( OPEN )

[miscreant]

CHARACTERS: Seviilia and you
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: D049
SUMMARY: Downtiiiime
WARNINGS: We've entered "perpetually hungry" mode. Escalating Seviilia's negative emotions could incite violence. PM me if you want a choking thread! (Seviilia will coma before she can do any real damage)

( WARM )

Being at least half of a magical construct, the concept of 'conditioning' was more of a 'warming up' process for Seviilia. Her muscles fed on the magic that kept her walking among the living long after her expiration date. There was nothing to tone when the simple act of feeding was what kept her in fighting form. All of that said, there was nothing to stop the itch in the Station -- nothing but other hosts, which she had already learned twice over were a poor substitute.

Slowly but surely, she is starving.

She's taken a pair of practice swords, as her own runeblades would likely tarnish communal training equipment. Its not very helpful -- they're much lighter than what she is used to. But just hitting something might take her mind of the urge to hunt the heartbeats echoing in the honeycomb chambers of the Station. The succession of the clacks of contact can be heard echoing through the hall --she's not being particularly gentle.

Seviilia doesn't sweat, doesn't tire. Occasionally, ice on her blades cushions her blows to keep from shattering them with her brute force, leaving shards and small melted spatters around the floor. She appears focused, but she does pause after someone stops long enough to make it clear that they are watching her.

"You could make yourself useful and pick up another weapon."

( NEST )

There is no necropolis to watch over, no soldiers to guide, so she continues to find solstice in the silence of the Nesting Pods. The sides of it are frosted, much like everything she touches. In her hands is a journal of sorts, accompanied by an inkwell on the outside of the pod and the quill of a strange alien bird between black fingertips. A few droplets of red run down the side of the pod from where it has dripped on its way back to her.

On the pages is a series of scribbles, notes, and small sketches, all in the same red ink. Some of birds, some of bone constructs, some of faces she remembers -- all are in a hyper realistic style, easily recognizable even from a distance. Occasionally, she pauses to think, her fingers pinching her quill just a bit tighter than she ought to be until--

Snap.

Her sigh echoes off the walls, head lolling back until it hits the wall with a clunk.

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Comments

[hymnals]

He stumbles back, coughing violently. Blood flecks his lips as he thumps his chest, and he laughs. This is what Aurelius feels. This is what his brother wants. Adra could never suffer enough for him, not in life or in death. He expects Seviilia will be no different.

"Got a leash on you, eh?" he says, shaking his head. "That must be frustrating."

He's not trying to taunt her. She must exist in a state of semi-starvation at all times. It's something he can relate to, albeit not on the same level.

(But his own cravings are there; his own desire to reach out and take and take and take.)

[miscreant]

Something boils under her skin, his choice of words in spite of his meaning. Though she doesn't react outwardly save for the narrowing of her eyes, an angry wolf bears its fangs in the shared mindspace between them, the urge to cause even more pain rising even higher to chase the delight still flooding her fingertips.

The sigh that is forced out of her nose settles her temper only just, the hunger clawing at her belly reminding her of just how long it had been. She missed Ilde. She missed The Darkling. But Adrasteius is frail enough that his pain will give her a bit of clarity on its own.

"The insect we all share does not relish enduring harm," she admits, composing herself with a smear of her face in her hand, biting at her thumb for a long moment until she makes herself bleed. The small pinch does nothing to distract her. "Fortunately, it does not discriminate against those not of our number."

[hymnals]

Adra takes a seat again, feeling a little too light-headed to stand just yet. Maybe he should take up those offers of physical training. The Legion brought him back to the battlefield, but that was after nearly a year long break. He's grown soft--softer, at any rate.

He watches the blood trickle down her palm. It's his instinct to reach out and heal the damage, but she's a death knight. Any touch of the Light will hurt her, even if his intentions are benign. So he stays his hand.

"Lucky for you," he says, dryly. "Have you had much opportunity for indiscriminate murder, then?"

[miscreant]

"If I did, do you think I would still be peeling our collective skin back now?"

The question is actually a trick question, of course. Yes, she absolutely would. She wasn't the Deathlord because she was a peaceful, benign creature -- she was the Lich King's arm. But perhaps, the itch wouldn't bare itself quite so much if she had an alternative.

She doesn't give him much of an opportunity to answer back.

"There is no life sustained on this Station, aside from our collective."

[hymnals]

"But you're set loose during the missions, no?" he says. "That one I came in on looked perfect for someone with your needs."

He's managing a fairly neutral tone here, which is a feat for him, and it's solely due to the fact that he has a death knight as his very own twin brother. Without Aurelius, he might have been more wary--and certainly more judgmental. As it stands, he isn't happy about what she has to do, but he knows she has no choice other than to do it. Some way, somehow.

[miscreant]

"It was. As best it could be. Better than what we are about to face, I imagine."

She sniffs in a manner that suggests annoyance. Death knight she might have been, leadership had gifted her some perspective she had been lacking. The need for discretion to ensure success, for one. Wanton killing would have them hunted by the hovering "Enemy" Cathaway and Prince so clearly feared. The "Enemy" that had taken the Legion's face.

It would never be enough. Her appetite was insatiable, and it was worse when rebounded by the other hosts.

"My levels of endurance are not shared by the rest of the Nest, I am afraid."

[hymnals]

"I'll bet not," he says, as the realization comes to him. Shared pain. Shared (ugh) pleasure. The more her madness takes hold, the more it suffuses the mental link. Her suffering is their suffering. He sits there for a second, thinking about it, and then he laughs--not mirthful, but incredulous.

"The Light has truly brought me here for a lesson."

[miscreant]

The smile that graces her features as he comes to his realization is quickly wiped away by the next thing he says. "I spit on your bloody Light. The Nest brought you here."

