Will You Struggle With Us? (9/29)

Dura enters the keep's side rooms, through the door in the cliff face, and up the stairs through the quartermaster's suite. There's a room for meetings just off the large library.

It is still a mess. There's rubble, bits of paper scattered on the ground, torn parchments. It's like a storm came through here.

"So. You are here to check on my state and not for politics."

"I assume you have questions then."
(Dura Levante)
[21:59:34]
"For now."


The latter was assuredly to happen, but he opted for the sensible route - understanding Dura's condition before he banked his own faith, and that of his people, on factors he did not trust. That was the point of this.

That, and the concern of his ilk. It wasn't easy to brush off that sort of despair and sadness - that fear.

"I asked Kishar not to tell the others. To give you space, while I came to speak. If I am to be fully honest, I'd not be here were it not a matter of the curse - and of Kishar's concern. He's a kind soul."

The ruined nature of the room proves uninteresting to him. He could surmise that it was likely due to the expunged energy. He makes way for any chair he could find, hefting it off of the ground with an almost comedic 'flick' at the dust that settled atop it.

It's placed. He offers it to the Regent, before seizing another and preparing to seat himself - though he seemed to be waiting for them to do so first.

"I wanted to understand the nature of it. The feelings. The sensations. Any potential compulsions, wrought of the energy you now contain - and I want to prove antithesis to it. I want to see if I can find a way to turn you back."

It's almost blasphemous, the thought - the defiance, of one such dragon - but this? This was not Zahhak's will, nor intent, and thus could he never deign to indulge in it zealously.
(Celius Vaelstrum)
[22:07:43]
"...There's no hiding it. I could try, but I do not like keeping secrets." Kishar had been the only one to have seen it. It would have been simple. "Still. A kind sentiment."

"He tried to help. In his own way. I hope he doesn't blame himself."

That her condition, her state, might lose them allies wasn't lost on her. For one who made it her business to think and plan even before her appointment, it had been on her mind. Not at the front.

What had been at the front was that keen sense of loss, even still. That emptiness.

Dura watches him calmly, detached as he plucks a seat from the debris. With a guarded nod she takes it. How polite.

"Defying the will of the Dragons. Didn't think that was a thing Seraphim were meant to do." She crosses her legs and the spaded tail hangs over the seat behind her, swaying with a mind its own.

"I wish I understood it. I wish I knew what it was. How it ticked. Why it's..." The Regent hunches forward, combing fingers through her hair.

"Why me? I felt something hanging over me when I came back from the Gaol. Does that make sense? And when the it broke, it got worse." The sensation of something looming, watching, waiting. A predator's patient, waiting jaws.

"I have not had time to be still and think about compulsions. That might be for the best."

"Do you mean more directly you wanted to understand...how it happened? What occurred here?"
(Dura Levante)
[22:21:02] Celius Vaelstrum says, "(i apologize i had 2 go open the door)"
[22:21:07] Celius Vaelstrum says, "(and they wouldn't stop talking)"
[22:21:24] Dura Levante says, "(hey its coo"
[22:23:29]
"I dread the moments where kind sentiment is all I can truly offer." he retorts, lowering himself into the chair he'd placed oppositional to Dura's own.  He takes a bit of care and comfort with the placement of his wings, before leaning back casually.

"It isn't. Fah'nadir's will isn't exactly the will of the other three, though. I hold no concern nor care for the lives or circumstances of those who would deign to worship Nevanerro or preach the good graces of those that do, but you?" he trails, breaking away -

And he pauses.

"Yours is the first name I heard of Sarea." he opens, allowing that statement to settle for a moment before granting elaboration. "Ithuriel spoke highly of you - as I said. He's been eager to come and meet you here, though I know not if he's found the time. Of your mentality. Your deeds. I would not have that wasted by the spite of actions most assuredly not your own."

That they, who had directly aided in the release of the Dragons, would be cursed such as this - it's all the proof he needs to try to fix it.

"I don't have the answers, either. The whys. The whos. The hows. If you don't, either - then we will have to reach them together. I have already made up my mind on the matter -" he trails, yet again, before pausing.

"If you're willing to say, yes. Kishar gave me a basic rundown, but you may shed further insight."
(Celius Vaelstrum)
[22:37:11]
"Makes two of us." Could cold comfort truly be called comfort at all?

"You're not going to find a Nevanerro worshipper in me, I'm afraid. Despite appearances." Dura stops to give him the floor. She's slumped forward. Elbow on her knee, chin on the palm of her crystalline hand.

Her hollow eyes can get no more hollow, yet somehow lose a distant spark all the same.

"He came through a time or two. As I've told the others...I'm grateful. He and another are the reason we were able to get out of the Betrayer's game."

"...I'm not a perfect creature, Solar Celius." Still hunched forward, both elbows now rest on her knees and her clashing fingers interlace.

"I have nothing to hide from that day."

