tushanshu_logs | February Catch All

Entry tags:

February Catch All

Characters: Valdis and you!
Date: The Month of February
Location: Noted in the starters
Situation: Various
Warnings/Rating: None yet

A) Before the 5th, Keeliai's Markets: After acquiring the angelic sword, Revelations, Valdis has found herself in need of some supplies in order to make a sheath worthy of the blade. She has enough coin to obtain what she needs and it helps that the Kedan are currently trying to put on a good face for the Ambassadors. She is quickly evaluating the attitude of the store owners and either purchasing or moving on, aware that this window of niceties might be quite narrow.

B) Midnight Hotel: When she isn't out in the city or exploring the surrounding areas, Valdis can be found in the common area, reading up on the history of Keeliai or going over her extensive, hand-written notes on the current issues the foreigners are facing in the city. If one is lucky, they may catch her in the lobby of the hotel, or if someone is ambitious and unafraid, they may find her in her room, though if she is sleeping, wake her at your own risk

C) Before the 5th, Turtle's Head: The cold didn't bother her much and she sat near the turtles head, looking out over the water at Khatronma, marveling at the dome from a distance. Revelations is at her hip, glowing softly in the early morning light. The last time she had been here it had been to possess the turtle in an attempt to help Wan oust Malicant from the ancient entity. It had also been where she had used the Void to kill four of the cultists attacking her and her friends. So many memories and none of the peace that had once been attached to this place.

D) Start your Own: Please give a location and a setup.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You can rest assured that I will not destroy Keeliai. It is the only place I've ever had happiness, I simply needed to be reminded of that."

She returned the blade to its sheath in the corner and sat back on the bed. She already knew exactly what she wanted to ask.

“Your soul does not exist within your bones. It covers your body with the form of a man wearing armor and reeking of death. Who is he?”

Skulduggery's soul was Vile. Made sense; he really shouldn't have been surprised.

"Me," he answered. His tone was oddly flat; easily recognisable as uncharacteristic by anyone who'd held a single conversation with him. "I made a terrible mistake centuries ago, and thousands of people lost their lives over it. It wasn't very different from what you tried to do, actually, except that no one stopped me and it continued for five years."

His confirmation was interesting, but it didn't explain everything she had seen and felt. He had power over death just as she did, his words indicated that he had killed in such a manner multiple times. The amount of death on him could have been akin to how she might feel to her kin, but she had had thousands of years to kill, whereas he had only had five. He possessed massive amounts of magic and was obviously, at some point, just as unstable.

"No," She replied sharply, "He is only a part of what you are, because if you and he were the same, then we wouldn't be having this conversation." Just as she wasn't just the Void, Skulduggery wasn't just the man in armor, if they were, then they wouldn't have people who cared about them.

"Someone told me recently that we are not just our past or present, but the sum of both. You may have once been a mass murderer, but you obviously aren't anymore, and the fact that you call it a mistake tells me that you feel regret over it now. So what changed? How did you go from a mass killer to an annoyingly observant skeleton?"

Skulduggery would have disagreed with that unspoken sentiment just as strongly as he did the spoken one. There were people who cared about him, yes, but their own questionable choices had very little to do with who he was, given most of them didn't know he was Vile or were too young to remember what that meant. He wasn't always Vile, but he didn't stop being Skulduggery when he was Vile. They were one and the same; mood swings of each other, opposite sides of a single coin.

He didn't try to correct her, though. That was an argument Skulduggery simply didn't have the patience for right then.

"I didn't," he answered instead. "I was an annoyingly observant skeleton when I was a mass killer. I was a mass killer because I became a skeleton, in fact." He hesitated, and then sighed. "But that's not your question. I'm not sure, to be honest. I snapped out of it one day."

That wasn't entirely the truth, but for Skulduggery's purposes, it was close enough.

Valdis didn't believe him. No one just 'snapped out of' being a mass murderer, there was always a catalyst, but she let him have it his way in favor of the new curiosity.

"In that case, how did you become a skeleton?"

There was something odd about the death magic that clung to him, almost as if it wasn't all his own. Part of it had a different something...It was odd, but she couldn't decide why.

I died, Skulduggery would have said under different circumstances. Possibly flatly, possibly lightly. The urge was there even now, but Valdis's straight and honest answers from before had earned her a straight and honest answer in return.

And, Skulduggery realised with a measure of reluctant surprise, she might just be able to relate.

"I fell into a trap," he said. "During a long and bitter war, back when it was still a rebellion and I was one of the people leading it. A man called Nefarian Serpine killed my wife and child, thereby compromising my judgement so I wouldn't notice the trap. Then he killed me, using a technique we sorcerers like to refer to as agonising death.

"Apparently, the necromancer who taught him that technique didn't want me to die, so he added in a loophole. The problem was that it didn't kick in until a year later, and by then..." Skulduggery spread his arms. "I was forced to put myself together."

