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| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Lathrik and Reniya make it back to the Dinnsfield-Kensington-Whit house with the news that the deadline to find an answer to the near lifelong affliction Lathrik has suffered just got moved a lot closer. It's time for all hands on deck, as Natalyah makes Lathrik a deal, and Lathrik risks an additional seven years of bad luck. 4500~ words. Part of the Red String Game Plot. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Arc: The Red String Game
It’s still early morning in Stormwind when two bloody guards make their way through the streets of Old Town. Reniya wears a companionable smile, his arm slung around Lathrik, supporting him, while he waves at and greets passing strangers. Lathrik, too, looks at ease, but for the same reason as Reniya; to avoid setting off a panic.
“Y’know, mate,” Reniya says as they walk. “If I was in your boots, the whole city’d know about it by now. You bein’ calm in a crisis is an understatement.”
Lathrik shrugs a little, but not enough to dislodge him. “I’m not calm.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Reniya stops them before a familiar house. “Should we knock?”
Lathrik regards him flatly. “I live here.” He fishes for his key.
Reniya waits with an air of patience that quickly fades, as he says, “I could just — hold up, mate, I’ll get it.” The lock picks are out and working before Lathrik can stop him.
The trouble with a worgen's hearing is that it only works one way — which means Reniya doesn't hear the rumbled growl of warning from Natalyah as soon as she hears the wrong sound of something in the keyhole.
The lock clicks just a half-breath before the handle turns, and suddenly there is an annoyed worgen growling down at Reniya, all defensive bristle to her black silk fur.
"Ren, I swear —" Is as far as she gets before the blood scent hits her nose, and her eyes catch up to nose.
"Oh, no, no," she says, all irritation at Reniya instantly snatched up and blown away in the emotional wind as worry and fear for Lathrik replace it. "Lathrik, honey, what happened?" Even as she asks it, she's already casting, the Light a brilliant blaze in a bestial hand, as she reaches out to touch his face, cup his cheek in the palm of her hand, the insubstantial and yet palpable Light passing from her to him. Gone are the days of floods, as the [Renew] sinks into him like a spring rain.
It's all Lathrik, for the moment. Reniya is a bit like chopped liver, pending more information. He's spared Natalyah's accusing glare because she's still only looking at Lathrik. But it's coming, Ren.
Lathrik stares at some middle distance between Reniya and Natalyah, his expression twisting in guilt. "The situation with the mana potions might've gotten out of hand," he says after two breaths too long of a silence. "Thought we had more time."
Reniya stares at Lathrik as though he's left out the most important part, and he would like to scream it now. But he plasters a smile onto his face and keeps his mouth shut. (edited)
Natalyah leans forward, muzzle bobbing in the air as she sniffs them both, and the answer she gets is clearly not expected, but she doesn't quite know enough to interpret the data. Yet.
She takes her hand and slides it into Lathrik's hair, pulling him forward and leaning into him to lick a quick touch to his cheek where the Light was. She braces on the threshold, and hops a step to the side, making more room as the front door continues its open swing.
"You did what you're supposed to: come to me if you get hurt. That's the deal, and you kept up your end," she tells him, the smile audible, even though worry pinches her forehead. "What happened? You ran out of mana on a patrol or job?"
"Ren caught me strugglin' 'fore the shift started," Lathrik answers, resting a hand on her waist as he steps inside.
Ren flees past them into the house.
Natalyah watches Reniya with narrowed, suspicious eyes. She doesn't have either cane with her, so she stays in her worgen form to curl around Lathrik, one clawed hand shutting the door behind them all, as the Light pours into Lathrik steadily. Reniya gets a slapped on [Renew] as he passes her by.
"Struggling with whom?" Natalyah asks, misunderstanding what the struggle was. "I can't smell anyone on you except me, you, and Ren. What attacked you? These don't feel like caster wounds," she says, although she's caught herself in the problem of healing the wounds that were evidence. But scent doesn't lie, and she knows what she smells.
"He was tryin' t'stack up on mana potions too quick," Reniya says, stopping in the living room. "Didn't go well for 'im, and that's when I walked into the picture. He had the nerve to tell me he was fine."
"Oi, I wasn't trying to, but it ended up thirty seconds too soon," Lathrik says. The healing is having a clear effect; stiffness and tension begin to ease in Lathrik's posture, along with the disappearance of cuts and bruises. "I didn't want to be late."
