It reminds him, just a little, of those brief minutes fighting Glee Shoth, blazing white with the Dayfather's power. Asmodeus would likely hate the comparison; Kahl smiles at the thought, very briefly.
Well. Yes, but that isn't his priority in this situation specifically.
With an arch of his eyebrows, "It's hardly my fault that he looks at me and sees what he failed to keep." It's not precisely untrue; any form he chooses is only an aspect crafted for mortal comprehension, and it's often influenced by their own yearning. That's what it means to be the most beautiful of the gods.
Of course, he has far more control than Zerxus realises, and with a truly put-upon sigh he shimmers and ripples. He looks older now, with more prominent horns and sharply trimmed beard.
There's an edge of uncertainty to that, but Zerxus understands the moment he's staring up at Asmodeus.
"You son of a bitch." He growls it in the lowest form of Infernal, blunt and harsh. "All this time - "
"How much time is that, if you don't mind?" Still playing at being polite, then. Still keeping his temper in check. Fine.
"Around a decade."
"...That's all?" It looks like genuine surprise. "Fascinating. You don't even know what Aeor is up to."
"Aeor?" He's still pissed off, but it recedes in favour of sheer bewilderment. "...Did you get yourself killed fighting Ae - " The devil's eyes burn, and the air in Zerxus's lungs evaporates.
"I'm being extremely tolerant, in my opinion." He's addressing Kahl, now; his voice remains low and smooth, but the words are clipped.
It's the first real emotion Kahl has shown in this conversation, and that emotion is bewildered teenage dismissal.
"I don't care about your opinion, though." He says it - not slowly, but just a little bit more enunciated than normal. Not that Asmodeus might be a bit dim, but - well. That he might have spent so long surrounded by servants and sycophants and marks, all desperately wanting something, even if only to be passed over - that he may have overlooked the possibility.
Recent events notwithstanding.
"Tolerate it or don't. If you won't, we'll leave."
Zerxus spent a lifetime trying to make himself an open hand. But Kahl doesn't care about persuading anyone, most of the time. By the time vengeance is needed, persuasion has long since failed. He won't be drawn into arguing with Asmodeus about what's acceptable: there is only what each of them will, and will not accept.
Even here, it's a rare thing for Asmodeus to look so thoroughly wrong-footed.
It distracts him enough that Zerxus can gasp in a breath, and he almost chokes on it as he trembles - but alas, even this isn't a source of satisfaction.
He's trembling with laughter.
The answering growl is pure petulance in his ears, and it almost makes him laugh harder, but he's able to control himself and catch his breath, shaking his head. "Sorry. ...Well, no, I'm not."
Flatly, eyes blazing, "Your honestly is noted."
Zerxus has grinned up at him before, usually with blood in his teeth, but this is different. This is broad and bright and downright fond.
"You're ridiculous, and he isn't impressed with you, and you have no idea what to do with it." Mortals are too far beneath him for that sort of thing to matter, and his siblings are too caught up in the epic tragedy of their history.
"Maybe you should think about having a real conversation."
"Oi, you're going to make me put up with him just because you want to tell him to eat his vegetables?" Kahl squawks, fully conjuring a small head of broccoli in one hand and throwing it at Zerxus. It bounces off his horn.
At the same moment, he shoves with his will - strengthened by petulance - and pushes Asmodeus's influence away in a circle around them both, for about a foot out.
His eyes are glittering as he takes a few deep, grateful breaths, before turning to Kahl with a downright sheepish expression. "I know it's a lot to ask. He's not always this insufferable."
"Really." Asmodeus is quite literally fuming; the air ripples in a haze around him, and his hair is a river of flame. "Are those precious moments of reprieve enough, now that I don't wear your husband's face? Do you want to hear how I died, or shall I just - "
"Stop it, Asmodeus." It's a different tone, of course, grimly intent, but the quiet confidence remains. "You don't have to manipulate me into mourning you."
"I want to hear how you died," Kahl puts in, because apparently he's been protective enough that Zerxus now thinks he's morally nutritious, rather than a vindictive catastrophe.
With a sharp gesture at Kahl, burning gaze locked on Zerxus, "You mourn me, and yet."
