A patter of cool rain stings slightly as it falls on him, trickling down the grooves in his horns, soaking through his hair. It doesn't do him any real harm, but it stings like ocean spray, or vinegar, a faint acid that would sear in any nicks or cuts, except that Kahl's furious healing didn't leave any.
No! That's nice! Be angry! Be bitter and miserable! You're terrible at this.
Kahl's mental voice is earnest and grouchy, a hissing-cat scrape of a sound, rather than real anger. He wants to be the cat, to hold Zerxus inside his heart and be held by him, too. And he's older, in some ways, than he was on the Narrenschiff - there's a soft rustle, and there are birds, or something like birds, smudgy agglomerations of feathers and soot and tar and shadow, fuzzy-edged and smearing, except for steel beaks. They're definitely not ravens; they're smaller, closer to crow size, with crow shaped beaks, crow feet. They settle on him like a blanket of shadow: they aren't really living things, and they aren't Kahl, and they are Kahl, in exactly the same way the stone and the rain are Kahl.
He grins at the rebuke, broad and ragged and fond.
Oh, but he'd hate it so much.
It's argument and acquiescence at once, because with the gentle warmth comes something searing and spiteful too. He'd worry about scorching the crows' talons with his skin, if they were real; instead he can just enjoy the strange shifting weight, and the knowledge that this god hasn't shackled himself into stagnance.
One of the shadow-crows pecks him in the horn with a loud tok; the rain falls harder, in steady plops, running over his skin, warmed by it, stinging like sweat, or tears, implacable and constant, soaking him to the skin despite the heat, soaking him in spite of the soft steaming that ensues, more cold water endlessly raining down.
He's not here, Kahl points out. You don't have to deny your pain just to deprive him anymore. He's already lost it.
Isn't he? It's been difficult, lately, to feel like anything more than an extension of his god's wrath. The moment he thought he could reach for something more, that it was finally time for something, anything, to change for the better -
It's difficult to dig in his heels on that, though, carried away on the steady rhythm of the rain; he can feel it wearing away layers of numb dejection and vicious despair, anguish calcified into callousness.
He won't know I was gone. I hate that, I think. Make him stew in that. Make him wonder if his champion is gone for good, even though he's chosen him so many times, because not everything is in his control.
He wants to destroy everyone who's ever loved him so fucking badly. It's pathetic.
Yes. It's as much a growl as it is a word, as his hands clench against the shuddering stone. For a few moments he just breathes with it, letting Kahl's anger pass through him and meld with his own.
Then, far more softly but no less furious, They're different. It doesn't have to be like that, if they don't let it, if they don't want it. She tried so hard.
Zerxus's anger is his own, just as his pain is his own. In this, it is given to Kahl to champion the anger of others, even as the acid of his nature erodes Zerxus's built-up defenses of callousness and acceptances, giving breath instead to dwelling brooding resentment, and makes all the pain and misery fresh and raw again.
But still, it is his pain, and Kahl will defend his right to feel it with the fierceness of a pouncing predator, will lay a wound open rather than let it rot, hidden and denied.
She? he asks. He is there, in the wind and the stone and the stinging rain. He listens.
Pain is an old friend; validation is something else.
It's not that others have never tried to grant it - Evandrin and Elias are ever radiant with righteous fury on his behalf - but there's always been...a dissonance there, a gap in understanding or acceptance on either side, barriers of guilt and disappointment.
Raei. This is a whisper, and for all that it's frayed with the same heart-stricken fury it resonates with a very different warmth, one that eases his shoulders just slightly. He never would have guessed, before, that gods had nicknames just as so many other siblings do; he never would have thought, of all of them, the Lord of Torment and the Redeeming Light -
She tried to do the same thing I did, but she is redemption. She knew him when he was something else. He told her that he missed her, he told her that he would try.
And the Hell of it is, Zerxus is damned sure that only one of those was a lie.
Kahl is not, in this moment, enraged, aside from passing flares of bitterness, firy comet-tails in the wake of his own stony brittle jealousy. He's not even surprised. Kahl knows what to expect from Hells. He is cold-eyed, if not truly cold-hearted.
Zerxus's anger can have the space and time to emerge, to disentangle from his weariness and pity and defensive pride, precisely because Kahl is not, himself, radiantly angry on his behalf. Kahl is not radiantly angry that Asmodeus has hurt him, or even that Zerxus has continued to let him. He doesn't like it, but he already knows this is what both of them would do; they have not promised him to do anything else. Kahl has not decided in advance which horrors Zerxus ought to be angry about - only that the anger he has deserves the space to burn.
So she was a real threat, Kahl understands, instantly, brutally. She had a real chance, where Zerxus does not, of effecting a change he wished to refuse. And he reacted as he would to a threat.
