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Post by Ossular on Mar 14, 2019 0:02:28 GMT
Orin would look down to Lady Susan's feet as she started to ask her questions. Responding with a small, quiet "you, my Matron" after the Winter Lady brought up each point. Who had helped her control the element of shadows and night? The Winter Lady. Who had let her feed upon any desires she had, no matter how morbid and macabre? The Winter Lady. Who had graced her with gifts? The Winter Lady. Boons? The Winter Lady. Unspeakable power? The Winter Lady. Who had protected Orin from the machinations of the other Fey Courts? Who had given Orin everything she could have ever wanted and more?
Who made her shiver and purr as she spoke her name? Who else made Orin's toes curl in a way that no one ever could? Who had spent the last one-hundred plus one years shaping her into the best version of her? Who made sense in all of this confusion? Who really cared for her. Who would allow her to come back home to the Winter Court after all of this was over? Who else's touch felt so divine to her? Who else would give her everything she had wanted and could ever want? The Mantle of Winter? The power that had been taken from her at the beginning of this quest? Glory and honor through battles so epic and mythic that mortal minds couldn't begin to comprehend them? A palace in which Orin had familiars and minions and followers that treated the woman like a God- it was because she was a deity compared to most everyone else. Who provided all of this for her? Who would forgive her for questioning everything she could have ever wanted? Who, despite the disrespectful nature of the warlock, would provide all of this back to her and more? Undivided attention?
There was only one answer through all of questions that pervaded her mind as the touch of Winter's Kiss drove through her forehead- the Winter Lady. Lady Susan, Queen of Air and Darkness. Through everything, she hadn't resisted, dropping to her knees, head arched back in Lady Susan's delicate, cold touch, lips inches away from her Matron.
So why was something off?
Puppers had misspoken, stating that the Winter Lady had sent him to kill her before he had left her for dead in the ice of his wintry breath. Darious had kissed her forehead as they set up camp for the night, right before the trance. Right as he was trying to charm the eladrin and manipulate her memories. She had to wake up- she had to leave this memory, she needed to breath, and even in the memory she struggled, falling backwards before looking up to the image of Lady Susan in her memories. She wasn't actually here. She was just an image. A thought. A manipulation. A fraud-
Orin's eyes snapped open as she sprung backwards from her spot on the bed. Blankets shot everywhere as the warlock scurried backward, pressing quickly against the wall of her room, her otherwise nude form gasping for breath, exhaling cold clouds of mist and fog and inhaling what felt like boiling water. It pained her for a moment as she looked around the room- No Lady Susan.
But no Citrine, either. She had been here, Orin was sure it was her that had been singing. Quickly looking around the room, Orin would reach down, pulling the blankets up in an effort to produce some amount of heat for herself. "Citrine?" the eladrin would cry out from the bed, not seeing the firebird anywhere.