"Everyone I've ever loved hates you, I've made my peace with that." He won't insults Kahl by breaching the sphere of his protection, but he stands up and reaches a hand right to the edge of it.
"Tell me what happened to you. Tell me how to stop it."
"That will hardly help me." It's the answer that Zerxus expected, but what he didn't is the slightest, strangest catch to the words. The future of another Exandria means nothing to him, but he still wants it to change.
What does that mean? What does that tell him, beyond any convenient half-truths?
"The wizards of Aeor are forging a weapon to kill the gods."
It's not really a visible barrier, except perhaps for the faint heat haze where the temperature shifts.
If you want to hug him or whatever I don't care, Kahl tells Zerxus, silently. Kahl doesn't, actually, hate him. He just recognizes that circumstance - namely, the circumstance of Kahl having every intention of stealing his whipping boy - has made them enemies, and he doesn't have a reason to indulge Asmodeus playing games designed for him to win. But he doesn't hate him.
I'll let you if he can bring himself not to burn you. Just the same as with the faces.
He doesn't say it aloud, though. Kahl doesn't want to interrupt Asmodeus actually getting past brooding and mantling enough to explain anything of substance. He draws his knees up in his chair. It makes him look smaller, more childish, even though he hasn't changed his form's appearance. He fades into the background in a way that should be utterly bizarre for a god to do; it's like he's not even there.
Possibly, Asmodeus still has enough connection to Zerxus to spy on thoughts. In which case, he will at least understand the terms without having to go through the dance again of being affronted at Kahl having any.
It's something he feels more than sees; a harbour, a balm, solid ground.
I doubt he can. Zerxus would still do it, but he cares more about respecting Kahl's wishes than denying his own pain.
"And he calls me ridiculous." For the first time, there's nothing artful in the way he speaks; it's not loftily imperious or disarmingly tender. It's just quietly, wearily earnest.
Asmodeus rises, but the fire flickers and fades. "You love too easily, Zerxus."
Before Zerxus can even begin to process that that, "We called a truce, the Betrayers and the 'Prime Deities', so that we could infiltrate Aeor together. The only way to breach their defences was to become mortals."
He could never comprehend a process like that, and so doesn't try. What he's focused on are the broader implications, the pieces finally grinding painfully into place. "...All of you?"
"Most of us."
Zerxus sits down, heavily, and swallows hard. "They - those fucking idiots, did they even think - "
They probably did think, Kahl suspects, privately. Gods' wars are hard on mortals. And, after all, they're all going to die anyway. Better to be killed for a moment of temerity than to cower helplessly like field mice under careless slings and arrows of divine magnitude. If they thought they had any real chance.
And given the gods' response, clearly they had. Kahl rather wants to cheer them them all.
Anger shivers through Kahl; he feels like sea ice, ever-cracking.
"If you spoke in the language of truth, your tongue would split your head," Kahl breathes, a quiet whisper that rolls out of him like - like light shining behind the world, casting sharp shadows that betray the true shapes of all things. The Godstongue Kahl speaks - the one the scriveners crib a few dead static words from, to make every scrap of mortal magic in that world go - is the langue of making what is real.
He can feel the thin pressure of the Narrenschiff, the box around him that will not let itself be interfered with, but within it, they are all only matter and energy and process and soul, and all things ordered and dissolving can be dissolved and re-ordered, re-described, re-named, if named in the Godstongue. But he says nothing that is not already true, so it takes no power from him, to force the world into the shape he has spoken.
Asmodeus is hurting Zerxus at every moment. But Kahl does not say that in the Godstongue, lest he curse them both, and bind the strength of his speech to the fact of it.
And then he is not speaking the universe anymore, and the edges of him no longer picked out in silhouette; he is not a mad child who has gone from prison to prison to prison, a vengeance that will be forever unsatisfied, all his tragedy and erratic strangeness illuminated in the harshness of truth shining from his own mouth. He is only a scrawny red-headed teenager again, with no trappings of visible power apart from his life-green poison eyes.
"But I know what you meant," he mutters in common, looking away.