"Aye, an' how'd that go for you, mate?" Reniya says. "We got into it a bit 'fore he told me what was going on, and then I thought we'd just… go a bit further. For mana."
Natalyah listens with the bouncing attention of a tennis ball, expressions unclear but intense on her worgen face. At the last, she makes a helpfully (?) clarifying growl.
"Let me get this straight," she says in an acidic tone, "you two fought, and then decided to keep fighting there to then have me heal him to trigger a Replenishment state with Divine Attunement?" The fact that her voice rises a little more with every few words is like a growing storm, the rumble of thunder and the first crackles of lightning. "You decided to continue there so that Lathrik could walk back in pain while the wounds start to set? That was the plan?"
She doesn't give them enough of a pause to respond with excuses. "And I'll have you know that in fact, the practice of using Divine Attunement with Replenishment has been banned as a technique for being considered too dangerous, not the least because it encourages a harm-seeking behavior for paladins who grow dependent on the technique. There are better ways that don't encourage a paladin to hurt himself." She aims a glare at Reniya, and then one at Lathrik for good measure.
And then from that anger, like a summer thunderstorm, she opens her mouth and starts to sing. No, not sing — Sing. The [Hymn of Hope] is sung without words, a holy plea of mana brought down in a tempest of holy power.
Reniya perches on the very edge of a chair while the Hymn is sung, looking ready to spring back up again if needed.
Lathrik closes his eyes, as if doing so can help him absorb more mana somehow.
The moment the Hymn is over, Reniya cuts in with, "Lathrik can't see our faces."
Lathrik's eyes blink open. "Oi, Ren."
"I'm sorry mate, but that's bloody scary. Y'can't just leave that part off," Reniya says.
"You what?" Natalyah asks, and then becomes significantly less good at holding Lathrik up as she shimmers into her human form, balancing with difficulty. She raises a hand up to her face as if to confirm it's still there. She tries a [Dispel] on Lathrik, followed by a removal of disease, because why not.
Lathrik shakes his head in answer to her attempts. Her magic doesn't seem to find any holds. "It's only a few people," he says, as if trying to minimize it somehow. "You, Ren, Elle, and Hana are the ones so far. It's been… gradual."
It might be for the best that Lathrik can't see Natalyah's face for the clash of emotions that fight a war over the limited space, hurt among them.
"I'm not going to ask you when you were going to tell me about this, because I don't think I'd like any answer you'd give," Natalyah tells him. "And that's not what matters right now. Something is clearly going wrong. We're running out of time. As a matter of fact, I think it's fair to say that we've hit the point where every minute might count. I can sing like that every three minutes, but it's not going to be enough if the void drain gets even a little worse. Even if you were to use one of those paladin techniques of the judgements or whatever, you'd have to keep fighting to use it, and we both have to sleep."
Uh oh that's a whole other panic thought. "Light, Lathrik, what's going to happen if you fall asleep like this?"
Lathrik is silent. It's not very reassuring.
"I was thinkin' we'd look for a druid?" Reniya chimes in. "I did some learning on 'em as kind of a know-your-enemies exercise just in case, so I know they've got a thing for energizing. It buys time at least."
Natalyah wraps her arms around Lathrik, his balance now her balance, as she stares into his eyes, something only Reniya can see her doing.
"You're right. We need a druid yesterday, and so we're going to find them. But, that's not good enough anymore to just stop there. We can't just wait for a cure to come to us, or for another shadow user to figure out how to untangle this, while we energize or whatever and sing and fight. We have to take to the one person we know can undo it," she says, fiercely defensive, as she tips her head forehead to rest against Lathrik's, something he can feel.
"We have to find your mother, Lathrik. And now, as soon as that can be. Not in a few weeks, not in a month. We need to start it today, and we need to…" She stumbles on the words, pushing through them. "We need to ask everyone we can for help. It's going to take us all if we have any chance to find her before this —" She can't finish the sentence, choking on a sob as she throws herself further into his arms, tucking her face against his neck.
Lathrik closes his eyes, but his arms wrap tightly around her and he forces in a breath. "Aye. Alright," he says. "Ren, get Hana, start askin' around for druids. Send Peril back here, and Elle."
"Pennings won't like us pullin' Elle off duty," Reniya says. "We barely convinced 'er t'let you off."
