2019-08-14: Make Haste, Slowly
- Log: Make Haste, Slowly
- Cast: Talia, Seraph Amaranth, Ivan
- Where: Moonflow, the Festina Lente
- Date: 14th August 2019
- Summary: Ammy and Talia have a lovely dinner with Ivan. Unfortunately...
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Once again, Ivan is at the Festina Lente!
Dinner has just finished, which might seem positively domestic. Pasta with tomato sauce and chicken (not, Talia assured everyone, chocobo meat) was served. Talia is in the kitchen, washing the dishes; she puts a stack of freshly-cleaned dishes, sparkling with water, on a towel.
Then, she turns to Ivan and Ammy. She puts her hands on her hips, and nods happily.
"Washing dishes is easy when you have magic, no? It is a thing I am good at." Then she looks at Ammy, and winks -- and a little heart wafts away.
"And the food was perfect, too!"
She seems energetic. More than usual, maybe; it might be (even if he is grumpy) having Ammy and Ivan in the same place, and at least feeling like it went well.
...mostly well. There may have been blips.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Amaranth spent a lot of effort making dinner with both Talia and Ivan! She's looking more cheerful than she has been dwelling on that shinobi outfit, and has freshened up with her usual blue and white dress with the bright red sash. It's Katherine (tm) Look.
"You're super handy with the dishes," Amaranth agrees with a charmed smile, and-- flushes as she looks to Ivan and points at the heart--
"See what your sister does?! She keeps flirting with little hearts with magic!"
There's a pout and-- she smooches into the heart, which blinks away into a little dazzle of sparkles.
Amaranth, too, seems really energetic. She hopes Ivan can enjoy his time here tonight too...!
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan has been on his best behavior, though generally speaking that has mostly meant 'polite yet wound up.' He hasn't quite overcome feeling like he has become extraneous, particularly when the two of them are together. But everyone got along! He just seemed high strung, which is pretty normal anyway for Ivan and it's not always obvious what it's about.
In the aftermath of dinner, that becomes more pronounced, though, and he drifts around uncertain what to do since Talia is making quick work of the cleanup.
"Oh, I guess I should be going, soon..." he starts to say. But then Amaranth enthusiastically calls his attention to Talia's ice hearts!!
"Ah! Yes! She's been practicing those for a while!" he says. "It's good she's found an appreciative audience. I mostly always just attacked them." Sorry, ice hearts. At least Katherine will treasure you.
"But Talia! I almost forgot! I got you a gift this time!"
She did specifically request a gift before... and, inspired by a certain experience, Ivan has procured a Mysterious Whistle! (He did not steal it; he just went out and bought a similar one).
"It summons baby chocobos," he informs her, holding it out.
"I mean, only if there happen to be displaced baby chocobos around, and then you have to find them a home, but rescuing baby chocobos is very cute so I thought you'd like it," he says.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"It is my specialty, no?" Talia says to Amaranth, with a wink. She watches her kiss the heart, and her cheeks redden a little. She stands up straighter -- and tries to fight off the feeling of disappointment that comes after Ivan says that he will have to leave soon.
He doesn't live here -- at least, not yet -- and she can't rush this sort of thing. If she pushes him towards it, then he might dig his feet in.
She does blink, though -- any remark about Ivan's attacking her ice hearts, in the past, silenced when he says she got her a gift. "You did? You--"
She takes the chocobo whistle and laughs, clutching it close to herself with both hands. "Aaah, Vanya! It is perfect, no? We have to go try it soon! Maybe on the Highroad, or near Macalania, or...!"
She beams and looks as happy as can be. "We have to try it!" she repeats, excitedly.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Well, what Talia doesn't know is that... Amaranth and Ivan conspired to let Ivan hide out here! And to Katherine, that basically means he lives here!!
"Wow... what kind of whistle is that-- it summons baby chocobos?? Where did you get such a gift?"
WHAT PROBABLY HAPPENED
A Certain Scaley Hyadean Mom In a Wheelchair laces her fingers together to express, "Y-you want your own whistle? Of course I'll give you one...!"
Horn waggle in excitement...~
HERE
"I--I wonder where would be best to find chocobos? I hear they congregate in forests...?" Amaranth muses, though she admits she's not a chocobo expert.