He's still paying attention, of course. Asmodeus's word means nothing to him at all. But he will accept it as a sign of intent for the next minute, the next seconds, even if it is only intent to bring harm in a different way than the ones Kahl has forbidden. And Kahl doesn't want to be looking with his regular eyes if they're going to kiss or something.
It is not the language they spoke in the Eternal Palace, but it is so much closer than anything he has heard in thousands of years.
Asmodeus is not, in this moment, Asmodeus. He is a shimmering blue flame, crackling playfully; he is a thousand beautiful fireworks; he is a blazing seed of possibility, full of wonder and joy. Then he is real, and he is beautiful still but he is burning, the flowing mane of copper-bright hair catching fire and hardening into two spikes that spiral back around his ears.
It is real, but it is not now; he doesn't need to sink to the floor in the wake of it, gasping and shuddering as his form ripples again. (Not Evandrin, no, but younger than the last, both less human and more vulnerable.) It was a truly galling level of exposure, but there's no need not to take advantage of it.
Zerxus, in that moment, felt the seething contradiction of his nature more keenly than ever before; he looked almost molten, ever-shifting and shot through with cracks of starlight, flexing wings of flame. It leaves him stunned and breathless and aching, but that doesn't stop him from rushing forward. There's no hesitation in kneeling down and reaching out, even now after everything.
It is a lie, when Asmodeus accepts the compassion, but perhaps not as fully as the first time.
"I saved us, then. I couldn't do it again."
"We'll find a - " Zerxus's voice almost breaks, but he does stop himself from promising too much. He doesn't expect it to be taken well.
Asmodeus laughs, wry and soft. "He is teaching you something. Well done, godling."
Vivid and overwhelming and familiar and ordinary, like thumbing the smooth smallness of a worry stone with your whole heart in your throat. Kahl hates Asmodeus exactly the same way he hates everyone else, the way that's just envy when you scratch the paint.
He was never unlimited potential. That is the province of the Maelstrom - and mortals, in their way. Kahl was born, formless and unknowing, but already, his nature was waiting for him, already, he was placed in the grey hole. The closest he ever got to it was when the God Mask was eating through the top layers of his face, rendering him down into new potential, chewing him up to spit back out.
Kahl has never had an us worth saving. His mother, his lying father, his hordes of useless clueless brothers and sisters. Could he have met them in secret? Could he have told his name to Lil, or Kitr, or Nsana, or Nemmer? Role? But none of them would have protected him from Yeine and Nahadoth, not the lady of mercy, not even the lady of secrets. He had felt her hunting him, in fact.
Even on the barge, people flicker past like dragonflies, with only a fraction of even a mortal's lifetime before they slip away again. Porthos, Nokov - Nokov, who was a god, who was perfect and endless night, gone back to his death like a stone sinking into water. Harry gone to his perfect life, satisfied with a single blessing, relieved not to see Kahl again.
Astarion, who does not want the aid of gods, Dark Urge who still loves his useless father, Corvo who didn't even want to say his name. Kahl leaves no more mark on them than a rat scratching at the door. Jamie won't stay, either, even though he's held Kahl, has opened the door and fed him scraps. Zerxus thinks he'll stay, but Zerxus is here, not making promises, because he's been someone else's all along, and Kahl always knew it.
He hates Asmodeus for being such an ungrateful, spoiled brat who doesn't even know that a gift it is, to have family that would fight you instead of putting you down in a day like a rabid animal, and with less mourning.
He wants Nadia back, with a soul-deep howling longing, Nadia who didn't want anything from him as a god, the only sibling who ever knew his name, his human half-sister who brought him candy and read him books and brushed his hair, in another crushed childhood trapped in another tiny, drab, sunless place, a life that never was, his sister for only six dreaming days.
He wants it so badly his form starts warping, not with the smooth, instant shifting of his deliberate changes. He stretches and twists like taffy, the world bubbling and contorting around him. He's younger, too, although not as young as when Zerxus tried to help him escape, ten or eleven, his hair long and voraciously curly, his legs a twisted mass beneath him that's hard to look at directly.
He wants to scream; he wants to cry; he wants to claw Asmodeus's stupid faces until he hasn't any left. He wants to disappear into the dark.
He doesn't do any of those things, though.
