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Realms Converge	By : Candice Category: +G through L > Legacy of Kain Views: 3562 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Legacy of Kain, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.Don't get to Nosgoth itself til chap 5

Chapter List
- 54
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- 56
another one up! love you all!
Chapter Fifty-Five: Unwinding the Paradox...
*Multi POV. Raziel/Kain, starting with Raziel.*
Raziel felt a flash of annoyance at Katrina's words. An emotion that was swiftly suppressed. The desire to snap at her was contained by necessity more than anything else. Young as she was and despite the time that they knew that she'd spent on Gaia, his Sire yet acknowledged her as Queen and Empress. The older male had been quite firm on the subject. Still... the desire to make the attempt to affirm his own status as Alpha and Eldar had been at the edge of his mind since her return. This was especially true when one realized that she was not in any danger at this point in time, that he'd not made any erroneous blunders by making assumptions and she was not in a state of grief-rage.
Raziel glanced briefly up to meet Kain's gaze where he stood behind Lady Katrina. The Eldar's shuttered gaze almost, almost, made Raziel wince and he leashed the natural instinct firmly. Kain would not appreciate him attempting to test his Lady, especially now. No. They needed to focus on testing his Lady's idea. He took a slow, unnecessary breath and then let it out.
A larger reason behind his current mood was due to his unease. He knew that. Acknowledged it. That his Lady might have the answer to his current quandary was... Raziel found that he didn't have the words to explain, even in his own mind. All he knew was that both he and Kain had been tense upon her announcement. Kain might have his emotions hidden by his usual, inscrutable expression, but Raziel knew his Sire's moods well. If this plan did not work, he would rage. The too calm bearing was merely a sign of the calm before a potential thunder and lightning storm.
Raziel watched as she turned more toward his Sire, hand lifting up to brush the Eldar's jawline. At least his Lady had also cottoned on to the taller male's mood. Raziel turned away from the pair, rather than watch her as she tried to calm or reassure his Sire. He closed his eyes, reached into his mind and simply 'let go' of the Physical Realm similar to how one might let go of a rope or line. A roiling sensation filled him. It felt as if the world itself was twisting and shifting about him. Similar, yet dissimilar, to the roiling movements of an earthquake. In truth, the sensation grew when his eyes were open and he could see the world twist, turn and distort as he shifted into the Spectral Realm.
It was not a pleasant sensation by any means. And it was always made worse by the cold impression of helpless dread that seemed to permeate the entirety of the Spectral Realm. Souls wailed in the distance. Thankfully, none of them seemed to be close by from the sound of it. If any were on the plateau itself, they would not be quiet about it. No, it was the sluagh who were the silent denizens of the Spectral Realm.
Raziel opened his eyes swiftly when the sensation of roiling faded. He looked about for any enemies, carefully examining the few boulders and outcroppings that were on this end of things. He did not want to be attacked mid-process of whatever it was that Lady Katrina had come up with. He nodded when he found the area clear of potential threat and then carefully examined the placement of the three portals that led back to the Physical Realm. He nodded to himself when he found no obstructions and then used the portal in the middle to traverse back.
Back in the Physical Realm, Kain stood passive and imposing as Raziel set about his task. He felt grateful that his Little One refrained from speaking as they waited for the results of Raziel's scouting. He was not in the mood for 'small talk'. Not even to find out more of what she had been doing whilst on Gaia. He eyed her form discreetly as she turned to face him and took in the additional silver amongst the seemingly blood-stained feathers. He idly wondered if the silver would spread out over the feathers in full or if her Half-blood nature would translate to a permanent reminder of the torment that she had endured in her youth. On the one hand, he hoped for the former as he did not want any lingering mark of her tormentor to remain upon her person. On the other hand, he hoped for the later as the marks of one's youth were signs of trials overcome and battles won.
He shook off his thoughts as the body that lay near where Raziel had disappeared from sight starting to jerk and writhe. He and Katrina watched as Raziel reformed.