She does look appreciative at Talia's excitement, winking back to Ivan. Success!
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan absolutely does not know he hypothetically lives here; though Katherine bestowed A Room upon him a short while ago, he tentatively sat down in it a grand total of one time, for about 30 seconds, just to test the waters. He HAS been hanging out in the house itself a bit more though, particularly since Ragnell introduced him to Katherine's book collection a few days ago, but he's been keeping pretty much to communal areas.
Ah, Talia really likes the whistle! Ivan allows himself to look a LITTLE pleased, but only a little. He feels less irrelevant! (Ivan, no one thought you were irrelevant but you).
"Yes, we can look for some soon... I guess figuring out where the chocobos are is part of the adventure...?"
Lydia and Riesenlied were finding ones along the Highroad that got driven away by the war, but everyone is in a good mood now and he doesn't want to immediately pivot onto depressing topics that highlight tragedy he is helping inflict upon the world.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia will be excited to learn that Ivan basically lives here, too.
"Macalania Woods might have them...?" Talia asks Amaranth. She wanted to show her those woods, anyways; it was impossible to /not/ want to show her girlfriend a crystal forest. The only other place that chocobos congregated, that she knew of, was the Mi'ihen Highroad.
She doesn't want to risk that, with the war going on.
She looks at Ivan, and then she nods her head quickly at him. "Mm-hm! It is part of the fun!" She winks at him. "Ah, I am going to take it upstairs and change--I splashed some water on my shirt, no?" She smiles at them. "Be back down in a moment!"
She takes off upstairs. It's not much after her feet are heard on the stairs that there is a knock at the door, though.
It isn't all that uncommon for someone to darken the door of the Festina Lente. The difference about this person, however, is that he is a Guado; tall, gaunt, and with huge clawed hands, he looks at Amaranth and Ivan when the door opens. "I'm--"
And he thrusts a clawed hand out. "--I'm sorry. They said, if I do this... they'll give her back!"
There is a pulse; it can be felt, a shudder that reaches through the room, giving rise to gooseflesh and rattling the tables and shelves in the living room. And then, Pyreflies all swirl together at the Guado's command...
And a floating, fiery orb appears; it opens its mouth, and the Bomb /bellows/, making fire swirl more and more!
The Guado is already sprinting away.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Ivan may not /think/ he lives here, but Amaranth thinks he lives here, and keeping that room open, cleaned and ready for him is basically a big and important commitment to both her and Talia's goals.
"Macalania... I haven't gone that far north..." she whispers. A pause, and smiles as she nods in turn. "Okay -- I folded some laundry, you'll find it on your bed since I didn't put it in the dresser yet."
A pause, as she blinks at the door. She looks to the Guado with a blink as she gets up. "Oh, hello, sorry, we're closed for the night--"
I'm-- I'm sorry. They said, if I do this... they'll give her back!
"Wh..." Amaranth blinks as the pulse occurs-- Pyreflies--
Then a Bomb appears.
"A-aaah!! Bomb!!"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Alarm bells go off in Ivan's mind as the nervous visitor apologizes, implying something strange... ominous...--no, that sounds very bad, that sounds like someone being put up to a hit...!!
But Ivan the antisocial did not want anything to do with greeting a visitor at the door and hadn't approached... like... at all, until suspicious things began to happen, so he's still rushing across the room toward Katherine as the pulse ripples through the area, and pyreflies coalesce into a...a bomb?
Oh, shit!! What's a fire mage supposed to do about a bomb?! The thing howls, spewing fire, threatening to burn Katherine's house down?!
Well, he has to do something!! ...Ivan pulls his cloak up to shield his face as best he can and rushes into the blaze. He summons his warhammer, and brings it down, trying to clobber it!!! Right in the bomb-face!!
This is, generally speaking, not a brilliant idea--Ivan is familiar with heat and flame, and doesn't fear it, but the fire still sears into him, bringing waves of pain. The closest thing he has to a plan here is to try to knock it back out of the door.
He calls out: "TALIA!!! We need ice magic!!"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Talia's not coming. Ivan's throwing himself against it, but from her experience with shooing Bombs away she knows that physical attacks while it's free may just agitate and provoke them into exploding. She has to do something lest Ivan himself get burnt--
There goes their coffee table-- the fire's starting to scathe against her as well!