"Someone has to do it, apparently," he chokes out, voice thick with everything he does not give voice, everything that has no place here.
Both can feel the world churning beside them, and they move as one to see what's happening. Kahl wears hatred differently than Asmodeus, but not so much that it isn't vividly clear; not so much that Zerxus doesn't gaze straight into it and see pain.
When Zerxus stands Asmodeus grasps wrist, but doesn't hold onto him when he moves away; claws scrape against his pulse without leaving a mark. Turning his back on the devil is dangerous, but he's done it before.
"Kahl." His voice is soft and steady, as he crouches down in front of the god who never betrayed him, never caged or wrecked or condemned him. "I'm here. I'm here, and I will do everything in my power not to leave you."
Behind him, there's a huff of laughter that borders on a growl. "You finally found your lost child. Congratulations."
He has caged and tormented someone he loved, before. Breaches count, he told Porthos, over and over. It counted, when he dragged Nokov into a cell and punctured his skin with a thousand razor-sharp feathers, reshaped his fingerbones into claws, made him lurid and wild and serrated, an animal blade. It counted, even though he was someone else at the time - his soul, his sins. And he was not given the time to make any restitution for his regrets.
But he does own them.
He traces the line of one curling horn with delicate fingertips. The creature he was in that world would find them beautiful, he knows. His eyes are often slit-pupilled, but now they shine with a proper tapetum lucidum, reflecting Asmodeus's glow back, color changed.
"I am more like him than either of you yet imagine," he warns, voice soft and low, the quiet after a scream cut short. "Nothing's changed, just because I've had my nose rubbed in how much he doesn't know how lucky he is. You wanted this conversation, so have it."
He supposes he should be manipulative in turn, use his pain to cut it short, demand attention, complete a swift extraction. But that doesn't solve the problem of Zerxus wanting to listen to him. So Kahl will put his rage and pain aside, after the first moment of fervent longing. He is patient. He will wait.
"Who you are always matters less than what you choose to do next." Kahl chose to let him try, and he's choosing to let it continue, even knowing that he could demand it to be over and Zerxus would listen. It's a stunning lack of selfishness compared to the other god in the room.
Who, at this moment, mutters, "At least I'm not the only one forced to listen to that."
Zerxus rolls his eyes before reaching out to squeeze Kahl's hand. Thank you. I love you.
When he rises, so does Asmodeus; they step forward and meet in the middle, facing each other. As always, Zerxus needs to look up. "I won't give you any more power over me than you already have. But I'll do my best to put you in a better position."
"On your boat, I suppose? Where I can earn my redemption?" His golden eyes gleam with vicious disdain, tail lashing behind him like an angry cat's.
Zerxus shrugs, and crosses his arms. "Take it or leave it."
They both know that Asmodeus is too arrogant to think he can't outwit the Admiral; the curt nod is all but inevitable. "Tell me if there's anything you need from me, beyond what I've already promised."
"I would really appreciate it if you didn't harm anyone else either, but we've been there before." It's also inevitable that the smugly satisfied grin makes Zerxus want to either shatter his fangs or -
He steps back, swallowing hard as his arm fall to his sides. With a nod to Kahl, "We can go." Before he can actually turn away, though, Asmodeus waves a hand and Zerxus feels the chains turning molten and fusing together, fabric stretching and tearing and mending itself. At first it's a relief - maybe he'll be in armour again, or at least a gambeson, or -
I like listening to the stupid things you say, Kahl tells Zerxus.
He wouldn't sit still to listen to them otherwise. Asmodeus certainly doesn't have to, either, the big fat liar. They're having another whole moment, though, so he keeps it to himself.
When the outfit changes, Kahl hiccups for a moment, then cackles with laughter. He jumps onto Zerxus's shoulder as a tiny orange kitten, claws digging lightly into his skin, and nuzzles his ear, still snickering.
"From the bottom of my heart, you deserve this," the Lord of Vengeance tells him.
"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself." It's archly deadpan, but he sure is reaching up to scratch Kahl's little chin.
"I only had so much to work with, you understand." Asmodeus reaches forward and taps the ruby at Zerxus's throat. (He left both necklaces alone; he always does, and Zerxus knows it isn't a kindness but he isn't sure what that leaves.) "Go on, then - mingle, learn, make your plans."