In other words: yes. He remembers, on the last day of his life, Nydas chiding him for having the wrong priorities, for overstepping in a way that wasn't productive, and backing down in an instant.
(He remembers the cold steel of his brother's blade, so ready to smother the flames if he would just let it - )
In this place, in Kahl's domain, there is no one here to see. In this place, even if the world were here, still no one could tell, as the salt tears mix with the acidic rain already on his face. Here, he can cry, and nothing breaks but him.
The truth of Kahl, the the truth of the world: under fury, pain. One of the brushes against Zerxus's cheek, as soft and dissolute as wood ash. Others gather in his lap, a blanket of velvet and mist.
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No! That's nice! Be angry! Be bitter and miserable! You're terrible at this.
Kahl's mental voice is earnest and grouchy, a hissing-cat scrape of a sound, rather than real anger. He wants to be the cat, to hold Zerxus inside his heart and be held by him, too. And he's older, in some ways, than he was on the Narrenschiff - there's a soft rustle, and there are birds, or something like birds, smudgy agglomerations of feathers and soot and tar and shadow, fuzzy-edged and smearing, except for steel beaks. They're definitely not ravens; they're smaller, closer to crow size, with crow shaped beaks, crow feet. They settle on him like a blanket of shadow: they aren't really living things, and they aren't Kahl, and they are Kahl, in exactly the same way the stone and the rain are Kahl.
no subject
Oh, but he'd hate it so much.
It's argument and acquiescence at once, because with the gentle warmth comes something searing and spiteful too. He'd worry about scorching the crows' talons with his skin, if they were real; instead he can just enjoy the strange shifting weight, and the knowledge that this god hasn't shackled himself into stagnance.
no subject
He's not here, Kahl points out. You don't have to deny your pain just to deprive him anymore. He's already lost it.
no subject
It's difficult to dig in his heels on that, though, carried away on the steady rhythm of the rain; he can feel it wearing away layers of numb dejection and vicious despair, anguish calcified into callousness.
He won't know I was gone. I hate that, I think. Make him stew in that. Make him wonder if his champion is gone for good, even though he's chosen him so many times, because not everything is in his control.
He wants to destroy everyone who's ever loved him so fucking badly. It's pathetic.
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Spoiled, Kahl sneers.
He can't be here, not in me. One of us would have to be dying. All gods are anathema to each other, this close.
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Then, far more softly but no less furious, They're different. It doesn't have to be like that, if they don't let it, if they don't want it. She tried so hard.
no subject
But still, it is his pain, and Kahl will defend his right to feel it with the fierceness of a pouncing predator, will lay a wound open rather than let it rot, hidden and denied.
She? he asks. He is there, in the wind and the stone and the stinging rain. He listens.
no subject
It's not that others have never tried to grant it - Evandrin and Elias are ever radiant with righteous fury on his behalf - but there's always been...a dissonance there, a gap in understanding or acceptance on either side, barriers of guilt and disappointment.
Raei. This is a whisper, and for all that it's frayed with the same heart-stricken fury it resonates with a very different warmth, one that eases his shoulders just slightly. He never would have guessed, before, that gods had nicknames just as so many other siblings do; he never would have thought, of all of them, the Lord of Torment and the Redeeming Light -
She tried to do the same thing I did, but she is redemption. She knew him when he was something else. He told her that he missed her, he told her that he would try.
And the Hell of it is, Zerxus is damned sure that only one of those was a lie.
no subject
Zerxus's anger can have the space and time to emerge, to disentangle from his weariness and pity and defensive pride, precisely because Kahl is not, himself, radiantly angry on his behalf. Kahl is not radiantly angry that Asmodeus has hurt him, or even that Zerxus has continued to let him. He doesn't like it, but he already knows this is what both of them would do; they have not promised him to do anything else. Kahl has not decided in advance which horrors Zerxus ought to be angry about - only that the anger he has deserves the space to burn.
So she was a real threat, Kahl understands, instantly, brutally. She had a real chance, where Zerxus does not, of effecting a change he wished to refuse. And he reacted as he would to a threat.
Interesting.
no subject
In other words: yes. He remembers, on the last day of his life, Nydas chiding him for having the wrong priorities, for overstepping in a way that wasn't productive, and backing down in an instant.
(He remembers the cold steel of his brother's blade, so ready to smother the flames if he would just let it - )
He's not sure when, exactly, he started crying.
no subject
The truth of Kahl, the the truth of the world: under fury, pain. One of the brushes against Zerxus's cheek, as soft and dissolute as wood ash. Others gather in his lap, a blanket of velvet and mist.