TLV IC Inbox

[takestime]

Comments

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.

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?

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.]

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.

[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]

[ 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.]

sometime after the breach

[killingtool]

[ Stuff had gotten in the way, but with him spending time in his room avoiding people after the breach, he has time to do what he wanted: a scrapmetal tiger on top of his painted rock. ]

That's for you, Kahl. I hope you like it.

Re: sometime after the breach

[takestime]

Max feels him before he sees him: a warm weight, already purring a deep, bone-rattling purr.

I love them.

Voice

[withintenfeet]

[ This comes about an hour after Sebastian's massacre. ]

Were any of your people hurt?

Re: Voice

[takestime]

Billy.

He stopped when I made it clear Billy was mine.

[In his cleaning rounds, Zerxus may have noticed a few spots with faint new scorch marks on the floor.]

[withintenfeet]

From Here

Zerxus does glance at his item, so he knows where Kahl is. Instead he walks further into his own cabin, the seating room that once held portraits of the First Knights and now venerates the Lords of the Nine.

He kneels in front of the newest one and not the oldest, because Zariel has more of a claim to vengeance than Asmodeus ever did, and says:

"Kahl. I'm not angry at you, but we do need to talk."

There's anger there. It's just not directed at Kahl.

[takestime]

He doesn't instantly appear, not quite yet. But the irrefutable sense that he is listening fills the space.

Chapel

[falkeditupagain]

After hours Hanna doesnt normally frequent the chapel, hes never been a particularly religious person, but he figures if hes going to ask some questions, he better be respectful about it. It also helps that train of thought when his boyfriend just so happens to be the priest of the god he wants to talk to.

Hanna slips inside, knows which alter to walk up to and he very carefully sets down a small handful of carefully chosen dried sardines. None of them are broken, full little fish and the sort that he thinks any cat would be happy to have.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he nods to the alter before meandering over to a pew. "Hey, Kahl? You up?"

Re: Chapel

[takestime]

Kahl appears perched like a gargoyle on the pew in front of him, not as a cat but as a gangly red-headed teenager whose limbs seem to bend in too many places, but who nevertheless definitely still has the tail of one silver sardine poking slightly out of his mouth, mid-chew.

He hastily swallows it whole.

"Yes."