Between one heartbeat and the next he's back on his armchair, one leg crossed over the other. "I'll be here."
He'll be doing a lot more than that, but Zerxus nods; he believes they're on the same page, working towards the same goal. He believes that Asmodeus means that promise, at least for now; he tends stand by his actual word, to the letter if not the spirit, and I will not harm him is pretty basic.
Zerxus could, perhaps, stand to be more imaginative.
Kahl, who recognizes when a mortal is being, to some extent, humored, feels no such reassurance. He entertains a brief mental fantasy of sticking Asmodeus and Usein Darre with each other.
"Go on," Kahl echoes, jumping down from Zerxus's shoulder, flowing into the tiger in the air, landing in silence. "I want to say one more thing to him, god to god. I promise it won't be stupid posturing."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
It reminds him, just a little, of those brief minutes fighting Glee Shoth, blazing white with the Dayfather's power. Asmodeus would likely hate the comparison; Kahl smiles at the thought, very briefly.
"Did you actually want to talk to him?"
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Kahl is fairly confident that Asmodeus would talk to him just to cause pain, with no interest in the content. But he won't press the point.
"You can talk to him with a neutral face on."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
With an arch of his eyebrows, "It's hardly my fault that he looks at me and sees what he failed to keep." It's not precisely untrue; any form he chooses is only an aspect crafted for mortal comprehension, and it's often influenced by their own yearning. That's what it means to be the most beautiful of the gods.
Of course, he has far more control than Zerxus realises, and with a truly put-upon sigh he shimmers and ripples. He looks older now, with more prominent horns and sharply trimmed beard.
"Better?"
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
He simply stares, unblinking as an unimpressed cat, until the change.
"Understand: I am indulging him. I am not naturally indulgent. I need very little excuse to reconsider."
Inside, he warns Zerxus, I will return you now. But if he keeps trying to play stupid games, we'll leave.
Before Asmodeus has time to respond, Kahl puts Zerxus into the other chair.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
There's an edge of uncertainty to that, but Zerxus understands the moment he's staring up at Asmodeus.
"You son of a bitch." He growls it in the lowest form of Infernal, blunt and harsh. "All this time - "
"How much time is that, if you don't mind?" Still playing at being polite, then. Still keeping his temper in check. Fine.
"Around a decade."
"...That's all?" It looks like genuine surprise. "Fascinating. You don't even know what Aeor is up to."
"Aeor?" He's still pissed off, but it recedes in favour of sheer bewilderment. "...Did you get yourself killed fighting Ae - " The devil's eyes burn, and the air in Zerxus's lungs evaporates.
"I'm being extremely tolerant, in my opinion." He's addressing Kahl, now; his voice remains low and smooth, but the words are clipped.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
It's the first real emotion Kahl has shown in this conversation, and that emotion is bewildered teenage dismissal.
"I don't care about your opinion, though." He says it - not slowly, but just a little bit more enunciated than normal. Not that Asmodeus might be a bit dim, but - well. That he might have spent so long surrounded by servants and sycophants and marks, all desperately wanting something, even if only to be passed over - that he may have overlooked the possibility.
Recent events notwithstanding.
"Tolerate it or don't. If you won't, we'll leave."
Zerxus spent a lifetime trying to make himself an open hand. But Kahl doesn't care about persuading anyone, most of the time. By the time vengeance is needed, persuasion has long since failed. He won't be drawn into arguing with Asmodeus about what's acceptable: there is only what each of them will, and will not accept.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
It distracts him enough that Zerxus can gasp in a breath, and he almost chokes on it as he trembles - but alas, even this isn't a source of satisfaction.
He's trembling with laughter.
The answering growl is pure petulance in his ears, and it almost makes him laugh harder, but he's able to control himself and catch his breath, shaking his head. "Sorry. ...Well, no, I'm not."
Flatly, eyes blazing, "Your honestly is noted."
Zerxus has grinned up at him before, usually with blood in his teeth, but this is different. This is broad and bright and downright fond.
