Lost to the shadows (Closed)

[Keara Aithne]

This RP takes place on Sunday 10th January 2016.

The plan had been simple enough, challenge the disciples that were running amok in the families backyard. There were certain things that Keara would abide, but an unknown force having a controlling influence around her family’s home wasn't one of them. Rumours were rife as to what the disciples stood for and what they were up to and bringing about hell on earth wasn't something Keara could support. The world was fine the way it was and further breaches between the realms needed to be lifted before the humans began to fear what walked among them and another holocaust was born. The problem was, that the best laid often go awry and so it was tonight. In an effort to keep the attention of the disciples upon her as much as possible, she had been slow to replenish her blood and had therefore died. It might have been easy to evaporate away into nothing but it wouldn't be easy to stay in what she called the accursed realm until such a time as she could return to the land of the living. The only consolation the elder would have over the next long week, would be the fact that only one of hers had joined her. Only, she didn't know that yet, as the outcome was still uncertain and she had been the first to perish.

Materializing in the incorporeal realm had the elder losing her mind. Fear gripped her heart causing her sanity to flee. She didn't want to be there, couldn't be there. It was too much for her and while she had visited her husband in there since her return, she had been free to leave as she pleased. Now she was trapped. Trapped and unable to return to those she loved. As the reality of what had happened settled in, she began to shake and shiver. She would be nothing but shadow and darkness till she could reform her body and time here moved differently. To some it passed quickly, to others slowly. It was perhaps the perception of the realm itself that caused individuals to experience things differently. For Keara, someone who liked to be busy in body and mind, this place was pure torture. The poor woman would be left to the company of her own mind and despite the fact that she could talk at great lengths, she wasn't one that actually liked the sound of her own voice. The sounds of tortured souls echoed about her too, something that only added to her growing hysteria. Unfortunately for those that already found residence within this realm, Keara would be one to add to the noise.

So lost the woman was, that she did not notice Nakia nearby. Nor did she notice her husband when he managed to locate the pair. It only struck her that she was not alone when she saw movement about her. The truth was, they might have moved several times, they might even have attempted to speak to her but she had been blind and deaf to the world about her. Her own cries of anguish were all that she could focus upon and these cries only worsened when she was able to discern the identity of those that were keeping her company.

"No. No, no, no, no no. Nox No. Be this cannot. Here you cannot be."

She was pained to see Nakia with them, and had even feared for her and Danton before the encounter had begun. She wouldn't refuse their aid, as the choice was theirs as to whether or not they accompanied her and Enver and yet the idea of any of those she loved being in this place had been heart-breaking to her. Now, faced with the reality of her fears, she couldn't cope. To see Nakia with her was one thing, to see Enver was quite another. Keara loved her family, but Enver was her world. To see him with her made her misery all the more complete.

[Enver Marshall II]

How did this happen? How could this have happened? Questions Enver asked himself over and over again as he sat on the corner of their bed in their cell. It made no sense. Keara was the better fighter. The older vampire. The more skilled at these types of things. Where did it go wrong? What had he done wrong?

Enver hadn't gone to the shadow realm right away. Instead, he had made sure that everyone else left there in one piece; minus her and Nakia. Enver hadn't expected either woman to die-in fact, he had presumed he would have been the unlucky one because Enver had had it out with those fae loving crow assholes for years. That he would have been the main target of it all.

Enver tried to make sense of it as he sat there, but all he could think about was how he should have done more. How he should have been faster, smarter, stronger for his wife. How his stupid wraith, if he were alive, wouldn't have let Keara die. He was sure he was going to hear about it too from that prick.

Enver laid back on their bed, focusing on healing the singular wound he received from the Crow disciples. While Enver's body healed, his mind wandered to where his wife would be in the shadow realm and grabbed her precise location.

