Closed This is your Resurrection

Jomi returns from the Insideous Realm

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The Diamond of Kalea is located on Kalea's extreme west coast and called as such because its completely made of a crystalline substance called Skyglass. Home of the Alvina of the Stars, cultural mecca of knowledge seekers, and rife with Ethaefal, this remote city shimmers with its own unique light.

This is your Resurrection

Postby Madeira Dusk on November 3rd, 2019, 11:55 pm

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1st of Fall, 519


"Good morning, miss Craven."

"Doctor."

Madeira was sitting up in her bed at the Catholicon, her hands folded primly in her lap. She wore the linen hospital dress like a silk gown and the bandage on her head like a crown. The splint on her wrist could have been a wonderful bracelet, the bruises dark smoky jewels. She sat straight and tall, every inch a lady. She was a Craven after all. It was only her eyes, and that thunder behind them, that belied something much darker under that composed exterior.

Alessia Amaryllis closed the privacy curtain behind her and stood at the end of the bed, in her hands was a bundle of neatly folded clothes and a black cane. The two women eyed each other coolly.

"I was expecting a nurse to get my things", Madeira nodded to her possessions in Alessia's arms. As one of the few doctors in the busy healing center, her time must be much too precious to waste fetching patient's personal items.

"You were right to", the Symenestra answered bluntly, dropping the bundle at the end of the bed and siting uninvited in Madeira's one lonely bedside chair. "But I wanted to speak with you."

Madeira felt a fluttering of both annoyance and a dull, throbbing panic. Now what did she want? The Spiritist had explained exactly what had happened: she was soundly physically and spiritually beaten by an immensely powerful ghost. Given her profession nobody seemed very surprised when she told the staff this when she had stumbled in the day before, suffering from a concussion, a broken wrist, internal hemorrhaging and a case of overgiving, along with several hefty contusions and lacerations. What she didn't tell them was that the ghost's name was Jomi, and once apon a time she counted him among her most trusted servants.

Part of her was too ashamed to admit it. She had lost control over something both powerful and dangerous, something she had been so sure she was strong enough to tame. Part of her was too furious to speak of it. Jomi had betrayed her in the most unforgivable way, selling her every secret to the one man who could undo everything she was trying to build. To speak his name aloud felt like polluting the very air, and the sound of it was enough to make her reflexively clench her bow hand. And yet another, smaller but no less vocal part of her, was afraid. Jomi was the strongest piece on her side of the board, his very presence had hung over her like a threat against everybody who meant her harm. Without him she was just that much more vulnerable. She couldn't tell anyone that her pet monster had left his post.

"You have a habit of lying, Miss Craven", Alessia continued when Madeira didn't comment. "Every time you step into my hospital you have a new story: murderous rainbows and mysteriously vanishing monsters and miraculously survivable decapitations. So the moment you stepped in here with a logical, believable story I was immediately suspicious. You said this ghost was eventually removed, is that right?"

Madeira's lips had thinned out in a thin, bloodless line, but she wisely ignored the impulse to smack this woman. "Yes", she ground out.

"And you did not know who this spirit was?"

"No, I didn't."

Alessia's sharp red eyes seemed to cut straight through her. She shifted her position, crossing one long leg over the other. "See, a woman came in this morning, also seriously injured. She said she was attacked by a very violent, immensely powerful ghost as well. She also said this ghost was properly removed, and insists she didn't know who it was. Sound familiar?"

"Funnily enough, that's what violent ghosts tend to do", Madeira retorted, steadily meeting the Symenstra's gaze. "Having more than one in a city is neither unheard of nor unlikely."

Outwardly Madeira had molded her face into a steely countenance, but inside that fluttering in her chest had turned from butterflies to eagles. For all her bravado, things like that just didn't happen in Lhavit, and that did sound awfully familiar.

In the end she let Jomi go, and it was a moment of weakness she regretted ever since. She had assumed he would have fled to Edith, the love of his life, his newly reunited bondmate, and the reason he betrayed her. Did he meet trouble on the way? Did he attack someone in his rage? These questions surfaced unbidden into her mind before she remembered that she didn't care. Jomi was no longer her burden or her concern. Rothsam can enjoy his victory while he had it, but eventually he'll face the reality of the soul crushing effort needed to keep his new pet muzzled.