The blood on her hand has frozen still, which is her queue to turn to another distraction. As she starts to turn away, she pauses for just a moment. "Still, I suspect your presence will continue be welcome by the others. We do not have many healers among our number."

[hymnals]

He rolls his eyes at her comment--compared to what he went through while the sin'dorei were draining M'uru, that's a mild sentiment. Still, he has to restrain some petty part of himself from pointing out that it was a miracle of the Light that freed so many of her comrades--and perhaps even Seviilia herself--from the Lich King's control.

Instead, he just smiles, lips thin, teeth bright.

"We're all guided by something," he says. "Whether we want to admit it or not."

This, followed by a shrug. "So it seems. But you've all managed well enough despite that, apparently."

[miscreant]

Better than the replies she is used to. Maybe this priest wasn't quite so incorrigible.

"We haven't had many reasons to need one thus far," is her reply as she picks up another practice weapon. It's a useless little thing really, laughably light in her hands. It was no wonder that she had been about to split them with just a few swings. But Frostreaper and Icebringer would have done too much actual damage, so this was her only recourse. "That aside, I believe one Host possesses a healing prowess. Sam Wilson."

She can't help but smirk a little when she remembers it's discovery. How swiftly Shepard had lost her temper with her. "Although it is less of a fix and more of a...transference."

[hymnals]

He watches her move, watches her handle the weapon with confident ease. He can't swing a sword--all the weapons he's ever owned were decorative, carried for their enchantments more than anything else. That's still the case with Light's Wrath, though he sometimes wonders if he should change that.

"I've spoken to him," Adra says, frowning a little. "He didn't explain the ability in detail ... only that it exhausted him."

Transference sounds significantly more grim than what Adra was imagining.

[miscreant]

"If you ask me, it is quite useless," Seviilia admits, tossing the sword between her hands, ignoring the itch that it prompts in her wrists in favor of measuring the target dummy she had dragged out onto the floor prior to Adrasteius' arrival. She could only hope their next adventure had a little more bite, and less hiding involved.

But she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the undead were a more...uncommon commodity in the rest of the galaxy.

"I do not know the man or his pain tolerance well, but it is a rather masochist, spiteful little ability." The smirk that comes is brief, cut off by a hard overhead strike that promptly splits the weapon.

"Its a shame, really" she says eventually, observing the splintered remnants and nudging them with her foot. "A congregation of humans, not one of them even the least bit magically inclined."

[hymnals]

His ears flick back as the weapon shatters, as its pieces clatter to the floor. He feels an itch, too, sitting at the base of his throat. Crawling along his spine.

He pauses, his frown deepening.

"None of them have any magic?"

[miscreant]

"A broodmate of mine did, before he fell to slumber. And, of course, the other elf who walks among us." She thinks to her knowledge of the Nest, but other than Remus and Lavellan...

"Most of them consider it an impossibility," she says, with obvious amusement. Talking with a priest about idle worldly conundrums almost makes the conversation feel normal -- as if some part of her wasn't still trying to crawl out of her skin. She lifts her eyes, and folds her arms. "Several of them have had issues reconciling my existence. It is quite comical."

[hymnals]

Adra's ears perk forward at the mention of Lavellan.

"Ah--yes. He's in my little meeting of the minds," he says. "But we haven't spoken much."

There was power in him, as Adra recalls, but he so far hadn't seen the other elf cast any spells. Not, he supposes, that there's yet been any call to do so. Adra rubs his aching neck, shrugging.

"Because you are sin'dorei, or because you're a death knight? Or -- both?"

It's amazing to him, and the more he thinks on it, the more he feels just slightly nervous. What will he do when his own hunger comes calling?

[miscreant]

"I suspect a hint of both. But it is always the undeath that seems to catch them by surprise."

Something about zombies and fantasy and several concepts she found herself increasingly annoyed by. But then again, considering the fact that she was one of the only ones of her kind present...well. Now that Adrasteius was here, maybe they would take her words more seriously.

She senses his discomfort, vague and distant.

"Something troubles you?"

[hymnals]

He supposes there's no real point in hiding it. She'll eventually feel it keenly, just as he feels the angry scratch of her own hunger right now.

"Magic," he mutters. "I will -- need it, eventually. Some, anyway."

[miscreant]

Ah. Yes. In truth, she had nearly forgotten. Though her magic sense was still keen as ever, the hunger for it had been replaced after all. Her ears lay backwards slowly -- not out of sympathy, but the realization that the Nest would be struggling with two forms of hunger not easily satisfied.

The only magical creatures present were one of his broodmates...and her.

"Perhaps you might consider discussing an alternative with Cathaway," she muses aloud. " Or Prince. If anyone is to have ideas, it will be one of them." Not that she could talk. She hadn't bothered discussing her own feeding habits with them.

[hymnals]

"I would rather not," he says. He'd rather not put this problem to the others at all. He's hoping, instead, that some of the places they visit will have ambient magic--a source he can tap without causing pain or stress to anyone else. "Have you met any others with magic? Outside the Nest."

[miscreant]

Seviilia shrugs to that. She has her own thoughts about refusing solutions others might offer, but then she also knows that there are few people who approve of her using Hosts to slake her own thirst, how ineffective it might be. There were no alternatives, and driving herself insane would effect the Nest as much as it effects her.

A double edged sword. There is no room for a moral high ground.

"I'm afraid not."

[hymnals]

Nothing for it, then. That causes a low-level anxiety to thrum at the base of his spine, to tug unpleasantly at his gut. It's not an immediate problem; he's not shaking with need or anything. But he knows the future cannot be postponed forever.

He runs a hand through his hair, sighing as he gets to his feet.

"So it goes," he says, feeling suddenly tired. He's gotta go lie down. "Good luck to us both, then."