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Citrine
Approved
6 Wild Blooded Sorcerer+ 1 Celestial Warlock
Posts: 328
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Post by Citrine on Mar 14, 2019 0:16:34 GMT
Shivering, skin almost taking on a translucent blue color, Citrine was in the room. Under the bed, huddled, in the smallest space she could get to. It had struck her completely unawares and sent her reeling back to a place, mentally, she hadn't been in, in years. She was cold. Legitly. Actually cold. Her legs were hiked up into her chest. Her wings were tight around her like a cocoon as she tried to push fire through them - but her heat had been snuffed out. Something had clapped around her, deadening her ears and silencing her song in a single heartbeat. In an instant she'd gone from looking out the window and singing to a cationic mess underneath the bed. There had been more cold seeping out from Orin, a cold intensity she'd not felt for years. She knew exactly who it was, Orin herself had told her so. Lady Susan. The new Winter Lady who'd taken over for Lady Maeve. And though it wasn't the same - the wintergreen that surrounded Orin had been no spearmint, but the cold was the same. Hence her escape to under the bed. It was the only dark small cramped space she could get to, frozen cold like she was. Orin's voice called out from somewhere above her - maybe on top of the bed? And Citrine, like a stuck, injured puppy, would try to whistle out a pitched kree. But it was a pathetic sound that emerged, and not very loud. She tried to shift so her wing shoulder would perhaps hit the bed but she was too cold, too frozen in past memories, all she did was stay curled up and shiver. The last time she'd felt this cold? Citrine's last week in Wonderland, where the name Precious had become a curse and something that sent revulsion and utter fear through her heart, mind, and soul was shared. Lips and eyes sewn shut with polar threads. Pain unimaginable in places so she'd still be kept alive until the 24th hour was up. A death a day, the most unimaginable harm, always ending in the sweet cradle of arms with a dagger in the heart. The conflict of juxtapositions clashing against all the acceptance and.... 'love' ... felt during her last month there. Finally the week ended with a halfing version of Citrine shivering in fear on Maeve’s lap, battle robes worn, as the party entered the throne clearing, experienced the moment of giving up and sharing the spell component, and the feeling of being utterly discarded like rubbish behind the throne – reincarnation ritual stopped halfway through purposefully so the spell wouldn’t be completed -so she would die. Permanently. Alone. Behind a throne where scattered remains of a scarf lay in pieces. The feeling of being absolutely nothing to someone she had thought she loved.
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Post by Ossular on Mar 14, 2019 9:50:34 GMT
The response that Orin got confused her at first. Disregarding the scent of wintergreen to the best of her ability, the eladrin's eyes would dart back and forth from the corner of the room, looking for the origin of the warble. Looking across the room at some reflective surface, she could already tell she was Winter aligned and it frustrated her to some degree. Lady Susan's presence was so potent that it could shift her alignment? Even through her memories?! She'd press her lips together in silent resentment, vexed over her own feelings on the matter.
There would be a slight creek from somewhere- under the bed? "Citrine?" Orin would call out again, shuffling to the edge of the bed before stepping out onto the floor. As she stood, a faint amount of white dust billowed from the blanket she had wrapped herself in, and Orin noticed that the fire had gone out in the mantle across the room. Stepping over toward it, the warlock would snap, but no magic would pour from her hand. No little spark to reignite the fire, as if Lady Susan was punishing her for her disrespect. Orin would close her eyes for a quiet second before looking around the room.
Moving over to her bag, she would dig through it, still wrapped in Citrine's blanket from the bed. Removing a small box and setting it on the table, the eladrin would open her Monster Hunter's kit, a small trunk that unfolded out from itself. She'd withdraw a small vial and her tinderbox before walking back to the fireplace. Shifting the logs, she'd empty the vial of oil before striking the flint and steel several times before the fire roared back against the presence of the cold, a temperature difference that would almost immediately be noticeable.
Lady Susan wasn't here- physically, at least. There would have been no way that could have worked if she were. Looking back over at the bed, the eladrin woman would stand back up. She set the blanket down near the fire before moving over to the bed, kneeling down, and finally seeing Citrine, huddled under the bed. If she had gone through what Orin had went through- what Orin was still going through? The chill of the Winter Lady was most likely a drug that Orin had just reintroduced the phoenix to.
"I- I'm sorry, Citrine," Orin would start, her pale form, her snow white hair and her piercing blue eyes stretching out across the cold floor. She didn't want to admit it, but the cold felt amazing at the moment, given how sore she was. "I- I don't know what to do," the eladrin would mumble. "I'm- I-" Orin would pause. This... this wasn't something that could be replicated, even by a cold shower, no matter what amount of ice one would subject themselves to. It was a whole other level that was inexplicable unless-
"You weren't lying," Orin would murmur, softly. "You- you've been here... where I am before... haven't you?" the warlock had to make sure. She had to. She only had months left, and Citrine was the best lead she had to go on. If it wasn't Citrine... then who in the Nine Hells was she looking for?