"T-Talia--" something wrenches in her stomach.
She grimaces and wipes her hand over her face, eyes turning heavy and grey with cataracts. She takes a deep breath and--
"Weave--!"
Those inky-black weaves start to bind around the Bomb as she summons forth the technique of the Shadow Skean; there's a trembling grimace as she hopes this'll hold the Fiend in place long enough--
"I-Ivan! Get it outside, while it's stopped! Into the river, if you can!"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan is gearing up to unwisely clobber it again, when Katherine summons a mystic web that encloses and immobilizes the bomb. He gapes back at her, finding her eyes gray and sightless. He nods at her instruction.
But... where is Talia...? Shouldn't she be down by now?
"There may be something upstairs, too?!" he says. But they've got to deal with the threat right in front of them while they've got an opening.
He seizes the bomb in whatever way is feasible -- whether he can catch hold of the shadowy net, or has to wrestle the fiery ball, itself-- and tries to haul it outside toward the river.
"Check on Talia, as soon as you can!!" He's not sure if she needs to hold her attention on the spell -- it seems like maybe she does. But she can still drop it once he drops off the bomb? He moves as quickly as he can.
"Be careful!!"
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
The shadowy net proves pliable -- and a good thing, too, as the Bomb is already straining against the Shadow Skean's net. It roars and screams -- but Ivan is able to grab it and drag it out the door. The Moonflow river is not far. A good toss, and the Bomb goes airborne...
...arcs up, flying into the air...
...and then hits the surface of the water with a tremendous /splash/ -- and a burst of steam that rises high into the air.
Ivan's instincts prove right. There is a shattering of glass from outside -- and from above them, near where Talia's room is. She shouts out in surprise, wordless, a moment later.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Katherine does have to sustain her concentration on the Weave, which doesn't prove easy; still, she's working as hard as she can to protect Ivan from having to touch the Bomb with his bare hands or the cloth he's using.
When Ivan urges her to check on Talia, she exclaims, "R-right!" as she starts up the stairs, ignoring the spreading fire at her living room for a moment. Her limbs are aching already from wounds where the fire's gotten to her, but she presses on.
"Talia! TALIA!" she cries, stumbling a little. It's hard to see with sight unseen. "Are you all right?!"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
The bomb is dispatched with a cloud of steam -- either extinguished or taught a good lesson, leaving both Ivan and Katherine free to make their way toward Talia. Ivan suffered some burns when he first charged the bomb, though the damage isn't as bad, perhaps, as it may have looked to run into a fireball. And Katherine's net saved him from having to scorch his hands on the bomb's surface.
No sooner does Ivan turn back toward the house when...there's a shattering sound, and a yell.
Ivan's heart drops, and he breaks into a run. Whatever's going on, Katherine will get there first -- he has to hope that together, they can handle it. Talia has reconnected.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
They make it up the stairs quickly, even if it seems like forever.
The room to Talia's door has been kicked open from inside. She did that herself; she knocked it open in an effort to rush downstairs. The room itself is in disarray -- the bed knocked to one side, and a dresser knocked on the floor, littering Talia's no longer sparse belongings across it. The Chocobo Whistle rests there, too, gleaming.
More telling, however, is a hole cut in the roof -- and the lack of glass shards from the broken window. The assailants cut through the roof, then exited by leaping out the window. They arrive in time to see two individuals, clad in the garb of the Shadow Dragon, leaping out -- and landing onto a boat in the river. Glass from the window is scattered across the ground.
And, pinned against the wall, is a note. A knife holds it there -- and the pendant that Talia wears much of the time dangles from the blade, its chain looped over it.
The note is simple, scrawled in a neat hand:
You have evaded me long enough. Come to Luca. Come to the space underneath the stadium. Or say your goodbyes now.
The note is unsigned.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
The worst moments always have a way of slowing time down.
Each step up Katherine -- Amaranth -- fears the worst.
That the life they left behind would catch up to them. That their pasts would come to haunt them. That escape was impossible after all. That one can't make a better life in redemption.
