#togetherslapping words

[rukafais]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

After her third defeat, a barely-conscious Lace reflects distantly on what she believes to be her impending death, and dreams of something strange.

Smacks this down on the floor and leaves

DON'T READ THIS UNLESS YOU'VE FINISHED ACT 3 IT'S MASSIVE SPOILERS okay done enjoy

[rukafais]

The Necrobinder and the Ironclad talk about loss and vengeance, and its price. There's always more to lose.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Slay the Spire (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Necrobinder (Slay the Spire), Ironclad (Slay the Spire), Defect (Slay the Spire), Regent (Slay the Spire), Silent (Slay the Spire) 

[rukafais]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Slay the Spire (Video Game), Slay the Spire 2 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Silent (Slay the Spire), Ironclad (Slay the Spire), Defect (Slay the Spire) Additional Tags: Necrobinder and Regent have cameos but not enough to justify the tag, a bit of gore at the start, content warning: ironclad really goes to town on the heart Summary:

The Ironclad never expected to wake up again, and yet -- here he is, beginning his climb once more.

[rukafais]

a solitary, singular thread

A piece of writing I've been kinda turning over for a while now. While I might expand on it or I might not, I like it as is, so the tag might as well have it.

SPOILERS FOR LOLTH'S WARRIOR

The endless song of the Astral Sea, the hivemind, the universe, is welcoming, overwhelming, tide and sky and space and stars spinning, spinning, spinning. You as a mote, a neuron, a bright-flickering conglomerate of thought, a nascent star rising to its constellation.

Still there is a thread that draws you back. 

Still there is a thread that stitches you into the well worn aching patterns of the material plane.

Still there is a thread that keeps you -- whole.

Still you cling to it.

Thus I am bound.

I do not abandon you...

Never that.

It has been a lifetime since you spoke those words to describe your place in the world as you saw it. You have passed to a place where in theory you should remember them only as one brief flickering note of knowledge among an endless library of it. A single book in an archive. A single star in its sky. In its rightful place, as all things are within the hivemind, but infinitesimal.

In practice, you remember only yourself. The words bind you to the shape of your soul, to the body you once were; the desires of the mind overwrote the limitations of the body and yet, and yet, your form in thought is a perfect copy of the form you have shed, have lost.

The singular form you considered lonely, once. That you considered lonely, for a long time.

You are not lonely now. Everything you yearned for in your solitude is here. You are here. A drop in the ocean, one mind among many, complete, whole, belonging.

(I remember the waves on the shore, the city so far north that the water ran cold - runs cold - in the height of summer. The city that he loves. The city that I fought for despite the odds. The cry of the seabirds, the salt water's chill, the bitter rasping touch of what they called Auril's breath. The winds that blew down from the mountains.

I remember these things still.

I remember what they mean to me -  I often complained, never fond of the cold weather.

I remember what they mean to him.

I remember that he laughed at me then...)

You are not lonely, not here - how can you be? but the thread binds you still. It knots around your nonexistent ribs, spine, throat, lungs, drawn out in the spinning-wheel depths of the heart you no longer need and yet still have. It is sewn into the very fabric of you, as if you were fabric yourself, a pattern that you did not make but in the absence of its giver recreate it yourself.

(I was not a weaver or a clothier or even particularly fond of clothes and all their tedious maintenance. I wore clothing, wore out my clothing, in a way that he often despaired of. He was, is, a great lover of them. He spends hours in front of a mirror when he can get away with it. I remember those long days, those long nights, in which I did the paperwork that so plagued him and he kept his hands busy.

He sewed, embroidered, furnished clothing for this person or that, endearing in his focus and in his strange, frustrating care.

No person of his acquaintance would come away underdressed.

It was a token of his love.)

The thread has existed for as long as you have been here, this star, this free-flying thought. A binding, a restriction, a cord to be cut. But you cannot bring yourself to, for all it weighs you down and tethers you to a place far away from this brilliant sky.