Shrugging off the effects of the wound in his stomach, Enver sat up and started to move off their bed. Only to freeze in a half standing, half crouching position. He was afraid of seeing his wife. Afraid to see and hear the sound of resentment in her voice. Hearing how he failed. How he let her die. Enver didn't know what she would think, do or say when Enver arrived there, but he doubted it would be anything good. How could it be? He did nothing. He was unable to get to his wife and she was gone before Enver had even realized it. All that had remained of her when he looked in Keara's direction was a plume of smoke that was rising towards the ceiling in the spot his wife had been standing at.

Enver disliked feeling like this. Feeling like a failure. Like he had let his wife and family down when she had died. And he had, hadn't he? She was the one that was always posting important stuff, not him. Who was going to post important stuff? Who was going to open a shadow gate each night? Who would make tomes if someone new came along? Enver was as useless as he was a failure. He needed to feel better about himself, and fast.
Enver knew just who to call.
Crash.

By the time Enver made his way to his wife, he was once again feeling confident and upbeat. Maybe a little too upbeat. She saw him and began talking and Enver was floating back and forth and side to side. "I'm here. For you. I'm not dead. We have to get you girls out of here." His voice was excitable and bouncy, given the circumstances, but he seemed oblivious to any difference in his demeanor.

[Nakia]

“I can’t let them overrun us, baby.”
“I know, Kitten, but are you ready for this? You know that we will not be alone.”
“I can handle it. Nothing will happen to me, quit worrying.”

It had all seemed so simple.

In her mind, she had been doing what she needed to in order to right a wrong. In a rare moment of clarity, she had realized how deep her illness ran. The moment she had felt her blade slice through her sister’s arm, she had found the truth. The clang of steel against the pavement resounded in her mind at every turn, and she had desperately tried to find a way to atone for her sins. Her regret tore at her soul and battled with the paranoia until she had become nothing more than a withering mess on their bedroom floor. It wasn’t until Abigail and peeked her head into their room and quietly whispered of the trouble that her lineage suffered, that she had realized how far she had fallen. She was letting them win.

Everything was a blur after that. She had picked herself off the floor and dusted off her jeans, and she had watched her husband’s concern morph into something far more wary. He hated the thought of her in the middle of battle, but he had obliged - only on the condition that he followed. She was not to step foot in public without him at her side. It had transgressed from there - they agreed to meet with Keara and Enver, two people that they hardly knew, so they could fight by their sides. They would defend their family with their blood - but she had never once thought that she would be offering her life, as well.

How had it gone so wrong so quickly?

The plan had been an easy one to follow - move as a group until they found their targets. They had never expected them to be lurking behind the corner in a huddle far larger than theirs. The moment they came into view, she had felt her husband embrace her wrist and pull her back, his lips pressing to her throat. He began to whisper to her as he felt the darkness rise in her chest, his fingers urgently pushing her towards the exit. She hadn’t had to stay - she had the option to leave. No one would fault her, he had told her. No one would hate her for her choice, they would understand - but as she stared at the group, she felt… anger.

Looking back on it, she probably should have run, but the moment that the first drop of their blood had been spared, something had clicked inside of her. This was her job - this was what she had been trained for from the moment she graduated top of her class. She was built to protect and serve, not run and hide. From then on, they moved, blood spraying the walls. The targets fell one by one, and she remembered the grim satisfaction as she took the life of one on her own. As he collapsed to the floor, she had spun, her vision diminished by blood. She was riddled with wounds, the pain causing her to sway on her feet.

Her death had come quickly, and she would have never had been able to defend herself. No one could have saved her. Shaking her head, she forced herself to calm her thoughts as she spun in a circle to study the place she was going to call home for a while. It was bleak, the colors all but siphoned away by an unknown source, leaving her chilled. It didn’t take her long to sort out where she was - or that she was alone. With a quiet sigh, she began to move through this new world, her eyes scanning each and every crevice she found. She found peace here. The panic had disappeared, the paranoia all but nonexistent. For the first time since her turning, she was… numb. I might stay here, she thought as she passed a fadewindow, her lips twisting into a slight frown. It was too bright out there, too lively. In here, she was at home.