It was a foul-looking process in truth. Kain was easily able to suppress the grimace that tried to cross his face and noticed his Little One gave a near-to-visible flinch. She would never have seen this transition in its' full, gory detail. And it was rather ghastly. The body twitched and jerked upwards, like a puppet that was being directed about by the hands of a child. The limbs flailed briefly before the bodies hands moved toward the chest cavity. Said chest was then ripped open and bits of the corpse flew outwards like a small explosion had gone off from within. Only in this instance, rather than an explosive of some sort actually having been used to create such macabre dross, Raziel's vampiric form burst forth from the body and stumbled forwards a few steps. The whole process only took a few moments time.
From the slightly pale, well... far more pale then her usual fair-skinned pallor allowed for, expression, even a thousand years of life had not rendered her immune to such a sight as Raziel's form bursting forth from a corpse.
He noted with approval that her disgust with the sight was swiftly set aside for a more general expression of uneasy acceptance well before Raziel had the chance to properly orient himself. Kain reached out a moment later to brush a knuckle over the bend of her right wing. She glanced up at him with a blink, her gaze almost wary. He noted with a small pang of regret that she did not automatically lean into his touch like she used to. Not unsurprising, but still somewhat disappointing. Still... it was as if she was not expecting anything from him and that each subsequent touch was a pleasant surprise.
"What is the next step of your plan mine own?" he asked as he noted her reactions for later.
"Mmnh," she looked at Raziel, gaze intent. "You just... what, jump right through the portal to this side?"
"Yes, My Lady," Raziel answered.
Kain nodded to himself at his First's now level tone. His Raziel's attitude had been bordering on challenging since shortly after his Little One's return. That the dark-haired vampire had reigned in on his temper was a testament to his willpower. He turned back to look at Katrina, knuckle still trailing over the bend of her wing.
"This time don't," she ordered in a firm tone.
"My Lady?" brief confusion flitted across Raziel's face and Kain had to admit, at least to himself, that he was also confused by her order.
"Focus on the Soul Reaver," she said as she indicated the arm that the wraith blade was bound to. "Extend the blade, then thrust the blade itself into the portal. Do not follow, even if you feel the pull to do so. If I am right... if Cu's calculations are right..."
She fell silent. Her face showed a mixture of bemusement and pensiveness as Kain and Raziel had pinned her with expressions of equal incredulity. It was preposterous. Inconceivable. Far too simple an answer to the problem that Kain had spent millennia trying to solve.
It was...
It could not...
It...
It makes a twisted and convoluted amount of sense, Kain thought to himself and he knew by Raziel's expression that his thoughts had reached the same conclusion.
"There was never anything that I could do to truly solve the puzzle..." Kain started.
"Because it was neither something that you could do nor something that you could see," Raziel finished with a note of awe in his tone. "You cannot see into the Spectral Realm using the Chronoplast..."
"No, I cannot," Kain said in confirmation.
The two shared a brief, searching look before Raziel nodded his head resolutely. He squared his shoulders and faded from sight once more.
Raziel had no heart, nor any internal organs really, whilst in his Wraith form. Yet he knew that if he had, his heart would be pounding. Even with the fearful excitement bubbling over in his mind, his approach toward the next portal was agonizingly slow. Similar to a hunter's gate as one approached dangerous prey. He stopped in front of the portal and called the wraith-blade, his Eldar-self, to hand. He looked the writhing ethereal blade over slowly. This parasitical... no, symbiotic, existence that had been on his arm. A position that he would find himself in eventually but...
Hope.
Kain was right. It left such a bitter-sweet taste upon the tongue.
Rather than prolong the wait, he dug the talons of his feet into the ground and stabbed the blade forward. For a moment he thought to pray... to any deity that had ever existed in truth. To his Sire. To Lady Katrina. To Nosgoth itself... let this work...
That thought disappeared into dust nary a second later as pain abruptly tore through his body and he screamed.
It was pain like the fires the Sarafan had used when they had managed to briefly catch him unawares as a head-strong fledgling who'd thought himself too fast, too nimble to be caught by pitifully slow humans...
It was pain like the bull-whip that he had faced when his failure to attend to his duties properly had nearly gotten Rahab killed when he had first developed his talons and felt that he had been above such duties as Kain's First...
