Logs:Of Rescue and Revelations (Or, The Spa of Lost and Ravished Souls)

Of Rescue and Revelations (Or, The Spa of Lost and Ravished Souls)
cn: Blood, References to Murder, fosse don't look
Dramatis Personae Damien, Joshua, Kavalam, Lucien, Sera, Scott
In Absentia Matt, Elie	2024-07-28 "... how much do you trust these people?" (after a ravishing.)
Location <FAE> Spa of Lost and Ravished Souls - Unchained Forest - Otherworld
The forest around them has been, as any good escape route ought to be, an extremely straight and clear path for them and a tortuous treacherous one for their pursuers. There are no signs of pursuers anymore, not right here, at least. The improbable geography of the forest has taken them to this clearing and where to either side, the Sorrowsong River flows deep and wide and cold and blue, where it passes through the glen the water has curved and split itself into numerous pools. This one bubbles, hot and foamy and sweetly spice-scented; that one swirls with milky water marbled pink and white like a strawberry cream candy; that one is still and glassy, its surface inky black and its scent crisp and clean; that one tinged purple from the amethyst crystals lining it has minty-smelling steam rising from it. It's here, finally, that Damien had brought them to a halt, offering his thanks and a faceless coin that sparkles like mica to the fierce summer winds that had carried them here. He, at least, seems entirely unhurt from this escapade -- physically, at least, though in his shadowcast expression there's a heaviness and a grief that was not there before. There had been deep chips and gouges scarred into the crystalline surface of his jerkin, but already they seem to be healing. His leaflike wings rustle browner and drier than looks quite healthy, and the starlight in his eyes has dimmed to just a faint and distant speck. He's been checking over the others, fishing strange ointments and bandaging out of a beltpouch to start seeing to his companions' injuries before any of them succumb to their inconvenient mortality. "Your bravery will have reached the other side of this land, before long. The winds love a good tale and love even better being the ones to embellish upon it." There is quite a bit of blood drying and dark on Lucien's tunic and quite a bit, still, dripping down one arm and oozing like sticky sap from where one of his newgrown wings has a large slash across it. He's very very pale, but seems oddly steady on his feet despite the blood loss. Possibly he is waiting for the others to get their Magical First Aid first, but possibly he's just very curious about the place they have come to, crouching down beside the sweetspice pool and sniffing thoughtfully at the water without actually yet touching it. "Thank you." With the immediate danger behind them he is now finally remembering his manners, casting a look over his shoulder at the others. "You risked quite a lot, coming here." Scott is very delicately peeling tattered, bloodied scraps of leather out of the deep, scraping clawmarks on his left arm, his brow creased and his teeth gritted. His hollowed-out visor is still hanging around his neck, shards of ruby quartz specked around the edges, and his spare visor is covered in a smeary green crust of dry blood. His X-jacket might be beyond help, though he's still holding it crumpled in his other fist. His initial response to Lucien's thanks is an unenunciated grumble, "Hhnngh," as he picks a downy feather out of his wound, but then he swallows, exhales, and finally says, "Lucien, you get yourself into the damnedest situations." There's a snort from Joshua, at this. Maybe under other circumstances, he'd be assisting with the healing but right now he's just taken a seat on the ground, head resting in his (shaky) (bloody) hands. He is definitely going to need a replacement uniform when he gets back to New York and his somewhat nauseated expression is not inspiring much confidence in Further Healing Abilities. But, well, they all made it here and that is something. "Lucien." He's looking from Lucien to Damien to Sera and back. "What the fuck." "To be fair I think that Matt-un... the other Mr. Tessier got him into that last one." Kavalam's shirt is also bloodied, as are his jeans. The intricate floral embroidery has vanished entirely from the shirt itself, and there are thin and suspiciously flower-and-vine shaped cuts lacing down his arms. He shifts uncomfortably, frowning at Lucien's thanks. "It was an accident. -- of course we did want to find you but we did not. Have any idea. What is here. I'm still not sure that I do." Sera has made it through this ordeal largely unscathed -- much of the