There is something

(someone)

on the other side

(that I left)

that you need.

[rukafais]

He’s out in the garden when you find him. You are seventeen, bordering on eighteen, and more than anything in your life, you want answers.

“I heard you wanted to ask me a question?” He doesn’t seem surprised, but he’s never really surprised at anything.

“I want to know why you killed my father.”

“Ah,” Ekkehardt Gehring says, simply, after a moment of silence, turning his head to meet your eyes. “That question.”

The flight of birds is what you remember, when you are young. Young enough that the blurred memories of a bright castle, shattering windows, the sound of melodic singing that turns brittle and sour, seem like dreams to you.

(You waited by the window, because your father told you to, and you stayed there because your father never came, and you watched the birds scattering across the grounds. Perhaps if you were older you would have realized what it  meant, because no living creature ever visited that castle while your father was alive. They feared it like a predator.

Or, rather, they feared the man within it, far worse than any predator.)

Was the castle real? you ask him, was any of that real?

Of course it was, he says. You lived there, once.

And why don’t I live there any more?

(You remember your father’s smile, the way he laughed, the way he made you laugh. You were safe, and happy, and nothing could ever go wrong for you.)

I could explain your father’s deeds, but that’s not what you want to hear from me, is it?

The man who tutored you and raised you, made sure you went to bed on time and made sure you had friends to play with and answered all your questions no matter how inane or ridiculous, is...not your father (or rather, not your first father, your heart corrects, despite its conflicts.) Your father was broad-shouldered and boomed his words and was always, for some reason, armored.

You were happy with him. Your days were filled with joy and sunshine, those you can remember. Not a single ounce of wrongness or unhappiness stains those fuzzy memories.

I don’t...know what I want to hear, you admit, at last. I don’t know if any reason would make this easier, or better.

Then I’ve taught you correctly, he says, with a faint smile. Those feelings are yours and yours alone. You are free to choose the way you feel about me, and your own path.

Would Father have given me those choices?

That question brings surprise, the slightest amount. (You feel ever so slightly satisfied you can surprise him.) He has to think about it.

I believe he loved you very much, he says, like he’s choosing his words very carefully, but not enough, I think, to let you go so freely.

Is that why you killed him?

Not for that reason. There were many others.

For some strange reason, all you can think about asking is this. Maybe it should be more important to know what crimes your father committed, so you can decide for yourself how unforgivable he truly was, if he deserved to die. Maybe you should ask why the man who might as well be your father now kills people at all.

But you can’t think of any of that right now.

Would you have killed him, if refusing to let me go was the only reason? If there weren’t any others?

Ekkehardt’s smile is thin like a knife’s edge, and yet it’s not unnerving at all.

What kind of parent would I be if I didn’t?

[rukafais]

i’ve got a bunch of other stuff to do today so i’m not finishing this yet but like. anyone who treats mental boundaries as an amusing optional thing definitely had some shit done to them on the side

[rukafais]

at the dagger’s point

Years after the fall of his House, Kimmuriel learns a truth his mother hid. He takes it poorly, to say the least.

Or: Friendship is when your lieutenant threatens you with a knife and you don’t immediately respond by stabbing him, probably?

[AO3 mirror]

"Kind of you to use a physical weapon for this, my friend," the drow sitting in the chair says pleasantly. His voice wavers not even the slightest amount, even with a dagger at his throat, and Kimmuriel - suffused with all-consuming, uncharacteristic rage - hates him all the more for it. 

"For I know that if you truly wanted me dead, you could simply use the power of your mind to finish me off, and I would be helpless before you..." 

Jarlaxle sighs, his glance shifting over to what he can see of his lieutenant. Naturally, the other drow had come from behind, a standard tactic. With a knife, even, another standard tactic....

But Kimmuriel is far from standard. No, this strikes him as simply worrying, for multiple reasons.