It was pain like the whirl-wind of agony that had assaulted him when he had been thrown into the abyss and felt the burning-cold kiss of the water's acidic bite upon his unprotected, un-dead flesh...
It was all of that and more.
Raziel thought for a brief moment that he might go mad in truth... he thought to either pull back to stop the pain or perhaps to leap forward and through the portal to the other side...
He...
And just like that, the pain stopped and the portal was gone. Closed.
He realized dimly that he had fallen to his knees at one point. He stared blankly at the spot where the portal had been and did not move for several long moments. He looked down at his right where the Wraith blade had been and tried to summon it to his hand. Nothing. He felt nothing there at all. He scrambled to his feet, all shreds of dignity briefly forgotten in his haste to reach and leap through the remaining portal that led to the Physical Realm...
As he did so, Kain let his hand fall to rest on his Little One's shoulder. His grasp was near to painfully tight as the pair watched as the corpse to their left had started to writhe violently about. He noticed her face twist in a momentary discomfort but could not bring himself to release his grasp. Her hand closed about his own and he appreciated the touch as this was not the previous, rapid transition that had taken seconds. This... reshaping... seemed a slow and nigh on torturous change, especially given the wretched sounds that issued from the forms throat.
Human flesh seemed to slough away to reveal the vampiric form hidden within. Wings snapped upwards, sending liquefied viscera flying before they fell limp against the ground. Claws scrambled weakly against the ground as the vampiric form tried to push itself up. The attempts at standing, or at least sitting up, failed and the form fell against the ground with a weakened groan of sound. The second corpse not twenty feet away writhed briefly as the younger Raziel burst free. The younger male stumbled a bit, but did not look quite as out of sorts as the Eldar...
Kain and his Little One let out echoing sounds of pure relief at the sight of two Raziel's...
When Katrina started to move toward the Eldar of the two when the male made no other signs of movement, Kain corrected her path with a gentle push to her shoulder. He indicated the younger version of his First Lieutenant. She spared him a brief glance but moved toward said version of Raziel, who had collapsed to one knee and showed obvious signs of weariness and lingering pain. Kain nodded to himself as he moved toward the Eldar of the two. Best that he deal with the Eldar. If blood-hunger consumed the Eldar Raziel, then Kain would be the only one capable of physically subduing the male.
He knelt next to the male carefully and reached out to brush back a few sweat-slicked strands of hair from the other male's face. He was not much surprised to find his wrist abruptly caught in Raziel's taloned grasp seconds before he could touch the prostrate form. Kain let out a small grunt of pain when that grasp was soon followed up by a rough tug at his soul. The sensation faded almost immediately, barely lasting more than a second and Eldar Raziel turned his head to blink bleary, pale-blue eyes up at his Sire. His mouth worked silently for several moments before he finally found his voice.
"Kain...?" confusion and disorientation rang clearly through the male's voice.
It was as if he had woken from a long series of fever dreams. Some pleasant. Some horrifying. Some merely strange. His eyes cleared slowly and he stared up into his Sire's face. He glanced to the side and saw his Lady standing next to his younger self and he let out a weak chuckle. Exhaustion hit him hard a second later and his head thudded into the ground. He did not feel the pain. The sweet, blessed pull of dreamless slumber called to him and he accepted the siren call of it without a fight.
Kain let out a small hiss of concern and swiftly examined the now-unconscious male's form. He took in the sound of the sluggish, nearly stopped flow of thick blood that moved without the heart and the sheen of sweat that had gathered upon Eldar' Raziel's brow. As Kain continued to examine his form, he began to relax a millimeter at a time. It was nothing more than a recovery sleep. Similar to a torpor, but not as debilitating and time consuming. Though he could not tell just how long the dark-haired vampire would be unconscious. He looked over his shoulder and watched his Little One as she helped the younger male to his feet.
"Come," Kain said in a commanding tone. "I will teleport us to my retreat."
"Is... will he be alright?" Katrina asked in a concerned tone.
"Yes. He merely needs blood and rest. Though I must confess that I do not know for how long he might slumber," Kain muttered, faintly perturbed by the lack of knowledge.
