TLV IC Inbox

[takestime]

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For Porthos, shortly before Constantinople

[takestime]

I'd like more of my powers back.

Re: For Porthos, shortly before Constantinople

[withdistinction]

My door's open, come talk to me about it lad.

[takestime]

He appears in Porthos’s cabin, holding up a book: Tale of a Field Hospital.

“This is one of the cursed ones.”

audio

[cactusy]

Hey. You still good?

[withintenfeet]

By the time they've reached the Fifth Precinct Zerxus is aching and exhausted, which doesn't help him stay above water as he looks for Kahl. It's starting to feel hopeless - he can't dive beneath the surface in full plate, he can barely manage this - and he reaches a hand up to press against his eyes as he stops moving forward, just treading water.

There has to be a better way to do this. They're connected, he'd even felt it when he wasn't himself, so if he can just -

Kahl! I'm close, I need you to come to me. By habit, he's slipped into the simple focused call the Ring of Brass used when they were linked by Laerryn's spell. It doesn't work, of course, and he starts trying to infuse his words with more purpose, more emotion; he leans into the righteous fury on Kahl's behalf, and the profound depths of protectiveness he's felt since the moment Zerxus laid eyes on him.

[sixfeetofdirt]

Hello, darling.

You might have noticed that things have been settled with the newcomer. Your name was spoken.

I'd like to revisit an offer you made me.

[takestime]

I heard.

[And his hand was there - Astarion didn't need him, but he was there, in the silence, in the lack of warden patrols, in the exact right angle to make snapping a neck as easy as it can be, even though Thrawn's species is not quite the same as any of the humanoids on faerun.]

What can I give you?

[sixfeetofdirt]

A bottle of your blood, if it's still on offer.

after the SH event

[lost_first]

Kahl.

Do you have some time? I would like to speak with you.

Re: after the SH event

[takestime]

[If Jamie is in a public place, Kahl simply appears. If not, then whenever he does step into a hallway, Kahl appears.]

Re: after the SH event

[lost_first]

[ He'd just been in the laundry room, doing some clothes, and when he sees Kahl, he smiles and dips his head. ]

Narrenschiff, Day One

[withintenfeet]

Zerxus knows where to go. He isn't stalling, but he isn't rushing either; it's a very deliberate pace.

This definitely won't fool either god, but it's the principle of the thing.

As they approach the makeshift cabin, though, he just has to stop and roll his eyes. Of course the sheet of metal has been forged into a grandiose arch gilded with onyx; of course flames lick the slanted threshold, smelling of blood and ink and ash; of course the knocker is a horned skull with gleaming ruby eyes.

He glances at Kahl and murmurs, "I don't suppose you brought any of those googly eyes with you?"

Re: Narrenschiff, Day One

[takestime]

Kahl rolls his eyes.

"I don't have to carry things."

He flips up a single quarter-sized googly eye out of nothing in his palm. It looks like nothing so much as the trinket-making of prestidigitation - except that it doesn't disappear after six seconds.

He hands Zerxus the eye, for wherever he'd like to place it.

Re: Narrenschiff, Day One

[withintenfeet]

"Thank you, and remind me to ask you more about how that works."

For now he crouches down, flips the eye once, and then sticks it on the left ruby. Pure chance and a total lack of symmetry - far more Changebringer than Archtyrant. The fire flares, but both his skin and his sandals were forged in the deepest pits of the Hells.

He does use the knocker properly, after that. Eight times, specifically.

The voice that drifts from beyond the door is still melodic and crooning, but if you know, you can hear the grated edge to it.

"Enter. Both of you."

[withintenfeet]

Zerxus doesn't call for Kahl right away. All in all, it's probably around an hour - he talks to Ashton, drinks some water, gathers enough strength to stagger to the upper deck.

Tempus isn't pleased with him, but lets him collapse against his side. Zerxus stays like that for a bit, curled up with his eyes closed, just breathing.

Then, finally,

Kahl?

[takestime]

Kahl appears, immediately, crouching three feet away from Zerxus, glaring. He looks frazzled - unhurt, but with his hair in unusual disarray, a high flush in his cheeks, his shirt crumpled.

Usually, when Kahl moves himself from someplace else, he appears standing. For him to appear in a far more settled pose suggests - if Zerxus considers it - that he has been here the whole time, invisible.

[withintenfeet]

That is what startles him, far more than the sudden appearance. Behind him, Tempus huffs and unfurls a wing, arching it over Kahl and Zerxus both.

"Are you all right? How long - "

[withintenfeet]

[ Bright and early, there's a knock on Kahl's door. ]

[takestime]

[He's not actually wearing rumpled pajamas, and he doesn't really have bags under his eyes, but somehow he manages to give that impression as he answers the door. The bedhead is real.]

What.

[routemistress]

'Ey darling, want to come to movie night? It's an epic tale of violent revenge and I thought you might like it.

[takestime]

...where will this tale be told?

[withintenfeet]

The first thing Zerxus does, upon finally waking up in a room that doesn't truly belong to the Hells, is pray to Kahl.

There's a desperate undercurrent to it, a dread he could have extinguished with a glance at his warden item, but he’s not in the most rational of mental states.

[takestime]

Kahl doesn't teleport in.

He wakes up and comes shooting out from under Zerxus's bed in an orange yowling streak, hitting Zerxus's chest just a little bit like a bowling ball with knives.

Backdated

[withintenfeet]

[ Not long after this conversation, there's a wry question in Kahl's inbox. ]

Anything you want to tell me?

Re: Backdated

[takestime]

No.

[Try again.]