#we take everything

[pettyelves]

high stakes

[music, yes it’s fucking coheed]

Their home was quiet off to the right wing where both of their children slept soundly. All but the gentle hum down the left hall. Like a rare bird, Eilithe only sang when she was out of a cage. When she felt free and in control. 

The vanity she sat at was shifted, barely standing on it own with a crack that was formed from the center outward. Perhaps a bit macabre to those who looked at it- for Eilithe and even Kurel it held a nostalgia. On a stool she sat combing out each of her long black curl a bittersweet melody caught in her throat. 

It wasn’t until Kurel’s suspicious face hit the reflection that Eilithe curled her lips into a smile. There was never a happy moment like that- that Kurel was not suspicious over. “Wha’s goin’ on?” the first thing out of his mouth.

She spared him a chaste kiss, before she made for the bath explaining, nonchalant that, “Just like you said- everything is going to be fine. I’m going to be fine.” 

The cross on her back was branded deep in her skin down her spine and when he reached for her he caught the very lip of the vertical line that cut down her spine. Yet, her cheeriness prevailed- even as she wiggled down into the water and turned to look at him, her elbows crossed on the lip of the tub. 

"An' why did Vel have to break down the door, to ge' to you. To help you for wha'."

She chuckled at the thought of the door- whose handle was half busted off- and whose center was chipped away at. "Well, " she began rubbing the water over her arms. "I don't know why she didn't just wipe the mark off. I was instructed to go alone. Entirely alone- so I bound Gra'Dighet here." Eilithe only winced when she sank a bit down into the water- the water seeping into the fresh brand on her back. "Now, I wasn't planning on loosing my clothes out there. On my way back, I was attacked- and overpowered, knocked around a bit- but I'm fine obviously. Velerodra was trying to break the anchor on him to send him to my aid."

He was satisfied enough to strip himself and crawl in behind her, one arm over her stomach- his fingers walking down her spine, then over the bruises on her ribs where he pried.  "You goin' to tell me from star' to finish or make me pry i' ou' of you, through other means." 

But she told him, from start to finish. About the journey out, the ritual, and most of all about the man she came to understand was named Saakes.  "I don't know how long I was between worlds- but I was. When he finally came, he seemed receptive to the idea of another charge and I needed a source of power, as you said. He made an offer-- It was more like a bet. And I accepted. He gave me a ring-- which I believe houses Vrede and sent me on my way." A fraction of a pause, then.  "Getting back was a bit of a challenge."

Whatever she had to offer about getting back didn’t matter- she was alive, she was back, and the intrigue was far more focused on that bet.

"Lord of Deals... The loa of bargains. Wha' was your trade? The mark an'... wha'ever this means?" He indicated her ring.

Ferry the dead, draw on his power. It was so simple.

"If you fail ... to pay your dues?"

"If I fail, then I will be bound to service upon my death and beyond." She said the last confident, assuredly. "But remember, Kurel..” Across his lap, she touched forehead to forehead. 

“I do not make bets I cannot win."

If he loved her If he didn’t If he loved her and didn’t say it. It didn’t matter. She felt it in the hard press of his lips with hers. She felt it in the way his hand intertwined in her hair-- in the way he pulled them together. In every touch be it tender or agonizing. And he gave her one command.

“Do not fail, Eilithe.” 

@kurel-andiel @velerodra-valesinger for mention.

[pettyelves]

loopholes

The morning had started as a simple exercise. Shal’Theran children stayed in groups and in groups they went beyond the sight of their parents. And so was the lesson for Karkah. For she was to be Shal’Thera--not given to the desert. 

The elder girl spent all of breakfast arguing, and the younger spent it complaining-- so by the end of it Eilithe had told them both to close their mouths and do what they were told. 

It took less than an hour.

Less than an hour for Karkah to trick Eilonwy into hiding, alone, in the city. Less than an hour for the elder girl to make her way to Reveria’s house and hatch a devious plot. 

Later, Eilithe would come to know that Eilonwy hadn’t stayed hidden for long- but had instead found Severin- and set into motion the events of the day. A simple prank-- revenge, plotted by the younger girl, to make Karkah pay for abandoning her.  With the help of Kurel’s most trusted Whisper, Eilonwy had blocked the door of Karkah’s room from inside and dumped marbles in front of an open window. And it would have been a harmless prank- if not for the poorly placed dagger that found itself into Karkah’s leg when she fell. 

Tourniquet, pressure on the wound. Karkah had managed to fall upon her own dagger- straight through one side of her leg and out the other side. She was screaming for Velerodra.

It wasn’t until the knife was out that she saw it- a shadow bleeding out of Karkah, lashing around as though it would put pressure on the wound it bled from.

She explained in abrasive urgency to Kurel that she needed to understand- whatever Karkah was. If she was to raise her, she was owed that much. They exchanged over the seal.

“Kurel something is fucking coming out of her, I kind of need to know what I'm fucking dealing with here. It's..like a shadow-- moving around.”

"Cause i' is shadow. No magic, alrigh'. Patch her up ol' fashion. Everythin' will be fine. For now. We'll deal with the res' of it. When we have to or when i' happens."