Raziel and his Little One, his brilliant Little Empress, started over to his side. Raziel stumbled and nearly fell forward, wings fanning outward in an attempt to help him stabilize and regain balance. Kain started to rise but Katrina was there to catch the younger Reaver-Vampire before he could land face first in the dirt. She looked him over in concern and Kain stood, the Eldar Raziel tucked under one arm.
"Are you hurt?" she asked. "Drained?"
"Mostly drained My Lady..." Raziel murmured softly as he eyed his Eldar-self and he steadied himself enough to stand on his own. Though Kain noticed that he did not shake off Katrina's hand. "The... 'separation' was painful on both sides. I do not relish the idea of experiencing the separation from the opposite end of the spectrum..."
"I... imagine not," his Little One said and she offered a faint smile as they reached Kain's side. "Your retreat?"
"The mountain Retreat," Kain offered in clarification. She would be used to the one in Coorhagen, "South-East of Dark Eden. Several families of loyal human servants tend to the Retreat even now."
"Ah," she responded simply and then winced. "Zealots?"
"No," he said with a soothing rumble. "I cannot stand such blathering in my own home. They know their duties and perform them admirably, but they are more kin to noble families that are allowed to live on and tend to my estate than zealots."
"Hn," she shrugged and then placed her hand upon his shoulder.
The younger Raziel mirrored her a moment later. When no more questions were forthcoming, he wrapped his teleportation magics around them all and transported them to his retreat without further word.
*POV Change: Katrina*
Ah... even now I dislike travelling via teleportation, I thought to myself as we solidified elsewhere.
I blinked several times as I through off the disorientation caused by such means of transportation. I looked around the equally opulent yet spartan style of the main hall that Kain had teleported us to. Raziel moved without word to tug at a rope even as Kain moved purposefully down the hall and toward a large stairwell. A bell rang somewhere in the distance and I tilted my head at the sudden sounds of activity. Raziel bowed his head at me and then indicated the direction that Kain had gone. I nodded my head and started the same way. He fell into step to my left.
"The servants will swiftly prepare refreshments for us and will be ready to serve as needed," he said in answer of my silent question. He looked tired, if somewhat elated, and our earlier near-confrontation seemed to have fallen by the wayside. A moment later he let out a hum of breath. "If I may be so bold as to make an observation My Lady?"
I let out an amused huff of breath.
"You may," I said.
"You seem somewhat... guarded," he said and I noticed the side-eyed look he shot my way.
"Mmm," I chuckled outright and my wings twitched against my shoulders. "I supposed I am at that."
"Should you not be pleased that your plan worked?" he asked.
"I am," I responded, a smile still on my lips. "Believe me, I am very pleased."
"And yet...?" he prompted. His tone was that of one fully willing to drop the subject if I but gave the word.
"And yet," I repeated with another chuckle. I knew my smile did not quite reach my eyes. "I am worried. Your Eldar-self did not have an easy time... mmmnh... 'reforming' in the Physical Realm."
"I am sur-" Raziel started, only to be cut off by Kain's voice in the distance.
"Katrina!" it sounded like he had ducked into one of the rooms in front of us and I started for the room that his voice had issued from. "I need you here Mine Own."
I paused long enough to share a concerned look with Raziel and then quickened my pace. I slipped into the room that Kain's voice had originated from and ignored the luxurious furnishings as I moved to his side. The Eldar Raziel had been laid upon the large bed. He was on his side, wings spread out behind him, his limbs all limp against the sheets. He was nigh as still as the true dead save for the movement of his eyes. Kain was bent over him, one knee braced upon the bed. He held out his hand to me and I placed my smaller one in his. He pulled me to where I was sitting close to Eldar Raziel's unconscious form. The younger Raziel stayed by the doorway.
"What do you need from me?" I asked softly as I reached to touch the dark-haired male's hair.
"We confirmed that the recovery process for vampires does parallel Gaia's," Kain started, his gaze intent on my own. "As such, all servants here have my own 'blood type'."