"I don't like coincidences, Madeira Craven. And if another incident like this wanders into the Catholicon you will hear from me again. Are we clear?"

"Crystal", Madeira smiled through clenched teeth.

"You are ready to check out. Get dressed and sign out at the front desk", Alessia stated clinically, getting to her feet without another word.

"Wait", Madeira demanded as the doctor was about to slip out from between the curtains. "Who was the woman that got attacked?", she asked before she could stop herself.

The doctor raised her sculpted brow. "Edith Bronwen."

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This is your Resurrection

Postby Madeira Dusk on November 8th, 2019, 12:21 am

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Madeira didn't register what Alessia said next as she left, or recall dressing herself in her freshly laundered but battered cotton dress and many valuable trinkets. Her mind was a sea of white noise. Jomi attacked Edith? Why? He made a deal with the devil for her. Betrayed his closest ally for her. Made an enemy of the most powerful Spiritist he's ever known for her. Why, when he finally had her, would he turn around and attack her?

Madeira smoothed out her bodice, her fingers skimming over the aches, tracing around the bruises. This wasn't her problem. She didn't owe that ghost anything after what he had done.

But...

She straightened herself out and swept aside the bedside curtain. This second story loft of the Catholicon had partitions set up around individual beds for the sake of privacy. Madeira caught the attention of a passing nurse and asked which belonged to Edith.

"Three beds down on the left there, dear. Popular girl, isn't she? I believe you're her third visitor today!" The nurse wished her well and bustled along her way.

Madeira thanked her and approached the indicated curtain. There was a shadow moving about inside, and two murmuring voices. Seemed at least one of her visitors was still there. She grabbed a fistful of curtain, the uncertainty in herself growing deeper. It was her duty, as a spiritist, as an eiyon, to look into this. She would ask this woman some questions, get the details of what happened, and then continue her life. That's all this was.

She let herself inside without announcing herself. In the futon was who she supposed was Edith, a pretty, groomed woman about her own age. Even in her linen Catholicon gown it was easy to see her wealth in the soft curves of her well fed body and the luxurious shine to her skin and hair. The woman sat up with an indignant noise to see this stranger barge into her space, and without a word the tall man with black hair and a hooked nose who sat at her bedside stood to throw the stranger out.

Madeira held her palm out to him in a command to stop, but her eyes never lifted from the woman in the bed.

She could see the residue of soulmist on her as plain as day. She had been handled by a ghost, and roughly. She grit her teeth and siphoned dijed to her eyes. Aided by the dijed stone imbedded in her right hand that flexed reflexively under her glove, she could see a bloom of wild, confused colour spreading outward from the woman. A dark line of pain was emanating from both her feet; something clear and sharp that didn't seem like a bruise even to the Spiritist's untrained eye. And
bizarrely, part of Edith's aura seemed to somehow overlap with the man in her peripheral vision. It felt like they were connected somehow. Bondmates?

Imagining Jomi's reaction to his replacement gave Madeira a vindictive sense of pleasure.

"What the hai is wrong with you?!" the woman hissed, outraged. "Get out of my room!"

"Did Jomi do this to you?"

The sound of her name tasted foul on her tongue, but the reaction was worth the cost. The two locked eyes, just for a moment, but that was all Madeira needed. Edith seemed to sense that she had given too much away, and when her eyes flicked back to hers they were guarded. The kelvic looked steadily at the floor.

"You're the infamous Madeira, then?"

Madeira nodded and closed the curtains behind her, now that she was sure the kelvic wasn't about to drag her out.

"I'm sorry he hurt you. If I had known I never would have let him escape me. What happened?"

Edith was studying Madeira just as Madeira had been studying her, and though she couldn't see the print of soulmist upon her body she couldn't miss the more physical wrapped and healing injuries. She had a careful, intelligent way about her, and Madeira could see her adding all the pieces together. But there was still something warm and down to earth about the small, sympathetic smile that twisted her rosy
lips. It made Madeira remember that Edith was an street urchin in Kenesh long before she was a wealthy lady in Lhavit.