It was quite a story, one whose ending might have been difficult to believe if it weren't for her own experiences with strange magic. The reason for his snap from man to murderer was a sad one, which, until recently, she wouldn't have believed possible, and yet losing the ones you cared about most...

"For what it's worth," She said, "I'm sorry about your family and, whether you believe it or not, I know what it is like to have to put your life back together after having everything torn apart."

"Thank you," Skulduggery said. "I appreciate it."

A reflexive sentiment that had long ago lost most of the meaning it should have had, but for this, he meant it genuinely. A woman like Valdis didn't offer sympathies lightly, and Skulduggery wasn't going to accept them lightly. He could learn a thing or two from the way Anton treated her while they were still on the cliffs.

She looked at him for a few breaths, gathering her thoughts and then turned her gaze toward the window.

"The worst part about having a monstrous past is knowing that you still possess the ability to be a monster, that you could choose to return to what you were. But, for better or for worse, I don't even have that."

"It's odd, don't you think?" She mused, "Both of us became what we are through the powers of another and now we both work to be better than our past."

She paused again, trying to decide if she should ask what was on her mind. Rejection and fear were the reactions that she always expected from people. But from the skeleton, all she was receiving was curiosity and yet there had to be a motive.

"Did you come here to merely understand what you saw on the cliffs? Or do you want to understand so that you can kill me should it happen again?"

Skulduggery shook his head. "I didn't spend five years as an unthinking killer because of that necromancer. He made it possible, yes, but the choice was still mine."

Just as the choice to stop had, ultimately, been his. He couldn't blame his downfall on someone else and still lay claim to the recovery.

Valdis's last question was what gave Skulduggery pause - not because he needed to think about what the answer was, but because he was trying to decide which answer Valdis would prefer. In the end, he tipped the balance in favour of the truth, echoing the tone of the rest of the conversation.

"I'm a detective," he said. "I like being able to understand things. It's a compulsion. I don't believe you'll let it happen again, just as I believe Anton would stop you if you tried. But if things escalate again, I don't need to understand anything in order to kill you. Understanding only makes it easier."

He was perhaps too smart for his own understanding, twisting her words into self-depreciation.

"All I meant was that you became a skeleton because of the powers of another and I gained a soul through the powers of another. I do appreciate your honesty though. It is so rare these days, everyone trying to make themselves sound better than they are."

She looked over at him, "Not knowing the nature of the Void would be folly and if you attempted to kill me using your death magic, then there is one more thing you need to know if you even hope to be successful."

Even that wasn't true, strictly speaking. Tenebrae had said as much himself; Necromancy stopped Skulduggery's soul from moving on, but reclaiming the skeletal remains of his body had been purely Skulduggery's doing.

Explaining that, however, would only have been splitting hairs.

"Oh?" he asked, head tilted. "And what's that?"

"Necromancy is nothing compared to the power of the Void. Should you pit your magic against mine, the best case scenario is that we are both destroyed. Your only bet is to give Raine Sage enough time to cast her light spell."

Perhaps she overestimated her own power, but since she had defeated the voids of two of her own kind and consumed their soul energies, she suspected that no mortal could compare.

Skulduggery said nothing. In a way, he hoped Valdis was right; having someone on the turtle capable of matching Vile's power would be something of a safeguard. But on the other, heavier hand, Skulduggery still remembered killing a god. Killing a god, and for no reason other than because he wanted to see if he could. If it came to an all-out battle, he had his misgivings about being outmatched.

Fortunately, things wouldn't come to an all-out battle. Malicant was gone, and the biggest challenge left was getting the three warring kedan families to cooperate.

"You're very pessimistic," Skulduggery eventually said, standing up. "You should work on that. It takes years off your life."

"As I am essentially immortal," she replied, watching him with one brow raised, "Taking a few years off is nothing, besides I just lost the only person I've ever loved, I don't have the capacity for optimism at the moment."

He doubted her power, as it was, she doubted it too, for as long as her soul existed alongside the Void, she would never have full access to it's power. Perhaps it was better that way, but it didn't matter now and hopefully she would have no reason to test her powers at full strength.

"Don't be ridiculous," Skulduggery answered. "Optimism doesn't have a quota. The moment you can't see it - that's the moment you need it most."

People often wondered why Skulduggery was constantly cheerful. It was something Hopeless used to say; if he could pretend he hadn't given up for long enough, eventually it would become the truth. Disregard pessimism for long enough, and you became optimistic by default. It was a fuzzier feeling.

She tipped her head, "I may need it," she replied, "But it just isn't possible for me at the moment, surely you can understand that?"

She was growing tired, talking with Skulduggery had been exhausting the first time she had worked with him and it seemed that that hadn't changed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

February Catch All

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject