windia: "I suppose." Selina says with a hint of resignation. She was going to have to take back what she said, wasn't she? It wouldn't be so embarassing if it wasn't so soon after she had said it.

Then she chuckles, naughtily. "Oh, I am the one supposed to corrupt him. And the Lover chose me for a reason."

Cael: "I was not denying your manifold charms, Dark Angel." Cael says with another disarming smile. "Merely that I did not think it would be you bound on the bed, were anyone bound." He makes a an unrecognisable sound, that might possibly be dissapointment.

Selina de Windia: "I have many sides. And some people enjoy binding the Dark Angel and having their way with her." Selina says with a slight shrug. "At any rate, perhaps I will allow Kanti to do that, then. But if Alex does abuse his...powers, I would also like to know of it. I am not defying the Lover's orders at peril of my life and those I wish to protect just so he can complete them without me even having the experience of committing the crime."

Cael: Cael makes a show of considering the attraction of the Dark Angel bound. The conclusion is apparently a favourable one.

"Completing the Lover's orders is something we both wish to avoid then." he nods.

"As to the abuse, we will both be watching him, and I am sure the Pale Angel will. He will remain a golden prince."

Selina de Windia: "Mhmm." She turns to Kanti. "Do not worry about my earlier words regarding the Prince, then." The woman pets her again. "We'll just have to see how this goes, I guess..."

"But do make sure to tell me if he does get out of hand so I can have a discussion with him." She adds quickly.

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