"O-negative," I said with a knowing nod. "Understandable that you would try to cultivate a few bloodlines so. I take it that O-negative is however not the best to help speed his recovery? And from your reaction he is B-negative like myself?"
"Correct," he answered with a nod.
"Can I not simpl-?" Raziel started.
"No," Kain and I cut him off at the same time. Raziel fell silent under our combined gaze, though his brows flew upwards in confusion. I smiled at him.
"Raziel," I started. I kept my tone soothing in an effort to dim the sting of our snapping tone. "Previous interactions with 'yourself' tend to have off results, if I recall correctly. Let us not tempt things further, yes?"
"As you wish My Lady," Raziel acknowledged with a nod of his head. He remained by the doorway.
Kain and I turned back to his Elder-self. After a few moments of silent examination, Kain let out a huff of breath.
"By the feel of his Aura, he will be unable to actively feed at this time," Kain murmured to me. "I will need to assist him."
"That's fine. I'll open a vein and share my blood with him. I assume that you will massage his throat in order to help him swallow?" I asked in a clarifying tone.
"Precisely," a small amount of tension left Kain's shoulders at my easy understanding of the situation.
I nodded my head and then eased further up onto the bed so that I could place Eldar Raziel's head him my lap. Kain tilted the dark-haired vampire's head back and opened his mouth wide. I cut length-wise into my wrist and held the bleeding wound over the open mouth. The wound had healed by the time that my blood had welled up within his mouth to the edge of his lips. I waited and watched silently as Kain began to massage at his throat in order to force him to swallow the life-giving fluid. At Kain's nod, I repeated the process.
This continued for several more minutes before Kain signaled for me to cease. He then cut into his own wrist and allowed his own, potent Eldar-blood to pool into the unconscious form's mouth. This time I was the one to massage at his throat to help him swallow. Another several minutes passed along those lines before Kain pulled back and he allowed his wrist to heal. I watched silently as he brushed Raziel's hair back in a gesture full of fondness and frustration both. I smiled faintly and then tilted my head as Kain stood and backed away from the bed. He helped me to my feet, expression blanked once more of emotion. I narrowed my eyes on him. Even through the Mark's I could not properly sense his emotions beyond that they were a jumbled, roiling mess.
"Let us adjourn and obtain refreshments," he rumbled softly as he started for the door. "Then we can discuss our next move."
"That is... agreeable," I responded with a shrug and a nod.
"Come along my Raziel," Kain ordered as he moved past the younger version. "Your Eldar-self will likely remain in this state for several days if not longer. There is naught to do but wait in that regard."
"As you will Kain," Raziel inclined his head as his Sire walked past him.
He waited for me to follow Kain and move toward the silver-haired vampires side. He then fell in step a pace behind Kain on the opposite side. Thankfully, the halls of the retreat were large enough for us to walk so without being crowded too close.
Kain led us to a large and spacious library, larger by far that the one that had been in Vorador's mansion back when he resided in the Termogent Forest. I took in the thick, musty scent of old books well-cared for and let out a soft sigh of content. Old paper books, while pleasing, had a very different scent compared to books made with parchment. Still, the two different scents brought back fond memories for me and I found myself relaxing. I had not realized that I was so tense...
I noticed that servants had entered the room at some point and had carefully laid out a tray with a pitcher of blood-wine and three ornate, silver goblets. Raziel made to poor blood-wine for each of us but halted when Kain raised a hand. He flicked one talon and a rope at the other side of the room was tugged via telekinetic energies. A bell rang in the distance.
"Something more substantial than blood-wine first my Raziel," Kain rumbled as he sat down regally in a finely wrought chair with plush, feather-filled cushions. "Come here, my Katrina."
I tilted my head questioningly but moved to his side a moment later. He caught my arm in his hand when I made no further move beyond that and tugged my down gently to where I could sit upon his lap. I let out a bemused huff of breath at the near-proprietary action but allowed it none-the-less. It was simply his way. A casualness born of being the ruler of all for untold centuries. Even in the midst of wartime, he remained calm, commanding and coldly fair. It had always been a point of relief for me that he had always held to his own code of honor. I had never been forced to do something that I, in good conscience, could not do. From what I could feel through our shared Marks, that had not changed and I relaxed against him slowly.
