Unlock, Unbind, Hide

Log Info

• Title: Unlock, Unbind, Hide

• GM: Riptide

• Characters: Harkashan, Ravenstongue, Rune

• Place: Woods of the Feathered One, Quelynos

Quelynos is a place where seasons and time are not so fixed of a thing compared to the material plane. It doesn't matter that back on the material plane, the world is beginning to warm and defrost--here, in Grandfather's woods, the feeling of autumn is forever. The chill crisp of the air complements that ever-sprawling twilight sky that peeks through the foliage of the trees.

Yet for Cor'lana, it's home. That much is evident when she opens her eyes, the magic having just brought her and her friends here, and she smiles broadly. "Well, it won't be like that one time, at least," she says. There's no Corpse-Eater to harass herself, Rune, and Harkashan. Just--

"Lana." The voice is a perfect mimic of Grandfather's voice. But the source of that voice is not him. One of those odd somewhat-raven, somewhat-owl birds in the trees is peering at Cor'lana. "Lana!"

"Cor!" another odd bird calls. "Lana!"

And it's a small cacophony of happy birds that resounds through the forest then. Two land on Cor'lana and nuzzle into her hair. One politely lands on Rune's shoulder, seeming to ask for permission with its violet eyes alone for any kind of affectionate nuzzling. "Leirune."

Harkashan... is birdless. At least for the moment.

GAME: Harkashan rolls Knowledge/The Planes: (10)+22: 32

As the magics of the shift end, Harkashan's scales light up with the influx of arcane energies around him and seems to come to life being further away. That warmth of his eminating ever a bit warmer, as the posture of the Sith-makar rises a bit. "Indeed it will not." Harkashan answers Cor'lana with finality. "But it would still do us well to be on guard. What with the recent issues." He does take a moment to point out.

They're never quite free from Troublesome Fey Troubles.

Then, the chirping Raven approaches along with others, and he watches them settle on Cor'lana and Rune. Yet, Harkashan's big horns end up going unperched.

"Why do I feel like the softskin response here would be to be jealous?"

Though the temperature may not be all that different between the burgeoning spring touching Alexandros and this eternal fall, Rune can feel the difference in her chest. Even the air feels distinctly 'other' in this place, despite how often she has now come to visit these lands.

"I would say, thank the gods for that... but I think we all know who is responsible for that threat no longer weighing on us." Rune glances over to Cor'lana, offering her a soft smile. Some of the exhaustion of the long travel has left her eyes, but thre is still worry rooted there. All of this, these strange Fey connections, run far too close to the core of who Rune is.

The sudden call of the birds is met with a shift of her eyes as she looks into the trees at the flurry of feathers that has become a familiar sight. "Looks like they missed you." And then, one comes to settle on her shoulder, and it softens her expression more-so. "That's me. Hello there." She reaches up to stroke the bird's feathers.

Then, a glance to Harkashan, she smirks slightly. "I'm surprised. Your horns normally make a pretty comfortable perch."

"They're sweethearts," Cor'lana responds to Rune, giggling a little as there's two birds aggressively shoving their beaks into her hair and making a bit of a mess of it. "And you were responsible, too. You played a role in eliminating that... I haven't even the word to describe him, not when I have such sweet birds loving on me."

The bird receiving Rune's affection has his feathers puff up in a sort of a 'happy-to-be-here' manner. Or maybe he knows it makes him like like more of an adorable puffball. Either way, Cor'lana motions to continue on. "I don't think we're far," she says. "Can you two lead us?"

The birds nod, and they both--rather comically, as they fly off Cor'lana's shoulders and seem to race each other for the ground--lead the way, rather quickly strutting along the ground. They take their job as guides very seriously.

It's not until they reach the familiar clearing in the woods, where Grandfather's large tree-house towers into the sky, that one bird finally lands on Harkashan's horns. "Shiny," it murmurs. It's looking at the jewel between Harkashan's horns. Uh-oh.

