So close. But so close was never good enough. You either accomplished what you set out to do, or you failed. There was no middle ground. There was success or failure. That was what Kanikra lived by. For Raiha, sometimes trying was good enough - baby steps. Trying, to Kanikra, was just a softer word for failure. And she had failed to hit her mark. She tried to recover her balance, to restore her center, but he was faster than she was, much faster. Her foot went up, and in less than the space of time she had to breathe, so did the rest of her. The impact when she hit the ground was hard, but not unfamiliar. It felt much like falling off of her horse. Not quite in the same space as falling off a roof, considering the distance to impact was much shorter, but still, it took the breath out of her. She was going to have to learn to land and get up better. That one was added to her mental list. She heard Diallo’s yelp and whimper, and felt Raiha’s dismay at what she knew was the dog’s pain. Had she been anyone else, Kanikra might have felt bad about it. But feeling was for other people. She didn’t trouble herself with that bleeding-hearted shyke. Feelings clouded over what you needed to do to survive. You did what you had to do to do what you wanted to do. She eyed the tip of the weapon, her gaze following its shaft to the hands, body, and face of the Akalak who wielded it. Just stay calm, she told her twin as cold gold eyes stared at Salazar. Just stay calm.
Diallo, and Father, they---!
They are fine, Kanikra cut her off. They are fine. You want to believe in the good of everyone? Believe in that, Raiha. She listened to Salazar’s little speech as she got her breath back, trying to keep it regulated so she still looked breathless. Meditation was all about controlling one’s breathing. This was a good a place as any to practice it, if only to make Raiha stay calm, though she never took her eyes off of Salazar. Well, that was a damned good point... and certainly changed her outlook with that realization. She didn’t need her face tattooed to be a nasty bitch. She could play to her strengths, hiding and lingering and concealing. The Cerulean were simply those who got caught. The smart ones were the ones who didn’t get caught, and as such could be left to operate in far more peace with far less supervision and suspicion... Well, well, well. I have a new goal, she mused more to herself than Raiha, though she felt Raiha’s annoyance at that.
You would want to be one of them after this?
No, Kanikra corrected her, I do plan on being a piece of work from the shadows. Face paint bores me. Just relax. Breathe. I am, aren’t I?
You have terrible timing for terrible jokes, Raiha retorted.
There you go, get angry. Nothing gets accomplished without it. Unless you’re me. Raiha was difficult to stir to anger. Normally she preferred to keep her sister soul as calm as she was, because calmness usually led to clarity, and that was something Raiha with all of her handicapping emotions had problems understanding, if you asked Kanikra. She hoped those ticks had been enough to buy their father some time to do something. Maybe her words had bothered him a bit too much. Maybe she had crossed the line. But Kanikra was hardly ever content to toe the line. She would rather eat the chalk it had been drawn with. But this was it, now, wasn’t it? The spear was moving, about to finish her off, and then it... rather wasn’t. Aha, there he was. There was some victory, there - her dislike of long lectures mid-fight was proven correct once again. Kanikra allowed herself to taste some of the relief that Raiha was practically flooding with. It was against everything she was used to, having to have faith in someone else to come through. She didn’t like doing that, relying on others. Relying on others made you weaker and less self-sufficient, and if there was one thing she was determined to be, to force herself and her sister to be, was to rely on their own selves. Neither could be truly alone with the other always there, much to Kanikra’s chagrin. But it worked out. Dogs and birds and horses were tools, for Kanikra, and company for Raiha. They had enabled her to spend most of her time outside of Mura on Konti Isle, if only because Diallo was one of the biggest and nastiest things there. This wasn’t so in Riverfall. Probably never would be. But it just meant she had so much more work that she needed to do to improve. In Sanctuary, at least, they had enough time on their own when Raiha got chores done and helped where she could.
To hear their father now... that shook Raiha, unsettling her even more than she already had been. To be fair, this had been a very, very eventful day for her. Not only had they found their father, they had been almost killed in the process, their actions had almost gotten him killed as well. She had learned some revelations about her sister and her less-than-pleasant intentions and goals which may or may not have included utterly destroying Raiha in the process, but certainly meant that she wanted to be in charge, or close to it, far more than she was now. Kanikra clearly wasn’t content with the status quo. Not anymore. But she would have time to think on that later. But there was no denying that Kanikra liked what she was hearing now, and was pleasantly surprised that her own name, the name she had given herself, did derive from their father’s. Tanaha had named Raiha for herself and Raikev. She hadn’t known how to name Kanikra, having never seen the wraith until later. So Kanikra had named herself, going with what seemed natural and comfortable to her. She always thought that her name came to her in the whispers of the night from the Goddess herself. Maybe it had.