blood on her person is not hers, and she seems untroubled by the few shallow cuts on her face and arms. Perhaps it's not so very striking to those who have not seen her since the end of spring term, or perhaps it is all the more striking, but she seems more changed than she really ought to be for such a short time away. She looks visibly taller, though it's hard to say whether that's physical, postural, or something more ineffable. Her hair has definitely grown out, and would probably fall around her shoulder blades if not so cleverly bound up with two thin multicolored braids gathered from her temples. She is dressed in a motif of tessellated leaves much like Lucien, her tunic longer and more flared at the hem and sleeves. She has not strayed far from Lucien's side since her rescue, but her power has stretched between them throughout the flight, sensible to those familiar with it even if the shifting and rebalancing of pain and exhaustion and focus is not easily legible to most. The sudden zeroing in of her attention on Kavalam, however, is nearly tangible. "What do you mean the last one?" That intensity pulls back apologetically. "Well, I got him into this one, and the rest of you, too. Thank you all. For coming after me. It's madness to take on the Hunt, or so I've heard." They can feel her awe and her gratitude. "By Otherworld standards. It's kind of...fairyland? Or anyway, it's where many fairytales come from, and you know how the old school ones --" She cuts herself off abruptly, blushes deep, and makes a neat courtsy to Damien. "Thank you again, kind sir, for your assistance. What may I call you?" "This is the Spa of Lost and Ravished Souls," Damien answers Kavalam matter-of-factly, "in the Unchained Forest, in the Foul Courts of Otherworld." He tips his hand out to Sera, acknowledging. "-- your people have called this realm by many names, but the land of Faerie is apt enough." He bows back to Sera, elegant and deep. "You can call me Damien. And madness can accomplish a lot, here." He's heading over to Scott next, frowning at the wound and starting to smear a large leaf-shaped bandage (or maybe it's just a leaf) with the ointment. His dark eyes flick brief to Lucien. "I told you I would come if you had need of me. It is the least I can do for my son." He's offering the dressing to Scott with a lift of dark brows. "You always been a fairy?" Joshua is scrutinizing Lucien intently, but then transfers his scrutiny to the colorful water. "... we lost or ravished?" "When your brother killed him, that other time." Kavalam's answer here comes just a little more curtly than he might have on a day when he had not just almost watched Lucien get killed again. "Are you all fairies? Is that why the eyes?" Scott does not look entirely trustful of Damien's leaflike bandage, and though he first reaches for it to administer himself, once he's had a closer look he just holds out his injured arm for Damien to tend to, swapping the ruined jacket into his other hand. In contrast to Joshua he seems to still be stuck on, "Fairies are real," which comes out in an exasperated tone, like the existence of fairies was a personal slight. His already gritted-teeth expression flickers a little more painfully at the mention of Matt, but -- after a moment he just drops his eyes back to the leaf bandage, tucking his jacket under one arm to smooth fussily at the edge. "Left to my own devices, the height of my day's excitement is my afternoon tea. The Universe, unfortunately, clearly has different plans." Lucien sounds less longsuffering about this than he might have some other day. Maybe because he is just sounding the regular kind of suffering, a pained edge in his voice at the mention of Matt that had not been there through the deep wounds. "I --" He glances up from the pool to Joshua. To Kavalam. His brows pinch, and the wings at his back rustle softly. He doesn't give any answer as to his own fae heritage, but he does reply: "-- I was lost. I expect most of you have been ravished. Damien -- I don't know anything about Damien." Softer: "But I am quite grateful he answered my call." "Enchanté," replies Sera, "I'm his --" Some of the old ache about the uncertainty of her relation to her family has returned, but not as strong as it once was, quiet enough that only Lucien can really feel it. Nevertheless she was turning to him for confirmation, but does an entire double take back at Damien. Looks back to Lucien. Studies his wings, then Damien's. There's something churning in her mind that she is gamely holding in. "You called him --" Is Sera going to finish a sentence at some point? "Killed him?" she echoes this softly, pulling closer