"You're ridiculous, and he isn't impressed with you, and you have no idea what to do with it." Mortals are too far beneath him for that sort of thing to matter, and his siblings are too caught up in the epic tragedy of their history.
"Maybe you should think about having a real conversation."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
At the same moment, he shoves with his will - strengthened by petulance - and pushes Asmodeus's influence away in a circle around them both, for about a foot out.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
"Really." Asmodeus is quite literally fuming; the air ripples in a haze around him, and his hair is a river of flame. "Are those precious moments of reprieve enough, now that I don't wear your husband's face? Do you want to hear how I died, or shall I just - "
"Stop it, Asmodeus." It's a different tone, of course, grimly intent, but the quiet confidence remains. "You don't have to manipulate me into mourning you."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
"Everyone I've ever loved hates you, I've made my peace with that." He won't insults Kahl by breaching the sphere of his protection, but he stands up and reaches a hand right to the edge of it.
"Tell me what happened to you. Tell me how to stop it."
"That will hardly help me." It's the answer that Zerxus expected, but what he didn't is the slightest, strangest catch to the words. The future of another Exandria means nothing to him, but he still wants it to change.
What does that mean? What does that tell him, beyond any convenient half-truths?
"The wizards of Aeor are forging a weapon to kill the gods."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
If you want to hug him or whatever I don't care, Kahl tells Zerxus, silently. Kahl doesn't, actually, hate him. He just recognizes that circumstance - namely, the circumstance of Kahl having every intention of stealing his whipping boy - has made them enemies, and he doesn't have a reason to indulge Asmodeus playing games designed for him to win. But he doesn't hate him.
I'll let you if he can bring himself not to burn you. Just the same as with the faces.
He doesn't say it aloud, though. Kahl doesn't want to interrupt Asmodeus actually getting past brooding and mantling enough to explain anything of substance. He draws his knees up in his chair. It makes him look smaller, more childish, even though he hasn't changed his form's appearance. He fades into the background in a way that should be utterly bizarre for a god to do; it's like he's not even there.
Possibly, Asmodeus still has enough connection to Zerxus to spy on thoughts. In which case, he will at least understand the terms without having to go through the dance again of being affronted at Kahl having any.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
I doubt he can. Zerxus would still do it, but he cares more about respecting Kahl's wishes than denying his own pain.
"And he calls me ridiculous." For the first time, there's nothing artful in the way he speaks; it's not loftily imperious or disarmingly tender. It's just quietly, wearily earnest.
Asmodeus rises, but the fire flickers and fades. "You love too easily, Zerxus."
Before Zerxus can even begin to process that that, "We called a truce, the Betrayers and the 'Prime Deities', so that we could infiltrate Aeor together. The only way to breach their defences was to become mortals."
He could never comprehend a process like that, and so doesn't try. What he's focused on are the broader implications, the pieces finally grinding painfully into place. "...All of you?"
"Most of us."
Zerxus sits down, heavily, and swallows hard. "They - those fucking idiots, did they even think - "
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
And given the gods' response, clearly they had. Kahl rather wants to cheer them them all.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Asmodeus steps forward, before inclining his head at Kahl.
"You have my word that I will not harm him."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
"If you spoke in the language of truth, your tongue would split your head," Kahl breathes, a quiet whisper that rolls out of him like - like light shining behind the world, casting sharp shadows that betray the true shapes of all things. The Godstongue Kahl speaks - the one the scriveners crib a few dead static words from, to make every scrap of mortal magic in that world go - is the langue of making what is real.
He can feel the thin pressure of the Narrenschiff, the box around him that will not let itself be interfered with, but within it, they are all only matter and energy and process and soul, and all things ordered and dissolving can be dissolved and re-ordered, re-described, re-named, if named in the Godstongue. But he says nothing that is not already true, so it takes no power from him, to force the world into the shape he has spoken.
Asmodeus is hurting Zerxus at every moment. But Kahl does not say that in the Godstongue, lest he curse them both, and bind the strength of his speech to the fact of it.
And then he is not speaking the universe anymore, and the edges of him no longer picked out in silhouette; he is not a mad child who has gone from prison to prison to prison, a vengeance that will be forever unsatisfied, all his tragedy and erratic strangeness illuminated in the harshness of truth shining from his own mouth. He is only a scrawny red-headed teenager again, with no trappings of visible power apart from his life-green poison eyes.