Glad that she was in charge of their body right then, Kanikra pulled herself up. The wealth of emotions that came off of Kanrath were invigorating. It was so different from her own lack, her complete and utter disconnect... and it fascinated her to experience them, meeting his eyes and not looking away, one corner of her mouth twitching in the beginnings of a smile in response to his. She checked quickly on the big white Deerstalker. Dazed. But he looked like he would live -- with a lot of rest and loving. Good. It would have been a massive pain in her blue ass to get another dog and raise it and train it. But Diallo would be okay. That would calm Raiha down. In fact, it already was, because Raikev... no, Kanrath, now, was up and about and the tables had turned. But Kanikra didn’t want her sister calm right now. She wanted her mad, full of piss and vinegar and frustration and only one real target to take it out on. He’ll be fine now, you know. But this is the petching bastard who hurt him. Who hurt our father and almost got us killed, by the way, she reminded Raiha. Guess what he would have done to Uzima if we’d brought her along? You know what he would have done. This is why you defeat an enemy so soundly, so completely, that they never come back for revenge. Because if you don’t, you would always be looking over your shoulder for him. We fell for it before... can’t give him another chance, she guided Raiha’s anger towards what she felt was the logical conclusion. She was pretty certain that Raiha would accept that Salazar deserved to die - had to die, for that matter, to protect those that they cared about, but she could tell by the way Kanrath was talking that Raiha would not like whatever was coming. And she didn’t, as Kanikra calmly grasped her suvai, adjusting her grip so that her fingers held the prongs steady, the handle of the weapon lining along her palm as she approached the two men.
By the time Kanrath was done giving her her instructions, the tiny beginning seed of a smile had grown into one at full bloom. It was a dichotomy - the glowing smile, and the icy eyes that held no warmth whatever. But she was thrilled with this task, completely and utterly thrilled. Her sister was hurting. This would be for her, too. For the dog. For every little lie and trick they had fallen for today. This would be satisfying. So very, very satisfying. It was why she had enjoyed cutting into a pumpkin with a hunting knife. They had less give than a body, and they made far less of a mess. It was a lot harder to find people to mutilate on Konti Isle. But she approached the two, stepping neatly to avoid trodding on her father - that was just rude and disrespectful, after all, considering the gift he was giving her. And this gift made up, quite a bit, for everything she’d missed while she was growing up without him. She straddled Salazar’s chest, mindful of not putting much of her weight on him, and began to work the fingers of her free hand along his hair, winding carefully to get as close to the root as she could... only to tighten her grip until it resembled the cold iron of the man’s weapon. Hair-pulling she was experienced in. Those little Konti girls had always had such lovely loose hair, and the more they talked inanely and babbled, the more Kanikra had desired to scalp them, just to shut them up or give them something to really whine about. But it had been enough to touch them gently, acting like she was touching her best friend’s hair in an act of camaraderie, only to grip it at the root and pull, leaving a confused and disturbed Raiha holding a thick handful of white hair while some sobbing, white-skinned girl went running for her mother...
But the muscles in her arm tensed for battle with the Cerulean as she tapped his cheek with the side of the whalebone prong, careful not to scratch him yet. Kanrath hadn’t told her to scratch him, after all, didn’t want him going still just yet. He had to feel it. But wrenching his hair exposed his throat, and the muscles showed her where to go. Nice and slow. The point pressed against his skin, and very calmly, very slowly, she penetrated his flesh with it, her eyes never leaving Salazar’s. The skin was easy enough for the sharpened weapon. For defense, Tana had always said. This was defense. The best defense was a spirited offense. And now she was going to get that opportunity. Now, she would take someone else’s life. Not an animal’s - that was different. She hunted to eat. This was a different type of prey entirely. This was a death delivered because it had been decided he had earned it, not that there was any doubt that he had. “You did promise to help me find my father,” she whispered to him as the blade met resistance, which she tested with just incremental bits of strength. Didn’t want to ruin the moment, after all. You had to slowly savour it. This desire for vengeance, and to enjoy it, overwhelmed that compulsion to heal that had always lurked there, the gift of Rak’keli at their birth. A gift that complicated things that Kanikra wanted, and urged her to do what she didn’t want. Not this time. This was her time. It was a twisted, petched-up way of father-daughter bonding, that was for sure, and the surreality of the situation didn’t even occur to her.
But she would never forget today, never not play this feeling out again, of the suvai being slowly forced through tissue as she worked it upwards, her knuckles whitening under her blue skin with the effort. The effort of keeping his head still, though that effort soon turned from keeping him from fighting too much to keeping his head straight for the weapon that was impaling him. The effort of forcing the weapon upwards, even as blood stained it and her. Kanikra did not stop, even as the struggling stopped, just continued to force the blade, with its shorter prongs into the flesh, even as inside of her, Raiha shook at what she... they... were doing, had done... even if she knew that Kanikra was right. He had to die. And what had he done to earn a quick, merciful death? Nothing at all. But still, she hadn’t fought to try to do it cleanly. She hadn’t fought to try to just make it quick. She had simply let Kanikra do it. She would have to square that with herself one day.
Kanikra stood up at long last, then, leaving the blade where it was for now before grasping the man’s head with both hands, preparing to pull and roll him off of Kanrath. Him, she could heal. Him, she wanted to heal. She wiped her hands to get rid of as much blood as she could before reaching for Kanrath. Her hands went white with Rak’keli’s power and she simply let the power of the Goddess flow outwards to him, to try to fix and mend what was cut and burned and strained, taking the worst off, at least. “Thank you,” she told him, finally, once she had done all that she could to mend him. “My name is Kanikra. My sister is Raiha. You met her earlier.”