In here, she was safe.

She wasn’t sure how long she had traveled, but it didn’t take her long to make her way to Keara, her panicked voice causing her to tilt her head. “It’s going to be alright,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure that anyone could hear her. Biting into her lower lip - or trying to - she took a step off to the side as Enver appeared, that all too familiar panic filling her. She wanted to ask him about Danton, to know that he made it out alive, but the words were choked in her throat. She couldn’t imagine him here with her- he had never deserved this world. Forcing herself to speak, she braced herself for the worse, her small grasp on her sanity threatening to slip between her fingers.

“Tell me Danton made it out alive, please.”

[Keara Aithne]

Enver arrival had triggered Keara's level of anxiety to rise. It was too much. He couldn't be there and she didn't begin to calm until he spoke, and told her that he wasn't dead. In her euphoria, the elder missed the fact that her husband was entirely too happy with the situation. Enver was excited, stupidly so but that fact was yet to register.

"Leave we cannot. Tried I have. Tried and failed."

Keara's form was quivering all over. She hated this place with a passion and although Enver's presence was calming to her, it didn't take away her fear completely. She worried that she'd be stuck there forever, that she would be unable to return to life, to everyone and her fears were very real. The vampires of this time took the ability to escape for granted, but Keara had lived this hell before, she'd been trapped in the shadow realm for several centuries with no hope of escaping. She knew what it was to be tormented in this place until time itself ceased to matter, and eternity took on a whole new, and very real, meaning.

Nakia asked about Danton and Keara was suddenly flooded with a new wave of guilt. She hadn't immediately asked about the rest of the family. It was unforgivable and yet she knew she wasn't in her right mind. She found it difficult to focus her thoughts in this place, even though she had so much time alone with them. Nakia was her companion in the darkness and yet every soul in the realm was alone in their torture.

"Yes. Danton. Danton and Lorde and Leif. Seen them I have not."

She looked about them as if waiting for them to arrive. Had she been so lost within her misery that she'd missed their arrival? Had they been transported into a different location? She wasn't entirely sure how the shadow realm worked and if the location of your demise correlated to your location in the realm or not. If that was the case it would explain why Nakia was so easy to find as they had died at the hands of the same people. If not it was the work of Nox, or fate, or whatever other deity her blood relation believed in. It was weird to think of Nakia as merely a relation but Keara had no other word for it. She was family, fourth generation of her blood; her childe's, childe's, childe. Childe was in fact the word she wished to apply, as all those of her blood were her children, whether they recognised that fact or not.

And so her mind continued along tangent after tangent as she waited to hear the fate of those she loved. Those that had loved her and their family enough to fight for them.

[Enver Marshall II]

Another presence came by his wife and he while Enver started informing the Vedarian's what had happened to Keara and Nakia and hoped someone could find the woman. Enver eyed the new being, but didn't say anything yet. Even though he wanted to. He wanted to tell them to go on, get out of here and give him and his wife some alone time while they talked about some things. Even in his current state of mind, Enver's jealousy still rendered its ugly little head.

He waited. One of two things usually happened in a place like this. The other form would attack them both, or it would talk. He looked away when his wife spoke about not being able to leave. He knew this. He knew she wouldn't be able to die and come right back in the matter of minutes. That didn't mean he didn't want it to happen by some strange twist of fate or whatever. He wasn't capable of being a leader, not like his wife was and the Vedarian's needed a strong presence more than ever. Enver was just not that guy.

