exsilium | second rune; death; video

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second rune; death; video

[When the feed starts, the netbook's camera shows you a view of the forest floor. A deer carcass lies among the grass and twigs, and it's obvious that the poor thing did not have a clean death. It's in the advanced stages of decomposition, even though the blood around its body is red and fresh. The camera does not linger on this image for more than a few seconds; it pans upward, to show Koltira's face.

He's standing over the deer, holding the device in one hand, holding Byfrost with the other. Agony creases his expression: his jaw is clenched, his eyes narrowed, every muscle in his pale, sallow face is taut with pain. The guttural growl of his voice occasionally rises in octave as he talks, as though something is beating the shit out of him from the inside.]

Were we brought here to fight for something, or to waste time reliving the past? Send. Us. On. A mission.

[He stabs the tree next to him with Byfrost, and the sword glows sickly green; the tree bark begins to decay rapidly, as though it's practically melting. Diseased fumes pour out of the bark, forming a nasty miasma around Koltira's body.]

I need a battle. [he hisses, and blood trickles from the corner of his mouth as he bites down on the inside of his cheek.] Now.

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[ Bariyan's eyes flicker down towards the blue glow and he grimaces. The spell hits him hard, but for a while he tries to fight its effects. Watches Koltira, concentrates, tries to retain full control of whatever freedom is left to him. He does not want to slow; but already he can feel himself giving in. Too much. Too late.

He finally lets go of both Koltira's gauntlet and his blade. He can almost feel the strain on his neck, Koltira's grip around it... and something cold and dreadful starts to settle in.

Bariyan is not afraid of physical trauma. But that was all he had been expecting. ]

[As soon as Bariyan stops fighting the spell and his body begins to go slack, Koltira kicks him in stomach with enough force to knock Bariyan back and onto the ground. Byfrost rips free in tandem with Koltira's kick, shredding whatever its blade touches as it exits.

Kneeling down beside Bariyan, Koltira grabs him by the throat and yanks him up roughly, the sharp points of his gauntlets biting deep into Bariyan's neck. He examines what he's done, his gaze bright, cold, feral.

He notices the stitches.]

[ Sky. Branches far above. Bariyan's staring up from the ground before he even realizes what's happened. He's momentarily dazed, almost detached -- the frost is still doing its work -- and it takes him a little more to piece together how he arrived here.

There. Now he has it. Oh, that's unpleasant.

The pull on his neck saves him the trouble of having to push himself up to survey the damage. Bariyan looks now, looking down along his own body. Byfrost has all but ripped the lower half of his torso inside-out. An impressive mess, but nothing that he hasn't seen before. Disgust flashes through him, causes him to look away. Disgust at the fact that he remains alive through all of this.

Now he takes notice of the steel in his throat. An experimental twist tells him that the claws of Koltira's gauntlet are dug in deep. Bariyan looks at Koltira, his head tilted back, momentarily calm. Throat exposed.

Now what? he tries to ask, but it comes out as an unintelligible groan. ]

[Koltira smiles at the groan, holding Bariyan in a way that would seem tender at a distance: one hand on his lower back, the other cupping his chin. When Bariyan looks away, Koltira tightens his grip on the man's jaw, forcing him to look back, to see what's become of him. The bloodless entrails glisten in the unearthly twilight cast by the runeblade, which Koltira has placed nearby on the grass. The broken bone, the soft, exposed viscera, and the expression on Bariyan's face--these are not disgusting to Koltira, not in his present state. On the contrary, the scene is exquisite.

He runs a claw over Bariyan's chin, raking his jawline until he settles just below the left ear. Carefully, to test the reaction, Koltira plucks at one of the red stitches sewn in a bit further down, slipping a claw beneath the string and slowly pulling it away from the skin.]

[ At first, the hand that Bariyan places against Koltira's chest is for support -- a wince as Koltira forces him to look again, yes, thank you, by now he's seen enough of his own insides to last him several lifetimes -- but that hand tightens into a slow fist once he realizes what Koltira is doing.

The stitches are something that Bariyan never toys with, never tests. He thinks they're more symbolic than anything, but even so, it's still a symbolism that Bariyan respects. So Koltira's intentions are worrying him.