And there's the man himself--Grandfather, that is--watering the garden that's immaculately maintained around the house itself. He has a bright violet pail that's got rather clumsily-painted flowers on it, like a child might have done it years ago. He looks up from his work and smiles. "Ahhh, I wondered when you might visit again," he says. "You have good timing. I have a berry pie cooling inside."

"I think they're not as familiar with me and my kind than they are with me. Or perhaps they are wary of what lies within." He answers Rune with a soft smile, as they proceed onwards, until eventually they get closer to their goal.

"That shiny is very important to me." Harkashan rumbles, when the familiar makes its way and lands upon his head. "It is not yours to take." He adds, and continues to move with the rest of them. Lifting a hand to wave at Grandfather as they approach. And the moment he gets close enough, he reaches into a satchel he has on him, and offers the man a gift-wrapped package that looks almost like a slightly oblong cube.

A gift, it would seem.

"And I appreciate your hospitality." He adds to that, with a deep bow of his head. Ever the respectful one.

"I know a few different words in a number of languages that might suit, but I don't know that any of them are appropriate for our current surroundings." Rune smirks. Ending the Corpse Eater had been a quest set upon her, and something that needed done, regardless. More more puzzle piece completed, or so it would seem.

"It's a shame Slixvah couldn't have joined us tonight. She puffs up just like that sometimes." The half-sil adds with an amused tone, "Feel free to continue riding, little one. You're more than welcome." She even casts a side-eyed glance towards the bird that is inspecting that specific jewel between Harkashan's horns, but she keeps her comments to herself on that one.

As the clearing and tree-house emerge from the foliage, Rune raises a hand in greeting. "It's always a pleasure to be in your company." She states. No, not just because he's hot, shush. "How have things been since the last time? I assume no more trouble has plagued you now that He is gone?"

Grandfather lifts a hand--monstrous claws and all--to wipe his brow of sweat. He's actually shed his feather mantle for the moment, as it's dangling from what looks to be a line intended for hanging laundry out to dry. Which means he's just wearing his open-chested robe. It is perhaps polite to not mention the sweat there either.

"I am well enough," Grandfather replies with a smile. "Indeed, most of my time has been divided between here and visits to your plane, in fact. I have made a friend in Alexandria, and I bring him little gifts to keep his spirits up."

He brightens considerably with Harkashan's offering of a package. "You are very kind," he says. "Please, come inside. Cor'lana, I would gladly give you a hug, but I must change."

Cor'lana nods, and she follows her Grandfather inside. There's a fire going in the fireplace, as well as that familiar rocking chair, which has something in progress on the knitting needles that rest there in the chair. It looks like... a sweater? Sized for an adult man, perhaps? "I'll summon Blue--I assume you'll want to speak to her, if it's about the matter to do with your mother?" Grandfather offers as he makes his way to the door of his own bedroom.

Meanwhile, Cor'lana has already dipped into the door for the kitchen and has returned with the ceramic dish containing the most heavenly-smelling berry pie, delicately scored on top to resemble birds in flight along the lines of division. It's art. Art that's meant to be eaten. "How do I even cut this?" Cor'lana murmurs.

"A new writing-partner?" Harkashan inquires, figuring that the likes of Grandfather perhaps rather enjoys writing letters back and forth.

He steps along with the crew inside, ducking his head ever so slightly as he comes in. Even if the opening is to his height, he's used to softskin houses having entrances that are too short for his crown of horns. "Indeed, we are partially here to seek audience with Blue once more." It would be rude to say 'we are only here for Blue'. And that will not do.

He halts when they get to the main living area, and Harkashan watches Cor'lana make her way to the kitchen.

Of course, upon inquiry on cutting it, Harkashan remarks; "You could use your teeth to cut it, one bit at a time, as you eat it."

Cutlery is silly.

Is Rune ogling Cor'lana's Grandfather? Yes. Yes she is. However, at least she is doing so politely. In one part because she knows how uncomfortable it makes her friend, and another because it is her mate standing next to her. It would be rude!