He began to lightly card his talons through my hair, shifting the strands in his grasp here and there when he noticed the additional silver. My wings twitched against my shoulders in response to the gentle pleasure and I relaxed further still. The twitching drew his attention to said limbs and I let out a soft purring noise as he scratched lightly along the bend of my right wing where it lay hooked over my shoulder.
"Will they continue to silver so as you go through additional torpors My Lady?" Raziel asked as he moved a little closer, clearing allowing us space but also obviously curious now that we had a few moments of quiet after the successful venture.
My eyes had fallen partially shut at the gentle, exploratory touches and I blinked them open. It took a moment for me to register the question. I glanced at Kain. His expression was indecipherable however. A clear sign that he was leaving the choice to offer up the information I was willing to share with either of them. A hum of sound escaped me as I turned to look at his favored Lieutenant.
"Yes actually," I responded. "Another two or three Torpors should see them near-to-fully silvered."
"Only 'near-to'?" he asked as he eyed the wing closest to him.
"Yes," I responded and then extended my left wing out toward him. "You can touch if you'd like. I don't mind it anymore, especially if it's someone I can trust touching them."
"..." Raziel's expression immediately blanked at my words.
Considering both my past and his own, this was as blatant a sign that I could offer that I was willing to trust him. Even with the gaps in my memory, I had the distinct sensation that he'd already done much to help me directly. He took a hesitant step forward and raised his hand with his talons under-curved so that only his knuckles would touch. That hand paused barely an inch from my wing.
"Even without your memories being intact... you would trust me so readily My Lady?" he asked in a soft murmur.
"Hmmm," I tilted my head and then chuckled softly. "It is true that I do not remember meeting you before now. It is also true that I do not know you as Kain does. However, I do believe that some things transcend mere memory. Such as the fact that I am fairly certain at this time that I did not escape from the Sarafan on my own that first time that I had been captured."
Raziel had lightly started to touch my extended wing as I spoke but both he and Kain stilled in surprise as I finished speaking. Kain let out a huff of breath.
"Oh?" he rumbled questioningly. I glanced away from Raziel and noticed that Kain had raised a brow at me. "What led you to such a conclusion dear Katrina?"
"I remember all of the other instances of torture and the events that followed clearly even now," I tapped the side of my head lightly. "Vampiric nature tends to lead to one developing a near-eidetic memory. As my memories of that time are as blurred as the time that I met with Kain at the Pillars and then Kain's visit when I was upset at the loss of the Twins, I have concluded that I had to have met you before and that you were a key player in my escape from Sarafan hands. No other memories are so... 'fuzzy'. Why conceal anything from me unless the memories specifically involved Raziel?"
"Very well reasoned my own," Kain purred and he leaned forward to nip at the edge of the wing closest to him. An echoing purr issued from my throat. "Shall I remove the blocks now?"
"Please do," I responded with a small laugh. "There is no need for the blocks to remain in place at this point."
"Relax against me then," he ordered and I leaned against him, allowing my head to fall against his shoulder as I did so.
His talons moved from my wing up to rest against my temple. The almost physical sensation of a key being placed in a lock and being turned pulsed through me. Memories flooded back into properly alignment and I twitched against him as my eyes slammed shut. It was not quite like actually re-living the moments that had happened, but more like a series of flashbacks similar to those that I had experienced during my early years on Nosgoth. I did not have a true eidetic memory, but it was close enough to the real thing that I found myself letting out an explosive snarl of rage. Only Kain's sudden, iron-like grasp about me kept me in place on his lap.
The memories themselves unlocked from newest to oldest, so I once more felt the impotent rage of the Twin's loss as if it were a freshly opened wound and the bitter conversation that I'd had with Raziel. Next came the pain-filled fear and the frantic panic that had flooded me as I tried to escape from the Sarafan Lordling's room and the relief that it had been Raziel who had found me. The angry helplessness as he aided me in my escape and found nourishment for me when I was unable to fend for myself. The subsequent flight to the cliff's ledge and the comfort that they both had given freely in my weakened state.