The other presence was on about Danton and he knew who it was. No one else would know other than their group. "Lorde is fine. Danton and Leif are fine too." Enver assured both women before he looked around the dark plains of the shadow realm and got the jitters. He hadn't been here in a long time. "I really need you to come back home. Both of you. As soon as we can find a way out, we should take it." Enver began moving back and forth and back and forth as he thought about a good escape plan. Maybe he could stay here and Keara could back. He wasn't the praying sort of man, but he wouldn't mind staying here. Somewhere in this place, was a place he always went to when he used to die in his early years as a vampire. Surely, it was still here. "They need you both back. We have to get back." Enver repeated the urge to get back as he circled around the women. "Maybe we should keep moving. See about those things called fade windows. Maybe they can help us." Enver was talking as if they wee a living entity, when they in fact weren't. "They're here for some purpose, right?" He looked at his wife who was more knowledgeable about the shadow realm than he ever was, or probably would be. "Let's get searching for a way out!" His voice changed to that upbeat, happy go lucky sort of guy that everyone hated at parties because he was too boisterous and too crazy, but, he didn't notice the level of annoyance Enver might cause either woman as he started floating in to the south eastern part of the shadow realm.

[Nakia]

”I cannot begin to think of what would happen if I were to lose you, Kitten.”

“You’re not going to lose me. I thought I was the paranoid one, my love.”

Closing her eyes against the memory, she felt an all too familiar ache thrum through her body. It coiled tight in the center of her chest and hummed with a dark energy that terrified her. It was if it was simply lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike and bring her to her knees. I can’t let that happen. She knew that the attack was inevitable, and as she began to erect the walls that were needed to keep it at bay, she kept her eyes on Enver. She had rarely spent a moment with the man, and yet he held the very key to her sanity in the palm of his hand. One word, and her world would come crashing down at her feet. One little word, and none of them would make it out of the colorless void unscatched. Please have survived. Please.

“Oh thank god,” she whispered, relief causing her knees to weaken. The thought of her husband having been sent to suffer this life was too much to handle, and she knew that the guilt would have eaten her alive. She still had yet to forgive herself for what she had subjected him to in the past - she would never forgive herself if she had failed him a second time. Pressing her hand to her hair in a familiar act, she frowned. Everything here felt different. Her movements, her senses, her sight - it was if she were living life through bleak, fog covered eyes. It was a sensation that, to some, she knew would confuse them - but to her, it was… comfortable. She no longer felt as if she were being weighed down by the paranoia, and her mind was clear for the first time in years. I forgot what it felt like to be… normal.

Shaking her head, she forced herself to focus on the pair near her. With the knowledge of Danton’s survival, she had nothing anchoring her to them. Glancing over her shoulder, she studied the waiting darkness as it beckoned to her with open arms, the pull nearly too strong for her to fight. How easy would it be to slip into its embrace forever? There would be no pain, no sorrow. She would be free from the madness that had crept into her mind. The desire was overwhelming, and she reluctantly snapped her gaze back to Enver. He had been speaking, and yet she had missed nearly every bit of it. When he began to take off, something told her that he expected her to follow - and yet she found herself drifting into the other direction.

Kitten, no. Stay with them.

The voice in her mind brought her up short, surprise causing her to gasp as she spun in a circle. Had Enver lied to her? Had he died afterall? When her frantic search came up empty, she frowned and took another step towards the void, but the pull she had once felt seemed less appealing now. The waiting darkness had taken on a sinister gleam, and she found herself stumbling backwards as the inky pit seemed to breathe. Swallowing past the fear that had lumped painfully in her throat, she quickly made her way back towards the pair, though she kept to the outskirts of their presence at all times. It seemed some habits were never going to change.

[Keara Aithne]

Fine. They were fine. Everyone else was fine. But the elder couldn't quite grasp what fine meant. It meant they weren't dead, that much she knew but how injured were they? Did they have limbs missing? Were they burned? Did they have wounds that required stitches? This she didn't know and so images flooded her mind as to just how injured her family might be, how much pain they were in and she was here. Stuck in this place once more. Trapped for in indeterminate amount of time. It was true that most came home within seven to days. The stronger members of her kind that was. Some were simply lost into the ether, r at least it felt that way to her. She wouldn't be one of them. One of the lost. She had too much to live for, too much to return to. Reason number one being the ghost of the man before.