So, she averts her gaze after a moment of appreciation and follows the others inside. "I think this is where we part ways, little one." She offers to the bird, giving it a chance to take wing before joining the others.

Stepping inside, she unbuttons the front of her winter jacket, revealing the blue and gold shawl that Grandfather had made her underneath. He had gifted it to take with her on this quest, and here it is, again. "I'm glad." She nods once, in response Grandfather. "Yes. We need to figure out where to go from here."

Then, her ear twitches towards the kitchen, hearing both Cor'lana and Harkashan, "You are not just going to chomp into a pie, whole. Not everyone appreciates Makari spit."

Harkashan stares at Rune and rumbles; "That sounds like quitter talk."

The bird departs from Rune with a sad little coo, but its violet eyes shows that it understands. No birds in the house. At least not for the moment. Similarly, the bird who'd been looking at Harkashan's shiny departs as he walks in, as well.

"I'm so glad to see that the shawl is holding up nicely," Grandfather remarks, before dipping into his bedroom. Oddly enough--it's a dark expanse. Like light is absent from that space entirely. "I'll be back momentarily."

Cor'lana snorts. "My teeth are not as good as yours, Harkashan," she says. Instead, she retrieves cutlery and plates, cutting slices carefully and plating them--handing one to Harkashan and then handing one to Rune.

"Now we wait," Cor'lana says, before biting into her slice. Her features light up. "Oh. This is good. I wonder if this is one of Auranar's recipes? She stayed here with Grandfather for a while; she said she left him with some new inventions."

Harkashan moves to sit, and accepts the dish offered, but puts it down on his lap for the time being. Instead, looking to Rune to get an idea of how she is doing, now that they are given a moment to 'rest'. Wondering what her brain does when not given something to distract itself by.

"It's a gift I choose to honor by making sure it follows me through to the end of this journey, wherever it leads." Rune explaints. She is a person who has always thrived on touch-stones like this. Her mother's necklace, the sprawling tattoo, Harkshan's gemstone, Grandfather's shawl, they each have deeper meaning and importance.

Thankfully, Harkashan does not prove his point by gobbling the pie in two bites, meaning that Cor'lana can share it out with each of them. Accepting it, Rune leans a little against the nearest wall to eat it, her expression thoughtful.

"Have you heard from Auranar recently? I mean, given the circumstances?" She asks, brows faintly furrowed. Under Harkashan's gaze, it's obvious that the rogue is carrying that uncertainty and worry with her like a cloak. She's gotten good at putting on a face of someone unaffected but it breaks down when one looks long enough.

"She left on her mission," Cor'lana says quietly. "Mentioning more in front of Grandfather might... inspire him to do something foolish, however? So I--"

She stops talking the moment that Grandfather emerges from his room, dressed in something that is (perhaps sadly) more covering than normal. He's wearing high-collared black robes that are adorned with layers of raven feathers, gilded along their edges by what appears to be gold leaf. His black hair is pulled back into a finely-coiffed ponytail. His monstrous clawed hands are covered with gloves that do a fine job at making them seem more rounded in shape.

He looks like the nobleman that he once was.

"Announcing the arrival of Glasina," Alud'rigan, the Feathered One, intones. And out from the darkness emerges the short elven-seeming woman who Rune and Harkashan knew first as Blue. She's adorned in a dress that seems to be made of blue butterflies pieced together--something macabre considering her chosen form for travel--and her rainbow-colored eyes are alight in mirth as she looks at Rune.

"So! You did it!" she says. "It's all the talk in some circles. Legus'elain, murdered by mortals. That means it's just about time for the finale of this horrible little story."

Glasina smiles brightly. "May I have that necklace of yours? Just for a moment," she asks Rune, holding out her hand.

When Cor'lana makes it clear that mentioning the current goings on in the mortal realm may be a problem, Rune only nods. "Understood." Then, she shoves a bite of pie into her face just in time for Grandfather to make his return.

Even without the bare-chest, he's still hot. Those feathered robes...