Bariyan raises his other hand, groping until he finds Koltira's gauntlet again. No. He pulls, with some urgency in the motion. Eyes cast downwards, expression becoming more and more uneasy. Leave it. ]

[He scowls at Bariyan's resistance, at this man's strange notion that he has a single say in what's happening right now. At the tugging, he presses his palm flat against the side of Bariyan's neck. On the one hand, the struggle was good; the clear anxiety was good. These were emotions that Koltira could taste, that he could lick off of his lips.

But the man was interrupting.]

Be still.

[Koltira's voice is darker than before; there's more of the otherwordly, gravelly echo, as though he's speaking from the bottom of a ravine. More icy fever flows from his hand, seeping beneath Bariyan's skin. Be still and suffer for me.]

[ More. Bariyan fights it again, harder than last time. Forcing his grip to tighten, using the hand still against Koltira's chest to brace himself, trying to shove away. But the spell is nothing that Bariyan's able to fight against. He stills, eventually.

The change in Koltira is startling. Bariyan hadn't been expecting that, either. He reflects back just briefly on the conversations they'd had prior to this; he'd liked Koltira, trusted him. Did he still? He considers, with some detachment, what is happening now. All the little twists that he hadn't anticipated.

It isn't Koltira's bloodlust that concerns him -- he knows the reasons behind that, knows Koltira doesn't have a choice in it. It's the slow, methodical way Koltira is going about fulfilling that lust....

Bariyan's eyes flicker shut. ]

[It's clear now that Bariyan wants to protect those stitches. Koltira lowers his head to examine them up close, frowning at them thoughtfully, running the tip of a claw across the entire length of Bariyan's throat. His other hand keeps Bariyan upright, cradling him, preventing him from falling back onto the ground.

The curse in his blood is only satisfied through agony. It screams in his ears like river rapids, unrelenting, crashing constantly against all the things that make Koltira who he actually is. The pain that has lead him to this moment is unbearable, excruciating, and now that something is in his grasp to ease it, the curse has asserted itself, almost fully so. Not quite. But almost.

Koltira selects a stitch. He begins to pull.]

[ His reaction is slow and delayed. But he feels it, a tug on something that he might call a soul, a sensation much like the one he'd felt on that day he'd gone to Koltira with his body falling apart into bits.

But worse, the more Koltira pulls and unravels. So much worse.

The flesh and skin of Bariyan's throat has already been weakened by Koltira's grip, slashed by the claws of his gauntlet. It all gives way easily as Koltira starts to pull the stitches out. Bariyan swears -- again, just a strangled noise -- hands clawing at the ground, nails briefly scraping across his own viscera until he finds just enough in him to raise one hand to his throat to grasp at Koltira's. But he misses, and he entangles stiff fingers in the string instead.

There Bariyan stills, teeth clenched tight, eyes still shut. Perhaps he should just give in, he thinks. After all, he'd brought this upon himself. By coming here. By merely existing. ]

[He is, initially, delighted with his work. Koltira exults in the feeling of Bariyan's body shifting against his, in the syntax of terror, the gasping and scraping. His screaming blood begins to sing, and the wracking pain in his own body recedes. Reason, mortified and repulsed, breaks the surface.

As Bariyan stiffens, Koltira abruptly stops in his progress. He recoils, staring at the wreck he's made of the body in his arms, and the sick joy he had felt moments ago is quickly replaced with pure and simple sickness.

He whispers thickly, still fighting through the fog of pain.]

Oh--Light help me--

[ Bariyan hears the whisper but does not register the shift in mood, still groggy with whatever spell Koltira had been using before. The only thing he does register is the mess of string in his fingers. Despite himself, he pulls a little more, enough to bring them into view as he opens his eyes again. Oh, gods. That'll be a right pleasant mess to set straight.

He lets his hand drop back to his throat, nails digging in until he finds a cleft, now exposed with the stitches torn out. Where his head separates from the rest of his body. The wound that had never healed. Cat's doing. Or maybe just Bariyan's own.