It hurt Keara to know that he needed her, that the family needed her and that she wasn't there for them. As independent as they all were, they all know they could come to her as and when they needed to, but if she was here. If she was here, she would be unable to be there for them. Mentally she was all there, even if she felt as if she were being pulled apart, so she could reach out to those she loved, those in need but it was not enough. Not for Keara. It didn't matter that Deanna would be home to keep an eye on things, as would Serge. It didn't matter that both knew her routines, one knew the way she worked and the other had the physical presence to access anything and everything the family safes stored. The fact was, that for the first time since her return, she would not be there. She was not home. She was back in the accursed realm.

Usually Enver's voice calmed Keara. It mattered not what he said half the time, just his presence was enough to help her feel centred, but he wasn't having the same effect on her here. At times like this, when her mental state was fragile, she required, his touch; she needed to draw from his strength. In this moment however, as she listened as he seemed to voice his thoughts without even attempting to filter to them, he was doing her no good. He was talking about fade windows. Keara had never seen one before. Never used one. They were a fairly new concept to here. It was possible they existed before her escape but if they did, she'd never come across one. So what solace be found by one she did not know.

The woman shook her head, visually disagreeing with the man, though no words immediately followed. She couldn't think straight. She couldn't process it all. Fear gripped her non-existent heart and squeezed so tight that she almost choked with the feel of it. Then the rambling began.

"Back. Back. Like I would for back to go. But back I cannot go. We cannot go. No. Here we rest. Here we stay. Here we tortured shall be. Darkness into our souls shall creep. A piece of us lost shall be. A piece of me lost already is. No. No. Windows enough are not. Windows unimportant are. Family important is. That much true is. True always is. Though family lost can be. Like lost we are. Return they all do not. Nakia return shall. I hope. I pray. Nox so cruel would not be, for upon our side to be. Favours me she does. Now. As ever. Torture me she may. She will. But Nakia not. She her servant is not. So that cannot be. Cannot be. No... Darkness here twisted is. See that you do. Yes? Haunting. Desires it does for us to devour. But desire to be devoured I do not. Not by my the darkness. Take me it shall not. Will not. Hope it to be true I do. Here I shall not stay. Home... Home this is not. Nor can it ever be. No. No, no, no, no, no..."

[Enver Marshall II]

Nakia seemed to be relieved with what the Allurist shared with him. Enver nodded, but he doubted she would see the nod being he looked like a shadowy mass. His wife on the other hand...was doing just about as well as Enver suspected she would. He couldn't blame her, she had been stuck in this place for a very long time and who knew how she managed to pass the time for that long? It had to have taken a toll on his wife's sanity.

Enver sighed in resignation and then just looked between the two figures. He had no idea what to suggest anymore. He couldn't pick his wife up and carry her and do as he wanted. Not like he usually did. If he reached out for her, it might come across as an attack, even if he never would do that and so, all Enver wanted to do was to try and lighten the mood up in this joint.

"We can make this our home away from home!" Enver said excitedly, thinking his idea was the best one of the week. Hell, maybe even the year. "Try and find the place that looks like our place. It virtually is the same more or less." Enver started floating towards where he thought the park and their home would be located at, even if it wasn't their actual home or was nothing like it. "It's like it, only a little darker, but we're not scared of the dark, right? You're made of shadows and you're-well." He paused to look at Nakia. He actually had no idea what she was in terms of vampire wise, but he just rolled with the here and now. "Actually, we're all shadows!" He stated as Enver whipped around to look at the women. As if he had some sort of epiphany right then and there. When in truth, all he was doing was talking like a complete idiot and rambling on about something he couldn't even flesh out himself, due to the state he was in before he got here.

"So, we just find out shadow pretend home and play pretend home there in our shadow selves. And then before you know it, we're out of this place and in our real home. Come on beautiful." Enver focused on the form of his wife and held out a hand to her. "Come to our home away from home." He stayed there, floating in front of her, waiting for her to take the offered hand.