"Right well, tell 'er it's minus three guards temporarily, or minus one permanently," Lathrik says. "And if we're leaving Stormwind, you're staying back."
Natalyah lets out a high-pitched whine at the words of one permanently.
"Oi, what? But I —"
"We need someone in Stormwind, and Elle can carry me, worst case." Lathrik glances towards the door. "'Talyah. We may need a favor of Count Amerith."
Reniya looks like he has a lot more objecting to do, but he bites back any further argument. "Hana, Peril, Elle. Anythin' else?"
"Emerine, get Emerine," Natalyah adds from the curve of Lathrik's neck. "She knows how to find people. She could help."
To Lathrik — and he can tell when she speaks him, the tone of her voice changing, something warmer and vulnerable all at once — she says, "If we need a favor from Count Amerith, then we better talk to Siamus. He can handle the Count on his level, and we can settle the debt with Siamus, and know that it'll be something we can afford to pay. I can write to him today."
"Hana, Peril, Elle, Em, got it," Reniya says, heading out the door at a jog.
When Reniya is gone, Lathrik lets out a soft sigh. "Forgive me," he murmurs. "We've been so busy I couldn't feel the deadline approaching."
"I forgive you," Natalyah says fervently, and so quickly that he knows she didn't think about it, didn't weigh and measure and withhold in wondering if he deserves it, no, it's given with the same first-thought-in-her-head as any other. She reaches for one of the straps for his armor with one hand, keeping the rest of her draped over him.
"I can't hold it against you that you didn't know what was happening, because there's never been an instruction manual or even educational pamphlet. If there was, we wouldn't be fumbling around like this. So I won't blame you for that."
She pulls her head from her place at his neck, and all he can do is generally sense that she must be looking at him. "But no more withholding details like you can't see my face, Lathrik. Tell me true and don't try to spare me. I need to know what's going on. Is there anything else happening that you didn't tell Ren? Anything?"
"I didn't notice it," Lathrik says, swallowing. "Not until Ren mentioned other options. I would have thought of askin' a druid. I would have. It's almost as if something's… compromising my judgement, trying to wear me down."
A frown forms between his brows as he studies her shoulder, his focus turned inward. "'Talyah, could you… promise me you will stay with me? And if I can't move, then with Elle? It's not your capabilities I doubt, it's… somethin's screaming in my head that you'll die if I tell you what's happening, and it's been right before. With Ren."
"I promise you that I'll stay with you, no matter what's happening. That's one of our deals, right? I won't run," Natalyah says, a tremor in her voice. "And I will do everything I can not to get hurt. Me in the middle, like we agreed." There's only the evidence of the warble that makes her voice gravelly that she's near tears, and only the fact that she's still human tells him that she isn't crying yet.
"Do you remember the deal we made on Pirate's Day? I told you that if you could promise me that you'd heard me, that you couldn't get hurt, and it'd all be all right, I would go along with anything and everything you wanted? I'm going to make another one like that." She reaches for his hand, and sets it on her own cheek.
"If you promise me that you'll let me stay with you the whole time, that if you can tell me what's happening you will, and what you can't tell me you'll tell someone else who will keep it from me even if they help, and that you'll trust me to know when something sounds totally insane for judgement, then I'll take that risk for you. I'll promise to trust you. Maybe that voice in your head is wrong and something sinister, nothing but a trick and a lie, but I know that even if it is, if anything did happen to me after you disobeyed it, you'd never, never forgive yourself. So I'm doing this for you."
Lathrik's entire body tenses as she guides his hand, but he starts to relax as soon as his fingers find her cheek in the darkness. "'Talyah," he says, his voice cracking a little. "Ye have no idea how much it eases me to hear you say that. I'm asking a lot — I know it. I promise I'll do everything within my ability to see us safely through this."
He searches the space where her eyes should be, fighting the urge to look away. "It's like a void," he says. "Dark and endless. It's almost like I could reach in and…"
With a sudden abruptness, he tears his eyes away, blinking up at the ceiling. "Light help us," he mutters. "Looking forward to this being over so I can properly see you again."
"You should be. I look really pretty today," Natalyah says archly, although from the sound of her voice she's probably got red eyes and nose. She sniffles, and nuzzles his hand with her cheek.
And then the words sink in.
"Wait, you're seeing a void on me instead of my face?" A pause, and the scientist in her searching for data. "What about Aze, Elle's Dancer who is also a Shadow Detector? Elle could ask her for help, and she could tell us about what she sees. A clue as to what's happening that's going worse. And she might be able to see the same shadow connecting you to your mother if we got close enough to the same source."