"Since the Gaol, I haven't been well." She still did not look well. Even aside from the additions that becoming a Nephilim brought.

"Like I said. When the Moon broke? It was worse. My body was healing, sure, but there was something wrong. That weight. I know you're not from Rhyst - but if you've ever seen a stone worn away by a river's current? It was like that. Or a divot in a cave."

"It wore on me. It chewed. It gnawed. I don't know what it was. Fah'nadir's spite, maybe. But it found me while I was talking to Kishar. He saw it for what it was."

"I don't know how. He tried to stop time, freeze me in place. Maybe to give himself time to try and fix it. We both know that didn't work. It couldn't have."

Dura lifts her head and looks around the room.

"Something reached into me and pushed out every connection I ever had to Evocation and the light of Rhyst. It all came out at once; and I wasn't any slouch with it either. I'd been a practitioner for..." Her brow furrows. "Almost since I came here to Sarea. A while."

"When magic is forced out of you by a curse it's apparently a destructive thing. Kishar got caught in the blast. I felt like my head was splitting open and my spine was getting torn out."

"I saw Kishar. I saw what I did - what I didn't mean to do. My first thought wasn't to hide. It was to make sure he was safe. I hope he still is."
(Dura Levante)
[22:56:51]
"I would hope not. Were the extent of the accursed influence that powerful, I'd dare to say that I might be in over my head." he adds, lightly in jest, though an assuredness of seriousness lie somewhere within. Those hollow eyes meet a gaze of steeled cerulean, alight with purpose ; contrast at its fullest. Flickers of ephemeral gold drift through them like shooting stars, carrying on into the unknown.

"I would not ask you to be perfect, Regent Dura." he retorts ever-calmly. An infliction sustained in the midst of the Gaol - he wasn't sure how to take that on a base level, nor were he convinced of the methods with which he could even try to start undoing what had been done - but he had to try. He owed it to the ones who fought. He owed it to the ones who remained, still, to fight.

He owed it to himself, and his duty. They all had trials to endure, and this was perhaps the greatest and most arduous of any to have been given. The only thing left to do was fight.

"It took time." he remarks - "It may be the case that one with an excess of magical power such as your own would be more resistant than, say, one of weaker or lesser capability. With your evocational capacity, too -" he pauses.

"Kishar is fine." he adds, just as a thing of note. "He was thankful for your treatment of him after the fact, as well." he continues, before shifting back toward the primary topic.

"Curse-breaking is not my forte. I will endeavor to find a way, though, for so long as you've the will to fight with me. There is nothing that can be done right now - but we will struggle. We will grow. We will seek the means with which to fix this -"

His gaze levels upon them with an intensity entirely unlike that with which he had spoken prior - especially so with the lighthearted demeanor he'd held outside.

"Will you struggle with us?"
(Celius Vaelstrum)
[23:04:34]
"Good. You'd be disappointed with me and much of Rhyst." There's an equally hollow, almost bitter laugh. Her station, the curse, circumstances, life.

The river keeps running, and there is only so much for a stone to do but hold fast or be carried by the current. At least there's no such thing as a double curse.

Hopefully.

"It did. Or maybe there's some fault of my ancestors. I know their records were far from clean. But...I know what I felt."

"I feel. In my desperation. I might have made a mistake. Though 'mistake' is relative." Survival. Was to survive, to continue on, a mistake?

"Good. Kishar's fine. Seeing as many people as I did outside was unexpected, but for the best. Our finest healers happened to be there."

Dura looks to him. Her eyes hadn't shifted color much, not that he would personally know. Bright, intelligent things the color of brass were now an audacious, garish gold.

"I have known nothing but struggle. But if I am well enough to fight in this war when it comes, and it kills me? Then both our troubles will be over."
(Dura Levante)
[23:13:09]
Celius nods along, allowing them the freedom with which to speak undeterred and uninterrupted whilst he did solely what he could in the moment ; listen. Understand. He could sense their meeting drawing to a close, though he found that a matter of no particular concern. It was eventful. It was enlightening.  It was, most of all, though, and beyond anything else,

Liberating.

There was a chance. There was hope, yet, for one so loved.

"I couldn't begin to grasp the sensation, I'm afraid. My own circumstances are very, very, very different - but I understand. And if not in full, then I shall soon enough. Thank you, Regent. I'll be off now."

A glance befalls them as he turns -

"Focus on the moment instead of the possibilities of a future that may never come to be. Use every second of it. You've much left to do in this world - but you need not do it alone."
(Celius Vaelstrum)
[23:16:43]
Dura nods and starts to rise, slowly, from her seat.

"I'm sure I've taken enough of your time then. At least I could shed some light on things." She replies, nodding.

"Planning for the future is what keeps the people here safest. But I full well intend to use every second I am given, however I get it."

"Be well, Solar Celius. And thank you for your time today."
(Dura Levante)