"Kurel, I'm not fucking around- I want to know what the fuck I'm raising and I think we both know that's for the best. So later." She was rarely so firm with him- though it wasn't the usual bitchiness but the more rare, concerned and determined that suggested he wasn't escaping this conversation.

When Karkah was patched up and her pain dulled, the girl showed her need for a mother by curling up into Eilithe’s side, whimpering- nuzzling. Eilithe let her have that comfort without a word. She didn’t move from the girl’s side until long after dark- when Kurel’s body leaned in the door frame. 

It was time. 

All horrible stories of the desert began with Vishak An’Diel- King of the Mirage, and father to Kurel. In greed, he had made an offering that no father nor mother should make. And so was born that An’Diel’s curse, one that was on every single one of them.

Fury boiled in her stomach.

If it was stolen Troll magic that did this- then it was stolen Troll magic that could finish it. There was always a way out. Always a loophole.

“There are no loopholes, Eilithe. The exception is the mark. Saudria's son was never branded. He died. The eigh' of us survived.  Her two later sons survived. An' I branded Anth'iv, before I cut ties with Demytrya. He'll live, bu' his children won't." Kurel barked back at her, a man cruel enough to resign, not only himself to this fate--but his children. When he had died- Mavas had stored his soul. There was a way.

"Wha'ever it is you're startin' to conspire 'bout, " he pointed at her as he stood. "Is a hard No." He was angry, nay he was furious. Walking down memory lane never did him or anyone near any good.  With one sharp strike he snatched up his jacket from the back of the chair.  "Not everythin' you think is broken, is actually broken." He was leaving the room and he wasn't going to the bedroom. He was going for the front door.

There was no world, in which she could imagine that giving in was not a broken one. 

There was only one time before that she had blocked his path. And it was arguable that-that single point it time had set into motion this very moment on their timeline. Shadows sucked her in and spit her back out in front of him. Her back to the front door, head slightly bowed to him and a splay of fingers that barely touched his chest.

 "I gave you my word that I would never conspire against you, that I would never betray you. And I won't." Her head was still bowed-fixed on the mark on his chest, she worried then- what this all meant for the fraction of her soul that powered the mark. But that was further down on the list of priorities. "It isn't about you. It isn't about wanting your freedom for my own self-serving purposes. It is about your children, whom I have taken as my own and hear me, Kurel An'Diel, I cannot sit idly by. Please do not ask me to."

He had almost walked right through her.  "Karkah is no' here because I wanted her. She is here because i' was this or death, in the custody of her brother. Do wha' you want with them--Pursue dead ends to try an' save them if tha' is what suits you.  Bu' they will be the last of this generation."

And there they were, frozen at the door. And like the other times- when he had cut her deeply, when she was disappointed in him-- it ended in few words, and a chaste kiss to Kurel’s cheek.  “I understand.” She passed around him- releasing him to run like he often did when he knew he was in the wrong. And he’d be gone for at least a day.

Eilithe returned to Karkah's room, where Eilonwy laid curled on the floor with her pillow- dead asleep. No doubt, she’d heard Kurel and Eilithe screaming, gotten up to seek refuge in her elder sister’s room. Perhaps it guilt, that she’d put Karkah in such a position.

The sight brought tears, in fact it brought full on sobs that were silent- quivers that she hushed so as not to wake either girl. She stood in the door like that until she had nothing left to cry out. 

 Picking up Eilonwy, she laid the girl on her right- leaving Karkah on her left. In between them she stared at the ceiling, much in the way Kurel did most nights  in silence, her arms around either girl. 

[co-written with @kurel-andiel . | @velerodra-valesinger @revthepunchbear @shaded-hawke for mentions ]

[pettyelves]

reset

How many times had she dreamed of the shifting sands in Tanaris, of the desert king she shared her bed with. And each time, she always stood ten paces across from him- a breeze that moved the coarse sand against her skin. It was like glass.

Eilithe awoke before anyone else that morning- creeping down the hall to wake Karkah. In her hand she carried a bow, identical to the one on her back meant for the girl. It was not because she was his daughter that Eilithe cared for her-- it was because of the code. And under any other circumstance, she might’ve hated the girl-- hated her for not being hers. Yet, there was nothing that tied Karkah to this place. She bore no love for her father and certainly none for Eilithe.

“Do you know how to shoot this?” Eilithe asked, when she handed over the bow.

“Better than you.”

She was six the first time her mother took her along, seven before she’d actually take her first shot- and with Karkah a year behind that. All elves should know what to do with a bow. 

They were an hour into the jungle- wordless, but nearly at their destination. Carting the girl into the trees, Eilithe had selected a cluster of boars. Various sizes, with one male being particularly large. 

Karkah’s first shot ended in a painful miss-fire- the string snapping on the girl’s face. The was a mirror, almost exactly, of Eilithe’s own first experiences with hunting- and so with a salve on the girl’s eye, she went to whispering instructions. 

“Put your thumb to your cheek, the gap will protect your face.” Then ready. Aim. Karkah loosed the arrow with accuracy that was either luck or natural skill. Straight through the heart. 