"Elle trusts her," Lathrik says, hesitantly. "Enough that he brought her here even knowing she could see…"
His sigh is sharp and frustrated. "Aye, fine. Might be useful."
"We have to find one person in a who knows where doing graceless gods knows what, and you and Peril are the only people we know who might even possibly recognize her," Natalyah points out, and pointing a finger into his cheek in emphasis. "We could ask Harvey and Rae, too, but I know Mt. Hyjal is a problem. Even if they knew any druids, how many would be willing to leave their mountain's defense for us?"
"They've got a war to fight," Lathrik says, taking the finger with a completely straight face. He probably deserves it anyway. "And those two are not subtle. Might as well show up with a bleedin' army if we call them in."
"Then we better make sure we aren't going to need an army," Natalyah warns, her pointing finger turning into a caress.
"Everything we do, I know that we have to make sure we make sure that we don't have killing your mother be the only way out of this. There has to be a chance. And that's a lot more difficult, and dangerous. The easy thing would be just bombing everywhere that she could be. But you're Lathrik Hazard Dinnsfield," she reminds him. "And you're not the kind of man who's afraid of doing things the difficult way, and you don't back down from danger."
Lathrik closes his eyes again, focusing on feeling her instead, his own thumb sliding along her cheek in soft, smooth movements. "Aye," he says. "And I suspect Fray Farrens is our chance. It's why we need Count Amerith. We know he had someone on him, enough to know where he was, but it's been months since then. If he's still got the man's location, we need it."
Natalyah's pout may only be detectable because her cheeks and jaw move for it. "I thought that might be it. And you're right, that's the information we need, even if it's just a place to start." She tilts her head, more canine than human. "Would it be better or worse if I wore a mask? You know, since it's Noblegarden. I'm sure I could get something."
Lathrik groans. "Noble — bleedin' — don't remind me," he says. "Y'know I missed it last year because…"
Oh. He sobers a little.
"I was assigned to Southshore at the time, and Ren, in all his spirit of sharing, sent egg laying bunnies in the mail. Turned into a bit of a mess," he finishes.
Natalyah cackles delightfully in her wicked laughter. "Ooh, we'll have to get back at him for it," she says conspiratorially, a gleeful prankster ready to retaliate.
But the laughter slides away. "Not this year though. And obviously, going to the big party is out, too. I always really liked it. Next year, then, we'll do it better, and it'll be happier memories," she threatens. And in that, she sings again, the Singing, the [Hymn of Hope], truthfully and faithfully filled with the power that can be generated in grabbing something with both hands and refusing to let despair reign.
It's not as much mana as a powerful mana potion might provide, but it's strong enough to stretch another amount of time, and buy a little more.
Lathrik takes the time to drain an actual mana potion while fully absorbing the Hymn and the spirit with which it was performed. "'Talyah," he says when the Hymn is done. "We get through all this, and next year I'll… wear bunny ears or something."
He's rewarded with another laugh, and she boops his nose with a finger, and he can't see it, but he can hear the smile that must curl her lips. "I'm holding you to that," she says. "I'll wear a pretty dress to the party, and you can decide when and where I wear a little bunny costume." Somehow, from the sound of her voice, it's not likely she means the fluffy silly kind.
She fiddles with the strap of his breastplate, working to undo it. He can't see the dip in her expression, but he knows that sound in her voice and the way she tugs at his armor. "You're still covered in blood. From the fight with Ren," she tells him with an audible swallow. "Some of it's yours. I can smell it even where I can't see it all."
"Sometimes ye need a friend who'll pound the sense back into you," Lathrik says. "But aye, it's time to clean up. Are you alright for me to release ye into the wild, or would ye like some help?"
It's the phrasing that keeps him safe from the usual wrath, the offer before assuming, and the like some help rather than need it, and instead of a storm she shakes her head, gesturing with her hand back towards The Brooding Couch next to its now all dark furniture that cultivates a better Brooding Atmosphere.
"No, I was just reading over there when I heard Ren's lockpicks," she explains. Her canes are propped up against the side of the couch. In the sense of a blink, she's back to worgen size and the greater worgen mobility. She gives him that coquettish look that doesn't land as easily without her expression. "And you can't release me into the wild. I brought the wild with me."