"Is it my charming manner that brings this about? My reckless deeds, growing by the day? Have I crossed the line with one too many jokes, perhaps?"

"You know what brings this about," Kimmuriel manages, his voice as rough and shaken as his sudden act of violence. "Don't play the fool with me, Jarlaxle."

"Oh, but I do it so well!" 

He doesn't flinch as the dagger presses harder against his throat. He could have been done with this already - beating Kimmuriel in solely physical combat would not be hard, especially with his eyepatch - but he stays his hand, despite the threat.

His drive for survival is insatiable, but so too is his curiosity. To delve, to understand. Not the depths of the mind as his oh-so-clever lieutenant does, but the depths of other people.

"You could at least tell me what this is about before you start trying to cut my throat. Or take me out to dinner first, perhaps," he adds, with a grin. No laughter comes, nor any reaction at all, to suggest the joke was appreciated.

But then, what did he expect? Kimmuriel, ever always, has been dispassionate about such things. 

"You are a Baenre," comes the hiss from the darkness behind.

"So I am," Jarlaxle admits, the eye not hidden by the eyepatch closing. Yes, he remembers that day just as vividly as Kimmuriel likely remembers it. The punishment of Lolth, an entire House dragged into the Clawrift...

Kimmuriel had not reacted much to the loss of his House. Or, at least, he had tried not to react much. He had dismissed any concern directed his way, saying that he would continue to serve Bregan D'aerthe in full, as he was practically doing already, so it was no matter.

Well, that had been a lie, hadn't it? Even if the survivors of Menzoberranzan's way of life became numb to such atrocities and spectacles, some wounds were too deep to heal. 

Or, perhaps, we simply grew experienced at ignoring them, he muses. For survival. For our own sakes. At the expense of remembering that other people have wounds at all.

"Will my death benefit you, my friend?" he asks the wielder of the knife. "Will it soothe you to know that you have killed me?"

"I will have robbed House Baenre of a valuable asset," Kimmuriel snarls. Jarlaxle can't help but smile, rueful.

"My dear Kimmuriel," he says, and notes the strange flinch, the shakiness to that hand, that comes with speaking his name and that small endearment - ever an oddity, even now - "I am a rebellious, houseless son with no official ties. It would be rather easy to dispose of me, don't you think? And, I will add, I bore your House no ill will. In fact, I may be the only person of my family who didn't view it as a good thing." 

"That means nothing."

"While I can admit that appealing to your sense of sentiment isn't tremendously effective on my part - though I must at least try, for we are friends, after all - think of it this way. Killing me doesn't benefit you. It comes with immediate downsides, in fact."

"Such as?"

"You lose a person - perhaps the only person in this entire city - who understands that you are a valuable individual and not, ah, a possession. Or a weapon. Or a curiosity. Or, most likely, a heretic that should be thrown into the Clawrift where the rest of his House resides, for surely to take you in would be to invite destruction at the hands of Lolth, yes?"

Silence.

"Nobody would harbour you, Kimmuriel," he continues. "This is not a threat - this is a warning. You know as well as I do that the name of Oblodra is a burden anywhere in this city except here, beside me."

"Under you, you mean," the psionicist snaps. 

"Beside me," Jarlaxle corrects. "You are my valued lieutenant - and more than that, you are my friend."

"You use that word far too easily."

"And you know me well enough to know that I mean it, in special cases - one of those special cases being you." 

More silence. The dagger is sharp enough to wound even with a light press - Kimmuriel had sharpened it well - but it isn't pressed any further. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

"Unless the all-seeing Kimmuriel is not as all-seeing as he thinks?" he teases, his voice light. "Surely he knows enough that he can keep Jarlaxle Baenre under control standing at his side, rather than running away from all the Underdark who might want to use or kill him?"

"Nobody can keep Jarlaxle Baenre under control if he doesn't wish it," comes the dry tone he's more familiar with, rather than that uncontrolled and shaking rage. But his voice quivers with frustration, still. With anger.