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This is your Resurrection

Postby Madeira Dusk on November 8th, 2019, 12:23 am

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"So he got to you to? He said you had a fight, but I never imagined... Well, he's always had a temper, but he just went rabid one day. He attacked me, attacked my bondmate, and fled." She shrugged her pretty shoulders, and her sigh carried a dark note of exhaustion and mourning. "I haven't seen him since."

So Jomi left? After all that, after spending years tracking this woman down, he just... left? That wasn't like him.

"How did your ankles get cut?"

"Pardon?"

"You're ankles have been sliced", she gestured to her feet, which couldn't be seen under the bed covers. "How'd that happen?"

Madeira knew that that flashed across Edith's face very well. She'd made the same one many times upon finding out the person she's talking to is an aurist. It felt like there were a lot of similarities between this woman and herself. She had a commanding presence and a fluid tongue, and observative eyes that missed nothing. She even had a submissive partner in the Kelvic, someone obviously used for the protection and more physical tasks. But these things did nothing to endear Madeira to this kindered spirit. Because she knew herself, and she knew what an awful person she really was.

"Jomi, I just told you. He attacked me."

"With a weapon?"

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"A knife", Edith threw her hands up in the air. "What is this? I've just been attacked by my former bondmate and now I'm being interrogated! Do you even know what it's like to lose a bondmate? Let me mourn in peace!"

Angry tears welled in Edith's eyes, but she didn't let them fall. And when Madeira looked into those eyes she felt the words hit her soul. No, she didn't know what that was like. But one day she would. The thought that the other half of her soul could be ripped away and extinguished terrified her more than anything else. She felt the need to back out, to leave this woman alone like she wanted, but she stood her ground.

"You're lying."

This time Edith's tears really did fall, she glared out of pretty, bloodshot eyes. "How dare you. Get out of my room, leave us alone."

"Even a masterful ghost couldn't wield a weapon that dexterously to cut that cleanly. What really happened? Who cut you?"

"Nurse!"

Why was Edith covering this up? Why was she hiding the identity of the person who gave her her most grievous injury? There must have been someone else there. But it was also clear that a ghost attacked her too. She couldn't imagine it would be anybody other than Jomi. Then... Jomi attacked her, and was driven away by whoever cut her? That would give her a reason to cover for them, if they saved her. But this was Jomi. Even she couldn't keep him away indefinitely, not if he was determined.

A dark, creeping thought rose in her mind just as a nurse poked him head around the curtain. "Is everything alright here?"

That wasn't quite true. There was one way to stop a ghost forever. With a sinking feeling of dread she reached for the onyx ring on her left hand.

"She won't leave. I need someone to escort her out."

The ring was hollow, with a hidden latch. She flicked it open, expecting, hoping, to see a drop of pearly while soulmist. But her eyes grew round with horror as instead a trickle of powder fine dust spilled onto her knuckles.

"Oh gods, what have you done?" Madeira choked, her breath feeling hot and sticky in her throat as she looked up at the woman laying in her bed. She was so pretty and perfect in that groomed kind of way. Even when she was crying she did so with grace. Madeira took a step towards her, unsure if she was about to hit her, or strangle her, or fall onto her lap and weep. But before her foot even hit the ground the Kelvic had jumped up and seized her by the upper arm, and the confused nurse grabbed hold of the other. Together they dragged the frail Spiritist from the room and down the wide curving staircase. And through all four floors the nurses, doctors and patients could here the frail little spiritist screaming.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"

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This is your Resurrection

Postby Madeira Dusk on November 11th, 2019, 12:37 am

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Madeira wandered through Tenten in a daze. The dust was gritty in her palm as she clutched it to her chest. What was happening?

She wanted to scream, to somehow relieve the pressure of the conflicting flurry of emotions inside her in a gush of noise like a kettle lets off steam. Jomi was gone. Not just dead, but gone. And she still hated him, she hated him so much, but knowing he no longer existed, knowing what had been done to him...