"But I know what you meant," he mutters in common, looking away.
He's still paying attention, of course. Asmodeus's word means nothing to him at all. But he will accept it as a sign of intent for the next minute, the next seconds, even if it is only intent to bring harm in a different way than the ones Kahl has forbidden. And Kahl doesn't want to be looking with his regular eyes if they're going to kiss or something.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Asmodeus is not, in this moment, Asmodeus. He is a shimmering blue flame, crackling playfully; he is a thousand beautiful fireworks; he is a blazing seed of possibility, full of wonder and joy. Then he is real, and he is beautiful still but he is burning, the flowing mane of copper-bright hair catching fire and hardening into two spikes that spiral back around his ears.
It is real, but it is not now; he doesn't need to sink to the floor in the wake of it, gasping and shuddering as his form ripples again. (Not Evandrin, no, but younger than the last, both less human and more vulnerable.) It was a truly galling level of exposure, but there's no need not to take advantage of it.
Zerxus, in that moment, felt the seething contradiction of his nature more keenly than ever before; he looked almost molten, ever-shifting and shot through with cracks of starlight, flexing wings of flame. It leaves him stunned and breathless and aching, but that doesn't stop him from rushing forward. There's no hesitation in kneeling down and reaching out, even now after everything.
It is a lie, when Asmodeus accepts the compassion, but perhaps not as fully as the first time.
"I saved us, then. I couldn't do it again."
"We'll find a - " Zerxus's voice almost breaks, but he does stop himself from promising too much. He doesn't expect it to be taken well.
Asmodeus laughs, wry and soft. "He is teaching you something. Well done, godling."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Vivid and overwhelming and familiar and ordinary, like thumbing the smooth smallness of a worry stone with your whole heart in your throat. Kahl hates Asmodeus exactly the same way he hates everyone else, the way that's just envy when you scratch the paint.
He was never unlimited potential. That is the province of the Maelstrom - and mortals, in their way. Kahl was born, formless and unknowing, but already, his nature was waiting for him, already, he was placed in the grey hole. The closest he ever got to it was when the God Mask was eating through the top layers of his face, rendering him down into new potential, chewing him up to spit back out.
Kahl has never had an us worth saving. His mother, his lying father, his hordes of useless clueless brothers and sisters. Could he have met them in secret? Could he have told his name to Lil, or Kitr, or Nsana, or Nemmer? Role? But none of them would have protected him from Yeine and Nahadoth, not the lady of mercy, not even the lady of secrets. He had felt her hunting him, in fact.
Even on the barge, people flicker past like dragonflies, with only a fraction of even a mortal's lifetime before they slip away again. Porthos, Nokov - Nokov, who was a god, who was perfect and endless night, gone back to his death like a stone sinking into water. Harry gone to his perfect life, satisfied with a single blessing, relieved not to see Kahl again.
Astarion, who does not want the aid of gods, Dark Urge who still loves his useless father, Corvo who didn't even want to say his name. Kahl leaves no more mark on them than a rat scratching at the door. Jamie won't stay, either, even though he's held Kahl, has opened the door and fed him scraps. Zerxus thinks he'll stay, but Zerxus is here, not making promises, because he's been someone else's all along, and Kahl always knew it.
He hates Asmodeus for being such an ungrateful, spoiled brat who doesn't even know that a gift it is, to have family that would fight you instead of putting you down in a day like a rabid animal, and with less mourning.
He wants Nadia back, with a soul-deep howling longing, Nadia who didn't want anything from him as a god, the only sibling who ever knew his name, his human half-sister who brought him candy and read him books and brushed his hair, in another crushed childhood trapped in another tiny, drab, sunless place, a life that never was, his sister for only six dreaming days.
He wants it so badly his form starts warping, not with the smooth, instant shifting of his deliberate changes. He stretches and twists like taffy, the world bubbling and contorting around him. He's younger, too, although not as young as when Zerxus tried to help him escape, ten or eleven, his hair long and voraciously curly, his legs a twisted mass beneath him that's hard to look at directly.
