Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

Kiin takes a deep breath before opening a portal with her scepter, a few dozen draconians standing guard on the docks outside Katie’s home.

 

Katie and Abigail step through, Katie looking concerned while Abigail looks relaxed.

"Oh hey, someone cleaned up that corpse from the mines I was telling you about." Abigail says, pointing over to a patch of red sand.

 

The draconians stand guard the moment Kiin steps through. One of them walks up to Kiin and the group.
“Admiral, I said to go find your family, not bring them back. We’re not done yet.”
“S-she needs to see...” Kiin says, tearing up.
“Are... you sure? We’re not even-“
“Yes, let her in.”
The draconian sighs before turning around and opening the door to the palace.
“Don’t cut yourself on anything.” They sigh.

Katie can see what looks to be signs of a big fight, but shards of ice stuck to the wall seem to spell out odd things like “THEY SAID THEY’D BE BACK” and “WHY ME”

 

Katie swims over to the top of the palace to find a way in, considering the damage; swimming - and then falling - through a hole.

"What...happened here?" Katie asks out loud.


Abigail wanders around the beach a bit before she finds a piece of driftwood and some dried out seaweed. She wraps the seaweed around the top half of the driftwood and lights it on fire to create a makeshift torch, igniting it with only a touch.

 

“That’s a really bad way to think about it.”

 

The draconian that opened the door seems to have followed her.
“Admiral is the Fragment of Sorrow. She tends to dwell on things that make her sad, and should she wade through enough despair she releases a bestial form of sorrow that goes on a rampage until it finds something or someone else that can console it. As she is so young, she has both yet to be able to control it as well as Xephyr could, and has yet to have the feral beast grow to an adult size.”
Pause.
“In short, Kiin became depressed and let her loneliness overcome her. She did this.”

“S-seriously, w-where’s the living room, sis?” Kiin calls from below.


Rose watches her from a few paces away.
“And why do you need a torch?”

________________________________

“I swear, if you can beat some sense into hi-“
“If he punches me, I’m dead you idiot.”

 

“I know how to not punch hard.”

 

“I’ve yet to see that, so I’m not convinced.”
“I wouldn’t terribly mind that loss.” Levi snarks.
“Right, because I’m not responsible for keeping our group together or anything.”
“Gah, shut up.”

 

"How big's your group?"

 

Katie ponders this for a while.

"Is there anyone that could take care of her while mum, dad and I are away?" Katie asks.


"No reason, it's just fun to burn shit sometimes." Abigail shrugs.

 

"She's not attached to anyone else, as far as I'm aware. If you coax her into becoming close with someone else, then yes... but you then risk her favoring them over you or forgetting you entirely." They explain.
"...Though, might I add that she appears to be six. Perhaps I am biased towards tradition, but I feel one of you should be there to raise her during these earlier years anyways."


"Care for a bit of sparring? Considering you vanished for a while along with everyone else, I was assuming you were preparing for something. May as well give any new tricks you have up your sleeve a test run." Rose offers.

________________________________

"Just under a hundred, last I checked. Most of us are spellthieves or small time criminals, but that does give us a pretty wide surveillance area."
"There aren't many soldiers, and every mage is runed to be tracked. We can't really afford to work with anyone who's on the better side of the law." Levi adds.

 

"It's a little difficult. My mum and dad aren't really...good at raising kids. They left me on my own most of the time when they go out on their voyages, though Abigail always looked after me." Katie says, reminiscing a little.


"I don't have my armour with me, so I'd rather not get my ass kicked," Abigail says, showing off her red jumper with an orange flame on it, "It's in the Shadow Palace currently, and it's a little hard to get around there with a giant fanclub of Shadows wanting to get a whiff of Tenebrae's god-musk."

 

“So, what’s your big plan? You said you were trying to turn this whole thing around?”

 

“So... your parents made a pact with a goddess to take care of Kiin, and said parents hardly raised th- actually, considering Lady Xlentia, I suppose that’s less surprising than I first thought.”


“Fair enough... I suppose ruining one of my good dresses isn’t exactly the way I want to spend a day undoing either.”

“We really don’t have one. This is pretty much a guerilla op, we stir trouble where and when we can since we don’t have anyone terribly good at winning typical so-called ‘fair’ fights. Any lead that could get us aid from an actual army would be a blessing.”

 

"Alright. Once on the mainland, I will check in with the pact. I might pass the ruins while I'm at it, I'm not sure. Then, I'll check in on the place where the fire started when I encountered Anne again, gather some information about our current situation with her. Once night hits, I will go to sleep and try to find either Sgavrinn or Ragnyon. She told me something earlier when I met her in the dream realm.. was it in that dream realm? I'm not sure about taht, may be, may aswell not be.." Bardock thinks for himself.

 

“You want an audience? I could get you once.”

 

"My mum and dad are good parents though! Whenever they come home, they're really nice!" Katie says positively.


Abigail flips her torch over a couple of times, the lit end obviously having no negative effect on her, before she glances over at some washed up seaweed and uses it to start drying it out.

 

“I was hoping you wouldn’t be the one to say that. We don’t have much to repay any favors with.”

Your bestial form seems to have woken back up.

That sounds like a good plan, but how did I end up here from Rema’s cave? Did we get kidnapped or something?

“Whenever they come home.” They mumble.
“Katie, I cannot act against Xlentia’s choice of entrusting Kiin to your parents, but clearly they were not told everything they needed to know. I suggest you try to get a better communication line between you and them, Kiin isn’t good with surprise extensions of away time. Furthermore, leaving the two of you at home is only doing them favors. They say it’s too dangerous, but you’ve done things far riskier. Something’s amiss, and the Admiral will only suffer from it moving forward.”
The draconian seems pained by their own words, though they manage to keep eye contact with Katie.


“Pardon me for asking, but do you have any idea why most fire guardians spend negligible time learning healing arts? I’ve tried asking a few others, but demons seem to have a negative stigma around here.”

 

"We.. walked..? Why is kidnapping the first you think of?"

 

I dunno. Was I asleep, then? I thought I was still talking to Rema before everything went dark.