to Lucien, her stance unconsciously -- and, under the circumstances, absurdly -- protective. "Matt?" There's a definite sense of slipshod scrambling in her attempts to reel back her shock and anger and horror and disbelief which, in spite of her efforts, are spooling up into something that feels a lot like a storm. "The eyes are from their mother, the rest of them are quite human," Damien is quick to assure Joshua, "not a trace of magic in her or the fratricide at all." The leaf seals neatly over the wound, and even before the ointment begins speeding along the healing it is beginning to numb the pain with a soothing cool. "We are as real as you all." Damien's voice is quite serious, here: "But I'm sure you, of all humans, can understand why we do not often like to let on. Your world can be cruel to difference, and quite rapacious to those differences it thinks might turn a profit. A long time ago our worlds had a good deal more friendship, but --" He shakes his head, and he's going now to Lucien's side, not actually asking his leave before taking the other man's arm to start dressing the wound. "I am immensely grateful for your help, but I would be still more grateful for your discretion, when you return." His head is tilting up to fix Sera with an intense gaze at her brewing storm. "You seem like you would benefit from a good scrub." "Yes, Matt, it was definitely not Gaé. You have no idea what he's --" Kavalam's voice is just starting to raise, his own furious protectiveness spiking, but he reels it back in through the mundane and non-biokinetic effort of just taking deeper breaths. "How do we get home," he's demanding with an abrupt suspicion. Still absent-mindedly rubbing the seam between his skin and his Otherworldly bandage with one thumb, Scott lifts his chin sharply at Kavalam, opening his mouth only to close it again when Kavalam cuts himself off. After a moment he crosses to Kavalam, brow still very creased, reaching to check on the delicate cuts on his arms. This question spurs one from him, too, "When do we get home?" "We're discreet." Joshua is still looking into the water through all this. Jaw a little tighter at the empathic roiling, shoulders a little tighter when Kavalam's voice raises. Whatever emotional reaction he might be having to All Of This doesn't much surface past the intense overtaxed nausea of his exhaustion. He tentatively reaches a hand out, finger touching lightly to the marbled surface of the milky pink pool. "... can magic be stolen?" "He gave me his True Name," Lucien replies softly, "though at the time I'd no idea whatsoever what that truly meant. I thought him quite mad." His breath catches sharp when Damien takes his arm, though perhaps this time he is more prepared for it. With some pain and some reluctance he is peeling aside his tunic to reveal the other, nastier wound left below. "... still think this all quite mad," he allows, "but quite real, as well." Has he noticed the exchange about this fratricide? He seems to be doggedly ignoring it, though he is tilting his head with a keen curiosity at Joshua's question. Everything Sera has been trying to contain starts to slip her control, straining wildly for Kavalam. She physically flinches before adjusting her hold -- and the storm quiets, obfuscated from the others with a kind of neurochemical shroud. "We're good at secrets," she says this with an impressive lack of inflection. "Lethally good." She studies the spice pool with a careful curiosity. "Probably. I did get lost and then ravished and besides, there was nowhere to wash where we camped two meals back. But I'm not incredibly comfortable getting undressed with five men." She doesn't actually feel that uncomfortable, looking from her brother to Damien with kind of muted awe. "I was just starting to think this might be real and not merely mad. Now I'm back at 'maybe there were shrooms in that tea'." "I've been quite some time in your world and I'm not convinced it is any less mad. We're just a little more honest about ours." Damien's eyes cut sharply to Joshua. "Anything can be stolen, if you put your mind to it. Magic can be stolen as easily as fears, or Tuesdays, or gems, or hearts." The cold dread that fills him is suffocatingly complete, though thankfully for the Tessiers it shifts smoothly into a strange fierce sort of pride. He's very careful in dressing Lucien's wounds, and careful too with his addition, "Creatures who generate magic can also be stolen. However mad you think this, it doesn't remove the danger." He doesn't answer the question about going home, just grasping tight at his walking stick once Lucien's wounds are dressed. "... how much do you