He wants to scream; he wants to cry; he wants to claw Asmodeus's stupid faces until he hasn't any left. He wants to disappear into the dark.
He doesn't do any of those things, though.
"Someone has to do it, apparently," he chokes out, voice thick with everything he does not give voice, everything that has no place here.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
When Zerxus stands Asmodeus grasps wrist, but doesn't hold onto him when he moves away; claws scrape against his pulse without leaving a mark. Turning his back on the devil is dangerous, but he's done it before.
"Kahl." His voice is soft and steady, as he crouches down in front of the god who never betrayed him, never caged or wrecked or condemned him. "I'm here. I'm here, and I will do everything in my power not to leave you."
Behind him, there's a huff of laughter that borders on a growl. "You finally found your lost child. Congratulations."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
But he does own them.
He traces the line of one curling horn with delicate fingertips. The creature he was in that world would find them beautiful, he knows. His eyes are often slit-pupilled, but now they shine with a proper tapetum lucidum, reflecting Asmodeus's glow back, color changed.
"I am more like him than either of you yet imagine," he warns, voice soft and low, the quiet after a scream cut short. "Nothing's changed, just because I've had my nose rubbed in how much he doesn't know how lucky he is. You wanted this conversation, so have it."
He supposes he should be manipulative in turn, use his pain to cut it short, demand attention, complete a swift extraction. But that doesn't solve the problem of Zerxus wanting to listen to him. So Kahl will put his rage and pain aside, after the first moment of fervent longing. He is patient. He will wait.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Who, at this moment, mutters, "At least I'm not the only one forced to listen to that."
Zerxus rolls his eyes before reaching out to squeeze Kahl's hand. Thank you. I love you.
When he rises, so does Asmodeus; they step forward and meet in the middle, facing each other. As always, Zerxus needs to look up. "I won't give you any more power over me than you already have. But I'll do my best to put you in a better position."
"On your boat, I suppose? Where I can earn my redemption?" His golden eyes gleam with vicious disdain, tail lashing behind him like an angry cat's.
Zerxus shrugs, and crosses his arms. "Take it or leave it."
They both know that Asmodeus is too arrogant to think he can't outwit the Admiral; the curt nod is all but inevitable. "Tell me if there's anything you need from me, beyond what I've already promised."
"I would really appreciate it if you didn't harm anyone else either, but we've been there before." It's also inevitable that the smugly satisfied grin makes Zerxus want to either shatter his fangs or -
He steps back, swallowing hard as his arm fall to his sides. With a nod to Kahl, "We can go." Before he can actually turn away, though, Asmodeus waves a hand and Zerxus feels the chains turning molten and fusing together, fabric stretching and tearing and mending itself. At first it's a relief - maybe he'll be in armour again, or at least a gambeson, or -
Then he looks down.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
He wouldn't sit still to listen to them otherwise. Asmodeus certainly doesn't have to, either, the big fat liar. They're having another whole moment, though, so he keeps it to himself.
When the outfit changes, Kahl hiccups for a moment, then cackles with laughter. He jumps onto Zerxus's shoulder as a tiny orange kitten, claws digging lightly into his skin, and nuzzles his ear, still snickering.
"From the bottom of my heart, you deserve this," the Lord of Vengeance tells him.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
"I only had so much to work with, you understand." Asmodeus reaches forward and taps the ruby at Zerxus's throat. (He left both necklaces alone; he always does, and Zerxus knows it isn't a kindness but he isn't sure what that leaves.) "Go on, then - mingle, learn, make your plans."
Between one heartbeat and the next he's back on his armchair, one leg crossed over the other. "I'll be here."
He'll be doing a lot more than that, but Zerxus nods; he believes they're on the same page, working towards the same goal. He believes that Asmodeus means that promise, at least for now; he tends stand by his actual word, to the letter if not the spirit, and I will not harm him is pretty basic.
Zerxus could, perhaps, stand to be more imaginative.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
"Go on," Kahl echoes, jumping down from Zerxus's shoulder, flowing into the tiger in the air, landing in silence. "I want to say one more thing to him, god to god. I promise it won't be stupid posturing."
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One