"You fool-- you useless fool..." Amaranth mumbles to herself as she fumbles towards the room. Though the details are scarce to her because of her sight, she senses the whistle. She senses the hole in the roof through the wind flowing through it. She senses what light glints off the glass shards on the ground. And--
"Stop!!"
She senses the threads of two individuals, whose lines are very clear to her. Shadow Dragon.
"Stop, please!! Give her back! Give her back...!!"
Her throat is sore, dry and lifeless as she looks to knife and the note... and the pendant.
Amaranth hesitates for just a moment-- before dissipating into shadow as she throws herself forward to try to uselessly run against the banks of the Moonflow to give chase.
It's not going to work. They're too far already. But she's going to try, and try, and try, until her legs give way, until she drops to her knees in exhaustion.
"Give her back... please..."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan is not far behind, but far enough. He just misses the two figures leaping down to the boat, instead finding an empty room, a knife, a note, and Katherine shouting /Give her back!/ and teleporting away in pursuit.
Oh no, oh no, he can't lose Talia again...!
He rushes to the broken window and scans the scenery until he finds Katherine racing alongside the banks of the river. He leaps out after her, landing in a roll. It feels futile, rushing after Katherine as she herself has already fallen hopelessly behind, the current carrying the boat far ahead of them both and out of sight.
When hope--or Katherine's strength--has fully dwindled enough for her to give up the chase, Ivan manages to catch up to her. He stands beside her, staring at the horizon as he catches his own breath.
"There was a note..." he says quietly, numb with shock. It's the one lifeline he's got right now. They want something. That's what a note means. Will they trade Talia for it, alive...?
...A thought cuts through that flicker of hope, cold and brutal -- they probably want Katherine.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Ammy cries, and screams, and pleads.
But it falls on deaf ears. The Shadow Dragon are trained to not listen to such pleas. Talia, thrown over one of their shoulders, is unconscious. She is denied even the chance -- the hope -- to hear Amaranth calling out for her.
The boat dwindles into the distance, rushing to the south -- too fast, perhaps. An unnatural wind fills its sails.
Though, the wind that gusts from the north has a sharp chill, now.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
It's been a thousand years.
And she still can't cast those chains off fully.
The lump in her throat feels fuller than ever, as she drapes her arms around herself. She doesn't move until she hears -- senses Ivan's own threads -- come near her. He speaks...
"A note...?" Katherine asks, though she doesn't sound surprised. She couldn't read it on the spot, though. Reading and her... has a particularly curious relationship.
"..."
She quietly picks herself up from the muddy banks of the Moonflow, her dress stained with dirt.
"Ivan..." she whispers, sounding crushed. "Ivan, I... all I wanted was to give her-- give you both a life away... look what I've done..."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Katherine, I can't let them kill my sister," Ivan says, in a voice that shakes with fear and a little bit of warning. He doesn't want to shatter the fragile trust that's started to grow between himself and Katherine by admitting that if it comes to it, he'll be as much her enemy as the people who are hunting her. But maybe he already has, by letting the tension of that choice creep into his tone.
"I know you wanted to help us. You didn't do anything wrong..." he says, trying to claw the idea back into the dark corner of his mind it crept out of.
Not until they know the stakes, the options... don't fucking wreck everything because you panicked in the moment... The note, though, they have to read the note...
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Katherine -- Amaranth -- is silent for a while after Ivan delivers that resolve of his.
"... I know."
She clutches her hands hard to her chest, her head still braced down in that position of hers.
"... so I'll promise you this... Ivan."
She pulls herself up slowly, so fatiguely. Those filmy, cataract-laden eyes somehow glance his way. They don't use sight to see.
"I promise to put /everything/ down to ensure they don't harm her. She deserves freedom. You deserve freedom. I'm... going to see that through."
She quietly moves back towards the Festina Lente, which is still quietly burning in the distance.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan swallows, shame welling up as Katherine makes her vow. She'll put her own life on the line.
What is /he/ offering, besides veiled threats of betrayal? He /doesn't/ deserve freedom.
But this isn't over. There will be time to inventory his sins when Talia is safe. Or when...
No, he can't think it yet. Can't panic. Can't give up.
He follows Katherine back toward the house, thoughts swirling no matter how he tries to stop them.