trust these people?" He is quite clearly asking this of Lucien. "You make," Joshua starts, a little wide eyed as his gaze snaps from the water to Damien. But this is hitching and shifting incredulously to a glance at Lucien, "-- he makes --" And then he's silent. He's already been pale but he's getting even paler. His fingers scrunch hard into the earth beside him, and though he can't feel Damien that dread seems oddly contagious. "We can clear out. Take turns. I feel like all our souls could use some refreshing, and who knows when our next rest will come." But after this (easier, more practical) dilemma is Damien's question. Lucien is looking up, slow, everything in him drawing tighter at Joshua's stark-dawning understanding. His eyes slip past Kavalam the quickest, linger a moment longer on Joshua, and settle on Scott the longest of all. His shoulders are curling in -- not much but given his usual impeccable posture it is readily notable. His wings rustle again, one leafy-feathery tip trailing into the spicy-sweet water. Eventually he draws a breath in, and it's shaky, and small, but when he speaks his voice is clear and firm. "I trust these men with my life." At Lucien's answer, or maybe at the readiness with which he came to it for him, there's a small flush in Kavalam's cheeks and a bright glimmer of tears in his eyes. He wipes his palm fierce against his eyes and turns his arms up obligingly for Scott's inspection, though he's also shaking his head in denial: "Mr. Joshua took care of the dying. These are kind of cool actually." He's looking at Lucien and Damien, and then back down to his arms with a side-to-side bobble of his head. "Thank goodness I cannot spread around this story because nobody anyway would believe it. Not going to catch me out here looking like one delusional Narnia child." Sera shrugs tightly. "Sure, but I've lived on one Earth or another my entire life and nobody's ever tried to eat or enslave or..." She blanches, and does whatever she just did harder to insulate the sudden flare of anger and longing and dread -- her own lapping eagerly at everyone else's. "Nobody's tried to eat me, anyway, though I'm starting to think this is actually better." Her eyes dart from Kavalam to Joshua. "You knew? Our mother and I have been living with him all this time." There's no heat in this, not much of anything at all, now that she's had time to furl her crudely contained tempest. "{Is that what happened to the other you, also?}" The plaintive tug of her power on a Lucien's makes it clear she's speaking to him even if the question itself does not, or the fact that it comes in a rapid spill of Joual, very much unlike her usual cultured Québécois. Scott has lifted the cloudy red gaze of his visor to point sort of ambiguously at nobody in their gathering, arms folded across his chest -- "We knew," he admits quietly. Damien makes a quiet acknowledging hm, and pushes himself to his feet. "Good. Take your rest here, then. Do not stray far, if you value your lives." The armillary sphere is shifting, again, atop his walking stick, and he's searching the glimmering play of light until he finds what he is looking for. "I will secure your friends their passage home." His wings spread, and despite the fragile-looking rattle of the brown and drying leaves, they are well strong enough to bear him aloft when he flaps them, and vanishes above the canopy. Joshua's eyes have narrowed, at first, when Sera speaks, and even through his haze of exhaustion his fury and disgust are jagged clawing things. Brief, soon distracted by: "-- Ours?" His eyes have locked back on Damien at this. "What about his?" But his strange captor is gone, and he just clenches his teeth and flops back against the ground with a heavy exhale. Sera's words stir a brief something in Lucien, too, not quite as sharp, not quite as tearing; just a dull sick hurt that clenches itself into a tight ball inside him and then is packed away. "I do not know." Unlike with Sera there is very little indication as to who his statement is directed at. He presses fingertips delicately to both eyes, shoving back down, too, the stabbing headache that is trying to surface. He pushes himself up stiffly, grabbing his pack as he rises, moving away from the pools toward the farther end of the clearing. "I am going to make some food. You all should eat it." Kavalam doesn't ask, but it's clear he's got the same question -- he's looking to Damien, looking to Joshua, looking to Lucien, and growing a little more tense. He is getting up, trailing after Lucien to help or possibly hinder the preparation of Fairy Food. "The stories really did both under- and over-sell Fairyland."