Bariyan makes another sound. Something that might have been a laugh, but filtered through the ruins of his throat and turned into an awful noise. ]

[Koltira's eyes widen. He is the cause of this, he knows; he could see it happening like someone watching a play behind a screen, aware but unable to interfere. He had torn down the screen, but much too late for it to matter.]

Bariyan. [his voice is louder now, stronger, though cracked with self-loathing and fear.] Bariyan, don't--

[ Now he registers words, meanings, more besides. He hears the uneasiness in Koltira's voice and raises his hand to Koltira's shoulder, in what might've been a reassuring gesture if it weren't for the shakiness of his fingers. With his other hand he clutches at his own throat, hard.

With the minutes passing by and no new assault upon his person, Bariyan deems it safe to attempt sitting up. ]

Koltira. [ His voice is weakened, barely intelligible. He tries to ask are you done?, next, but it sounds like a death rattle. ]

I'm sorry--I'm so--terribly sorry--

[his words are quick, high-pitched, ragged. Still holding onto Bariyan, he leans over the man, shaking. This is agony.]

Why? Why didn't you leave? I told you to leave.

[ Bariyan shifts his grip on his throat, trying to hold it together. Goddammit, he wants to talk. ]

Don't-- How a-- [ Words dissolving into coughs. No, it's no good. Damn it.

Bariyan grips the string in his fingers and yanks, hard. Something inside screeches at him to stop. But he goes only far enough to tighten the stitches that remain in-place, pulling them as secure as he can before he dares to let go. That done, he places his free hand against Koltira's chest, again. Fingers curling in just slightly. Stop. It's fine. ]

[he shakes his head 'no', because it's definitely not fine. This is the complete antithesis of fine.]

You are badly wounded-- [because of me.]--you need help.

[he would carry Bariyan back to the city himself, but he's still not in the best state to be around other people. Instead, he looks around frantically for the netbook. Surely he can call the hospital or the clinic or something.]

[ Bariyan stops trying to talk. He does shift the hand on Koltira's shoulder off, to lay against Koltira's jaw instead -- stop. Stop looking. The most help Bariyan needs is a needle and thread.

He forces himself up, off the support of Koltira's arms, and winces as he's forced to fully face the mess of gore that he's sitting in. All right, then. Needle, thread, and a knife to trim off his entrails. He has no desire to walk around with a couple feet of intestine dragging along after him.

No matter. Bariyan turns his gaze upon Koltira. He's changed, again. That terrible, uninhibited sadism has all but vanished.

But for how long? ]

[Koltira catches Bariyan's eye, and sees the question there--the uncertainty. That, more than anything else, makes his gut curdle. He struggles to his feet, even as more pain shoots up his arms and legs. Misery falls over him like a drape.

He doesn't want to leave Bariyan in such a state, but the man doesn't seem that worried about his own condition. He seems focused on Koltira, on what he might do next.

Clutching his chest as he feels the discordant voices inside him start to rise in volume, Koltira turns away.]

... I will leave you, then.

[ If Bariyan had full control over himself, he would have refused. Would have realized that Koltira was still hurting, known that he couldn't leave until he'd done all that he could for the man. That might've left Bariyan in shreds, but surely it would have been worth it.

But Bariyan is shaken by the change he'd seen in Koltira, by Koltira's ability to seize ahold of the few things that did give Bariyan cause for concern. He is not unsettled to the point of horror, but it is enough to quell him. So he does not protest.

He does grab on to Koltira's arm one last time, though. ]

Your. Blade.

[ Bariyan just barely manages to choke the words out. Somewhat hesitantly, he grabs a fistful of his own viscera and yanks, pointedly. His gaze turns back upon Byfrost.

It'll be too hard to drag himself back to the city like this. Better to shed the excess now. ]

[Koltira winces at his own handiwork. He surely does not want to take Byfrost to Bariyan again, but he understands the request well enough. He nods, picks up the weapon, and brings it down swiftly on the spare section of entrails. This is done with great effort--the sword and his body are both calling, begging for more--but Koltira manages to step away quickly after the job is finished.

He murmurs.]

You shouldn't have come. I would have torn myself apart rather than do this to you.

[And then he breaks into a run, disappearing into the trees shortly thereafter.]

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second rune; death; video

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