That was rapidly followed up by the very amorous events at the Pillars...
To have gone from fiery rage, to violent fear and then abruptly to wild passion was enough of an emotional roller-coaster that I was left briefly stunned and unable to move. Dimly, I could register the fact that Kain and Raziel were talking, but I could not make out their words. My hand twitched and I found that my arm was no longer pinned by a tight hold. I trailed my claws down Kain's chest and over his toned stomach as I sorted through the restored memories. I jerked as I rolled the memories of the events at the Pillars around in my mind. I recognized a sensation amongst the wild pleasure that I had only learned how to perceive over the past few centuries and only learned out of a defensive need to protect myself whilst on Gaia. My hand closed roughly around Kain's crotch and he went still beneath my touch, voice cutting off mid-sentence. His taloned hand closed upon the back of my neck, a firm grip but not punishing. I looked up and met his guarded, yet confused expression. A brow rose in a regal arch, questioning.
"You…" I let out a heavy sigh.
I forced away the burst of anger and betrayal that flooded through me and made myself think. This was not Gaia. The memory was old and the opening spell had been used when I was younger. Nothing had come of it. And yet… I pinned a bemused, yet slightly annoyed look on him. He moved his hand from my neck and wrapped it around my wrist, though he made no move to pull my hand away. Raziel remained silent nearby, eyes wide and wary as he watched us.
"You seemed… upset… for a moment mine own," he rumbled. His talons stroked lightly over my wrist, both in warning and to offer comforting pleasure.
"You cast Vest' on me back at the Pillars," I said and I raised a brow at him. "Why did you take the risk?"
"Ah," he blinked. "I ended the spell when I moved you onto your back mine own. I would not have taken the risk of Quickening you, but I will admit that I wished to fill you completely. Especially after so long without you at my side. I am curious as to why you are upset mine own…?"
I took a slow breath and let it out as I relaxed my grip further still. My hold was no longer painful, punishing, but rather a massaging pressure.
"Consider, if you will, the fact that I have spent many years having to deter unwanted 'advances' and 'results' of said advances," I rumbled in a low voice. "Are you still surprised by my reaction with that in mind?"
"I see," Kain growled and his eyes darkened briefly. "I do hope that you dealt with such fools appropriately?"
"I did," I responded. An odd look passed over his face a moment later.
I let out another sigh and moved to stand. His hand fell away from my wrist and he watched me with a careful expression. Raziel seemed to relax and he held out a goblet to me. By the scent of it, it was freshly drawn blood from one of the human servants that had entered the room at some point as I was recovering from having my memory unlocked. The humans stood off to the side, watching with respectful silent. I took the goblet and gave Raziel a grateful smile. I sipped at the blood thoughtfully. If Kain and I resumed our relationship in full, then I wanted to make sure that he knew that I would not be disinclined… later. I could not sense much over our Marks, he was controlling his emotions too well.
"I had no inclination to pursue such things whilst on Gaia," I said as I turned to face Kain once more. "Nosgoth may prove different."
"I see," he responded. A flicker of amusement passed across his face.
Raziel remained politely confused by his own expression as he looked back and forth between the two of us.
"My Lady?" he said in a questioning tone. I looked at him. "If I may… why were you upset that Kain used the Vest' spell on you?"
I glanced back at Kain and tilted my head. He waved his hand in a 'go ahead' gesture and I nodded. I let out a soft hum and decided to use Raziel's question to ask them one of the questions that I'd brought back with me.
"I'll answer that in a few Raziel," I said and I drained my goblet of blood.
One of the humans, a male, moved forward and I noticed the bracelet upon his wrist. The bracelet was bright red, indicating that he was yet able to donate blood. The female next to him had a bracelet that was more blue than red, meaning that she had been the one to originally donate. I waved the male back and then reached into one of the pouches on my belt. I pulled out a small container. A container that had a small flower stored within in a magical status. A Sakura blossom.
"First though, I have a question for you two," I opened the small container and allowed the pure scent to fill the air. "Have either of you smelled this scent upon a human?"
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Realms Converge