But, it is not Grandfather that catches Rune's attention, but Glasina as she emerges behind him. The pie is set down onto a nearby table and the half-sil steps forward. She bows her head, dyed strands of hair falling across her face briefly before she lifts her head again.

"We did it. A group of us, together." Rune is not about to take credit when there were many hands at play. "He made... many enemies of many people, and all were more than happy to take their pound of flesh for the suffering he brought." Her blue eyes look over to Cor'lana, then back to the Fey being.

There is a slight tightening of her lips at 'this horrible little story', but how long had Rnue seen it that way, herself? At the request, she slips the necklace off over her neck, offering it out. There is a hint of reluctance, as the keepsake is something she has not taken off in years, not even in death. But... one has to trust people, and Blue has earned that much.

The necklace is laid nito her palm.

Harkashan's head tilts a bit as Grandfather steps down and arrives to introduce the smaller elfin woman. His gaze slipping from the well dressed and noble looking Fae to the more... well... Fae-dressed of the two?

Indeed, the deed had been done. Yet, Harkashan shows no mirth at the retelling of the death of Legus'elain. Such is not his lot in life.

He waits. Remaining seated for the time being. Looking to Cor'lana for a moment to read her own emotions on the matter.

GAME: Harkashan rolls Sense Motive: (17)+24: 41

Glasina's rainbow-colored eyes seem suddenly somber as she holds Rune's necklace in her hands. "Now," she says, "I can finally tell you... What your mother had worked so hard to build. This."

She holds the locket in her hand. And she sings... a dirge. It's a haunting sound. It's also not her own voice.

It's Kiira's.

The lyrics are odd things. They are both eternal and yet fleeting in the mind. It is because they are filled with anguish. They are filled with pain. They describe living and dying thousands of times over. They describe glimmers of hope that are ended always in the same way: Kiira's death.

It's a lamentation, a plea, to Ni'essa Sky-singer, to end it. To carve out a future in which hope becomes daylight. To carve out a future where the cycle is broken. To cut the threads that keep her bound always to die in failure.

And then an unlocking sound comes from within the locket. Cor'lana tenses. But the sorceress says nothing.

"The truth is unveiled," Glasina says softly, before she intones one word. "Unlock."

The locket morphs in her hand. It turns... into a small and slender little key. Something that fits a delicate little lock.

"Unbind." Glasina intones the second word, and then the locket shifts again--taking the form of a tiny pair of scissors.

"Hide." The third word returns the locket to its original form.

Glasina takes a small breath. "The key is to unlock the door that leads to the prison for the wife of the Golden Fate. It is the only key that exists. The scissors are to snip the threads of fate that bind your mother, Kiira, who will be there when you find the door to the prison."

She looks at Rune a moment. "The door to the prison is not a place, but a memory. And for you... It is the place where you died."

Harkashan is not aware he should be 'on guard'. But his metaphorical 'heckles' raise when he spots a tenseness from Cor'lana upon the entry of the butterfly-woman and the locket being manipulated. He wonders what is on her mind, but believes it rude to ask right now. Cor'lana is a friend to Rune. If there was something that immediately needed action, he believes in Ravenstongue. He believes she would act.

So, regardless of his tail starting to whip at bit at the couch in a display of minor anxiety, he bears witness to Blue's manipulation of the locket.

Blue knows a lot about this locket. About Kiira. About a lot of people. He wonders how much of this needs pointing out, and how much of this is something others would have picked up on by now, and he's only just truly realizing.

Though his brow furrows heavily when the last words are spoken.

Sometimes, a voice thought lost in the past can cut deeper than the sharpest blade. Rune's body stiffens as she listens, her breaths shallow. It isn't familiar. Not one of the hundreds of songs and stories that her mother hand told in her childhood, but there is such aching familiarity there that it makes her breath catch, one hand moving up to cover her mouth and moisture forming in her eyes.