Grief?

He takes a gamble and raises his hand, bringing it to rest over Kimmuriel's own - not to disarm him, but simply to touch him. They stay there together, this odd tableau, for what seems like a small and frozen eternity.

"I suppose you are right," the psionicist says at last, turning the edge of the blade away from Jarlaxle's throat. "Killing you would simply present more obstacles. It is convenient for you to live, if only so I can continue my own work."

His hand lingers, slow to move away from that connection. Reluctant? Jarlaxle wonders, wonders if he's capable of wanting affection at all - and then almost laughs at himself for asking the question.

Of course Kimmuriel is capable of such feelings. Much as he'd hate to admit it, as much as he doesn't want them. And who can blame him for rejecting such things here, in this wretched city that flenses them all to the bone? Better to hate, to reject, to shut yourself away entirely from pain.

And despite everything the psionicist had done, as dispassionate and near-emotionless as he had already been, pain had reached him still.

Lady Lolth would be pleased at that, he's sure. It's a bitter, dark thought.

"You'll be here tomorrow, I assume?" he asks, at last, thinking that his lieutenant might well need time to himself - more time to himself than he already has.

"I will be here," Kimmuriel says with finality, pulling the weapon away from him at last. The clatter of metal indicates that it's been dropped, or thrown. What use is a dagger to a psionicist, after all? 

Jarlaxle is about to respond, and then the other drow continues.

"I have nowhere else to go."

There's a bleak, exhausted finality in those words, something that goes beyond sadness and into the ashes of it; a resigned despair. Whether Kimmuriel has deliberately revealed it or the whole thing is accidental, he doesn't know.

But he says nothing, not a word, as Kimmuriel - for once - uses the perfectly mundane door.

[rukafais]

So the @huntersjournalzine is now out and I can post my own contribution to it! Which, as it turns out, wasn’t artwork - I had the pleasure of writing two separate area blurbs, one for the Royal Waterways and one for the Grimm Troupe!

Ahh, so you want to hear about my home. Isn’t it a fine place? Truly, I’ve grown fond of it - you need only live in it a while, and it becomes as welcoming as the Palace itself. Though the Waterways, too, were built by our good King, so I dare say it might even be comparable.

And the diversity! If you can believe it, the Waterways once thrived with life! Especially those strange fellows, the flukes. I’m sure you’ve seen them, haunting the tunnels, shadows of their former selves. Didn’t speak much of their language, but they were always courteous folk, in their own way.

I admit, though...it’s seen better days. And it’s crawling with husks now, more’s the pity. But I assure you, it was a wonderful place! Especially with Isma here to brighten things up. Flowers and plants to keep the air fresh, and plenty of water and waste from the city above to feed them and wash the tunnels clean.

Its orderly tunnels....its unique odour...its space and comfort...Ahh, just thinking about it is making me misty-eyed. But! Though it might be less than it was, we can still enjoy the memories of its grandeur.

- The Dung Defender

You wish to hear about the Troupe’s way of life?

Well, well. A curious request from a stranger...but not an unwelcome one.

The Troupe travels much of the time, which of course you already know. But not all our paths are mundane, crossing the wastelands a traveler like yourself might be used to. No, often we walk the realm of Nightmare to which all minds connect, and thus we enter the lands to which we are invited, burning the regrets of those dead places for kindling. What is the end of a civilisation but the nightmare of the land itself, after all?

The Nightmare Realm is a sunken place, sundered from the whole - but there is a beauty in its darkness, all the same. It’s no less important for the way it was cruelly split. But its paths are strange and winding, and though time and distance mean little to the Troupe, such journeys can be exhausting for the young and new. So we created the tents, the procession. An inoculation, a way to strengthen the hearts and minds of those unused to such trials. In time, they overcome their fears, and find the strength to journey beside us on the long roads in whatever way they choose.

- Troupe Master Grimm