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Citrine
Approved
6 Wild Blooded Sorcerer+ 1 Celestial Warlock
Posts: 328
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Post by Citrine on Mar 14, 2019 14:34:30 GMT
Shivering under the bed still, Citrine listened as she held her breath in order to be quiet enough to hear Orin - or at least hear most of what she said. It was mostly mumbled, but she'd been so starved of her voice it wasn't impossible to focus as hard as she was to try and catch her words.
By now the fire that Orin had lit had warmed up enough of the air that Citrine could feel it licking against her back. Shifting, one wing slowly unfurled from its cocooned wrap and slid across the floor to reach for the heat. A few sparks and tongue flames jumped from the mantle to her wingtip - the bright yellow zipping down over the feathers and arcing to sizzle over her back and skin. It warmed her and eased her into calm much quicker than had no fire been lit.
Twisting to now lay on her back, it was a good things he was so small all things considered - it let her fit under the bed like a toddler - Citrine just let the heat and fire wash over her, accompanied by the barely discernable sound of Orin's voice.
That cold, that deep, deep cold, had taken her back to a place she'd thought she'd worked through, gotten over. Recovered from. But you never recovered from cold like that. The still burning cold snowflake on her chest was a pulsing reminder of that.
Her turned her head, lolling it to the side, to see Orin looking under the bed from her prone position. Popping from under the bed to unceremoniously and unashamedly reappear tucked in like a reverse little spoon to Orin's front, Citrine shifted her back to adjust her wings, so they wouldn't get pinched or wedge asleep somewhere. The effort usually would have had her curling her wings around whatever partner she was cuddling with, but right now? They laid there, as rather useless blankets. Her outside might be warm, but the inside was still snuffed good.
"Morin' Cap'n." She chuckled, still rather cold. "Ye trance go sour o' something?" Her words were a bit more breathy than usual, her mind unjumbling from the literal smack in the face she'd felt. It was almost like a longing in her tone, but barely there. Just out of reach of being true longing. But it was a taste of what was once purged clean from her. And part of her? Liked it. The numbness. She hadn't felt truly numb like that in centuries. It was like an alcoholic having just one drink after years sober. A vegetarian sneaking a bite of steak when no one was looking. A junkie clean for decades and thinking 'one hit won't hurt.'
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Post by Ossular on Mar 15, 2019 2:46:58 GMT
Orin would purse her lips as Citrine slowly flopped to her side, facing the Winter-aligned eladrin from her back. There was a quick flurry of mist, and Citrine would be next to her, still tucked under the edge of the bed. She greeted Orin like nothing was actually wrong, and with a slothful amount of effort, the eladrin would reach out, slowing wrapping hands and arms around the smaller avian woman. One arm used as a pillow under Citrine's head, the other arm draped up across Citrine's midsection, Orin would curl, bringing Citrine into her.
"...Something like that," Orin would speak, not sure of what to say. Everything she had said had fallen on deafened ears. She didn't know what to do and a part of her hated that, honestly. Orin would scoot back, and despite the soreness and the confusion, she would pull Citrine out from under the bed. Her strength allowed her to sit up, get up, and move the both of them closer to the fire now, sitting the aarakocra up in the chair before fetching her own bed roll, stopping for a moment at her bag, before returning with the flat mat, unfurling it across the floor, before finally coming to a rest with Citrine in her arms, as they were under the edge of the bed, but closer to the fire's warmth now, with Citrine's wings facing away from the pyre to make sure she wouldn't burn herself.
"I... I figured I could actually sleep for once," Orin would smile faintly before shuffling one more time. She didn't want to meditate. She didn't want to think, to be manipulated. She just... wanted to sort all of this out for herself. Even so, though, in her grip, right past the back of Citrine's head, was a chain necklace wrapped several times around her hand, with a small vile of a capped oil. Her thumb would move back and forth. Even physically tired, sleep wouldn't come easily for the eladrin thanks to her mind running a mile a minute.
If Citrine wasn't able to tell what was in this vile, what would she do? What options would be left for her, especially with the amount of time she had remaining?
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