In that moment, where Harkashan is perhaps coming to understand more about what may be happening, Rune is focused on what she sees before her. The shifting of the locket, the words, the memory of her mother that always seems so close to the surface... Her hands tremble somewhat, but the rest of Rune remains still, as if she were frozen to that spot.

"I... understand." She finally speaks. Perhaps, in a way, returning to the place where she'd fallen is an echo of just how many lives her mother must have lived, trapped in this cycle of pain. Holding her hand out to receive the necklace back, Rune looks over to Harkashan, perhaps looking for support, but instead there is that furrowed brow. Then, her eyes turn to Cor'lana, as if she weren't quite sure what the other two were thinking.

Cor'lana has been so tense the entire time. She's been so quiet, but her body language is like that of a snake trying to escape its bonds. Her eyes are filled with such sorrow, such anger.

"It's not fair." She looks at Glasina in an almost accusatory way. "How is she supposed to find a door within a memory?"

"Dreaming," Glasina says softly. She might have more to speak, but Cor'lana cuts her off almost immediately.

"So--she's supposed to... relive her death?" Cor'lana's angry now. "Why? Why is that the doorway? The torment and torture was supposed to end with Legus'elain's death. Why? Why are you making her do this?" She sheds hot tears.

Glasina sighs. "It was not my creation," she says. "I apologize for making you upset, but... This was the way that Kiira devised. Through the door of death, they can be united. The story can end. Leirune can end the curses and act with her mother in tandem to finish what was started." She looks to Rune now. "I apologize again. But this is... the only way to the 'golden ending'. Happy endings must be earned. There is no triumph without sorrow. And your mother knew this best."

Harkashan has of course listened to many dirges in the past. Listening to someone's recurring death is... certainly something that has an effect even on him. But it takes some time for that furrow to rise back up when Rune looks at him with those expecting eyes. His expression shifting to something more consoling - followed by a nod of his head.

Letting Cor'lana have a moment to share her own emotions, shedding tears for what Kira will have to go through. Another arduous task stands before them.

"You know you will have me at your side, Rune." He finally answers her.

But Harkashan most of all, knows how dangerous Rune's dreams can be in particular. Especially ones around that subject.

Still, he rises up slowly, and moves to step towards Rune and wraps his arms around her, stuffing her up against his chest.

The accusations that Cor'lana throws out immediately have Rune's brow furrowing. She's quiet for a time, hearing and seeing just how much this impacts her friend. Not long ago, she wouldn't have thought anyone would fight for her like that, and now it warms the edges of her fear-chilled heart.

"Lana..." The name is spoken with such affection, the expression on Rune's face showing that appreciation, but mixed with a somber determination. "It's okay." The words are quiet from her lips.

"I used to be afraid. I used to want to run from everything that would even hint at reminding me of what happened that day." With a slow shake of the head, she looks to Harkashan, "I don't regret what I did, not for a moment. I'd do it again, a thousand times over." Then, back to Cor'lana, "I might not have had the strength to face it before, but now... now I have dear friends. People I love. I'm not afraid to face it, because I know I won't be alone."

The ghost of a smile is cast towards Harkashan, even as her hand closes around the necklace. "Guess it's time to gather friends... and be prepared to face some nightmares."

Cor'lana frowns deeply, but she nods to Rune's reassurance. "You'll have me with you," she says gently. "I can... shift us to the plane of dreams, in fact. But it can be... perilous."

She looks hesitant herself. "I have my own nightmares," she explains. "So it... It might be dangerous, no matter what."

Glasina looks at Cor'lana for a moment. "The white wolf will lead you out," she says gently. "She will not lead you astray."

Cor'lana blinks, and her mouth opens to ask another question--but then Glasina disintegrates into a cloud of blue-winged butterflies. Grandfather gestures toward a window, which opens at his command, and then the butterflies disperse, leaving Cor'lana, Rune, and Harkashan behind in their wake.

All is quiet for a moment before Grandfather says, with a wide smile, "Now... How about that pie?"

It's a small consolation for what lies ahead.