The worgen lopes out of his arms and through their living room.
Lathrik watches her go, his gaze fond yet somehow forlorn, then strips off his armor, leaving it on the table near the stairs to clean off later before heading into the bathroom. He can at least wash the blood off his face, maybe his shirt…
As his gaze sweeps across the mirror, Lathrik's breath catches as if someone has ripped it away. He stares, one hand moving to touch his face, then the mirror itself. For the first time since the oddities began, panic is visible in his expression and he tears the mirror from the wall, sending it flying against the hard frame of the toilet, then onto the floor.
"Lathrik?!" Natalyah's panic-filled yell from the living room comes at practically the same time he hears worgen claws scratching across their wooden floors. She crashes into the doorway, grabbing hold of it to balance, panting in fear, expecting the worst… and visibly confused by what she sees, as she looks back and forth between Lathrik and the shattered mirror, trying to make sense of how and why.
"Are you okay? What happened?"
By the time she enters the room, Lathrik is leaning over the sink, breathing heavily as if from a shock. "I… When I looked, I saw… Him. The assassin, the one from the Count's manor. He was where I should have been, and I wasn't…there. I think. 'Talyah, what do I look like?"
He turns to her, his eyes pleading.
It's impossible to know what her first reaction is, what shows on her face, but there's no mistaking the way she turns her head to growl at the broken mirror, and then a hitch in her body language like she might have fallen forward to her hands — and caught herself just in time.
Broken glass. And a deal to not hurt herself.
There's just a moment's pause, a thought, a need, and then an ingenious solution. It feels warm, and familiar, dozens of times when she's thrown herself onto him in an embrace echoed in the Light as something grabs onto him, and pulls. Natalyah closes an arm around him as she shifts to human, putting her head against his neck, holding her balance half on the door and half on him.
Lathrik does not resist the Light pulling him away from the sink, though there is a moment of disorientation as he finds himself with an armful of Natalyah. He grabs the door frame for extra balance with his free hand, his other curling loosely around her. For a moment he is silent, steadying his breathing and trying to expel the panic quickening his pulse and causing his hands to tremble.
"You look like Lathrik," she tells him firmly, that imperious noblewoman accustomed to given orders. She breathes him in audibly. "You smell like Lathrik." There's a touch of a kiss to his neck. "You taste like Lathrik. You feel like Lathrik. You are Lathrik. No one and nothing could fool me about that."
“He’s paying us back,” he finally says. “That’s what this is — it’s not her.”
Natalyah growls again, a deep reverberation even in her supposedly human chest. "It would make sense. You said, it was me, Ren, Elle, and Hana who have gone weird no-face, not just random people on the street, right? We were all involved in the heist with the Count. He saw me, Lathrik, I'm sure of it. This isn't random. That suggests he recognized the link to your mother, and somehow he's done something with it. And it may be why now it's really trying to kill you."
"Aye," Lathrik agrees, his gaze darting around what he can see of the house, just in case. "But if he's able to do that, what's she doing? I've always lost control when my situation became dire. Will it… happen again? Or will the person who takes over be…" He pales, but shakes his head. "No. I can't assume that. If he could do that, surely he would have by now. Just one more reason to keep the mana flowing."
Natalyah makes an unhappy sound into his neck. "I'm not going to let either of them take you," she warns him, and threatens…well, them. "I'm going to fight it the whole way. We'll try Ren's idea, a druid. Or druids, plural. I don't know if more priests is a good idea. You and I both know how the Church gets with shadow void magic like this, and I don't want someone going medieval on it when a modern scientific solution can be reached. I still don't trust anyone in the Cathedral to tell them anything about you and all this."
"Can't trust the priests at this point," Lathrik says. "Not after we found a nest of cultists sheltering in the Cathedral. Druids'll do, long as they don't erupt into flame. From what I hear, it's just elves doing that so far, aye?"
He takes another, steadying breath. "Sorry… for the mirror. I scare ye?"
"I was scared for you," she clarifies in that tart tone that does nothing to disguise the way she is still clinging to him like she's afraid concerned if she lets go, he'll collapse. "We don't know if this might make you suddenly lose consciousness. And I don't care about the mirror. It's just a mirror, and I don't believe in superstitions about them." She sniffs haughtily, a Science Gal to her core.
Then she considers. "But, maybe I'll cover up the other one upstairs. Just in case."