And in that moment, Eilithe felt something she knew she ought not. She was proud of the girl.

The other side of hunting was the gritty part-- the part Karkah was new two, but equally not bothered by. Eilithe showed each cut- and the way to grip the hide and rip it back away from the meat that was for eating. 

“Do you know the tale of Omen?” Karkah asked.

The beast that protected the Mirage- the thing that Eilonwy was certain was embodied in Kurel. “I know a version of it.” She answered, encouraging the girl to tell her own. 

“Mai would say that The Omen was sculpted from rock and sand and bone and blood by the terrible desert king. The Omen was not man, but loa, made by man. The terrible king gave him long swords for arms, that he used to flay the wandering warriors of his enemies... like this boar. And would post them on the borders of tribes with their heads cut off as warning. She said his head was skull of a stag; his face made of bone with great horn spires.”

A pause came in Eilithe’s thinking-- how close was this Omen to the beast in her own shadow.

"And a belt made of finger bones, stolen from his kills. She said he lived on the blood drink of children who forget to leave offerings to their Dahji and the chittering sound in the night air, was the jingle of teeth he wrote around his ankles. Warning you he was coming. I asked once if she seen him, because tale is that no man survives the terrible king's harbinger. But someone had to see. To know. Otherwise, story is just lie."

By the time the story was finished, Eilithe was certain. If she was going to raise the girl- she needed to understand. Understand, or do it on her own terms. 

Nothing was ever gained or lost from Kurel An’Diel without a wager attached to it. Not his time. Not his affections, And certainly not information. 

She warmed him up with food.Then it was the gentle rub of her thumbs into his shoulder--gentle kisses on his cheek. A reminder that she needed Karakh to trust her or nothing would ever get done.

"I came to gauge how much I'll have to put out to hear more of the desert." She removed her cigarette from her lips and placed a kiss  just below his ear.  "It's been some time-- since you told me a story."

He adjusted himself so that he could comfortably sit her on the table in front of him. “Sit here. Facin' me. An' grab tha' deck of cards  in the far corner." His fingers shuffled the cards before he explained.  "For every hand you win. You ge' one question. For every hand you lose, you remove one item of clothing. When you have nothin' lef' to be removed. Your story is over."

And so began their game of twenty one. 

First, she won.  "Tell me of the man that created the Omen." A man she knew was called Vishak. A man she knew was Kurel’s own father. 

His answer gave her nothing-- nothing that would help Karkah. 

Second, she won again.

"What are the rites and rituals for Tanari, particularly girl?"

He told her of the Fire Maiden- who, from all the Blades would select only one- to which she would offer a crown of bramble and be brought into womanhood that night. A story Eilithe had heard once already.

"That's the only one you remember, isn't it?" She grinned at him, "You would remember that one." 

He grinned.

The third, she lost.

“Do i' slowly. So I can hear every fiber.” 

Her top was the first item surrendered. Slid forward into his lap, she peeled the fabric as though it had been pasted to her skin.

Fourth, she lost again. Though then came the less exciting removal of her foot wraps.

Fifth, she won- much to the handsy Kurel’s bemusement.

  "So if this awful king made the thing-- the thing that doesn't seem to be what I understood it to be, The Omen. Why the ritual, that Kelliann began and Mavas completed?" Was the question she gave- in between kisses up and down his throat. 

"Kelliann only used the moniker. You're tryin' to bridge two lifetimes, that have very little relation. Ritual was her finger wigglin'. I ain't go' those answers to why."

So he was not the Omen. Not the one that Karkah knew.  Still, she pushed Kurel- like she always did- with the kisses and her fingers twisting in the laces of her pants. 

"I just want to understand where you both came from, what I can use to relate to her and teach her. Like you said." She didn't ask for another round of cards, too focused on undoing his pants. "The only way I know her is through you at this point."

Impatient with her, Kurel ended their game by lifting her onto the table and discarding cloth that separated them. When he spoke it was against her lips, antagonize to the point of forcefulness.

"Kelliann didn't wan' her raised as Mirage." He growled. "So she absconded with her. Back to Uldum. Back to her own people. You want to teach her, create new relations. Stop tryin' to fit yourself into the life she knows. That life gone. Dead. So fit her into the life you have; you pity her." Kurel grinned against her lips as the wrap of his arms around her held her up against him. "An' she's been usin' tha' to con you."

He was right-- and she hated when he was right. Kelliann had taken Karkah from Kurel in much the same way that Threshad was taken from her. At the end of the game, she was left with the sound of his buckle coming undone, and the warmth of his hands grabbing at her. "Then I will raise her as Shal'Thera but you know what that means.”

It meant at the end she’d be more Duskbringer than An’Diel. It meant she would her hers. Theirs, at best.

And there began the reset of old scores and transgressions, passed between the two of them. Of arguments, petty or otherwise heartbreaking. A reset of their cycle, the loop of Anger, to Rage, to unhinged Passion, then Contentment. The consummation of that cycle was on prefaced with a string of words from her Tanari lover, uttered into her jawline.

"It's the safes' thing for her."

@kurel-andiel