Dusting was a process in which a spiritist physically drained the energy from a ghost, converting it and reshaping it until the ghost
literally inverted out of existence, leaving behind a dry dust-like substance. She was never told where a ghost goes when it is dusted, perhaps even her family didn't know, or never thought her ready to hear it, but what she did know was that they did not return. Dira's touch did not reach that place.

No, it couldn't be true. It couldn't be true.

Slowly she found her direction becoming surer, her footsteps purposeful. Because it was true. This dust was proof. Jomi had been forcibly removed from the cycle of life and death, and there were only two people in this entire city who were capable of dusting a ghost. Madeira herself was one of them, and she knew very well who the other was.

Thirty chimes later Madeira was on Sartu, beating her knuckles bloody on the door of the Den of the Lost. Neighbours were starting to peak from their windows, and people whispered as they passed, but Madeira was far beyond caring. When her knuckles began to split and bleed through her gloves she used the flat of her hand, and when her shoulder started to jar she used her feet, and when her toes started to break she used her whole body. In the end she was slamming into the door with all her weight behind it, and even her insubstantial mass was causing the hinges to whine and creak in protest.

Dusk was starting to fall before Rothsam finally opened the door. The Myrian was shirtless in the heat, the thick layer of ink on his skin on full display. He looked down on her silently with steely eyes, and one could never had guessed that this savage had been all but hiding in his shop from the frail blonde on his doorstep. They both knew exactly why she was there, and the moment their eyes met a look understanding and guilt passed between them that they would both later deny.

"Why?" she finally asked, breathless and frail. "You'd won. You were always going to win. Why did you do it?"

She didn't need to tell him what she was talking about. "He tried to kill you", Rothsam explained in his low, rough voice. "And then, one day, he was going to try and kill me. He was dangerous, Madeira. I never understood why you kept him. I never planned to. Once I was done with him, I was done. Why do you even care anymore?"

He had never called her by her name before. The sound of the word mangled in his jungle twisted accent, his tongue unused to the beat and feel of it, was what made her realized his pity for her. That realization brought a bit of the fire back into her eyes. Who was he, to pity her? "Because he was mine. He was always mine. He was mine to keep and mine to destroy and how dare you take him away from me!"

Rothsam flinched from her outburst, the corners of his mouth tightening into a sardonic little smile, the pity burning away into the more familiar look of contempt. "You know what? I think that selfishness is the closest you'll ever get to love."

The little blonde spiritist pulled back and slapped the Myrian across the mouth, the crack of the impact bouncing down the crooked street. Her eyes flash, hot and dry and full of rage.

"Then I love everything. I love this city and I love these people and I love you, Rothsam. My selfishness is a weapon like you've never seen. Now give me back my gods damned ghost."

Rothsam was silent for a long moment, then he turned back into his shop, leaving the door ajar. When he returned it was with a wooden box that rattled with his steps. He pushed it into her hands.

"Here then, take him. Bury him if you need to. Mourn him if you want. But take him. Just remember it was me who took your precious plaything away from you", he leaned in close, his breath ruffling the loose hairs atop her head. "Remember I don't lose."

He slammed the door, buffeting her off his stoop. She held the box in her arms tight, listening to that familiar dry rattle of loose bones. She put it down gently at her feet and opened the lid. A skull with long canines grinned up at her from a bed of ribs, femurs, a pelvis and loose sections of spine. It looked so much like Jomi's big cruel smile that she almost laughed. In a corner a small jar of dull grey dust shifted in its glassy prison.

A ghost doesn't return when they are dusted. She knew this. All spiritist's knew this. But that wasn't quite true, was it? It wasn't that they can't, it was that they shouldn't.

Gathering the bones Madeira made the long walk back to Zintila.

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Madeira Dusk
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This is your Resurrection

Postby Madeira Dusk on January 15th, 2020, 9:53 pm

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Grades Awarded!

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Madeira Craven

Skills
  • Interrogation: 3xp
  • Investigation: 2xp
  • Auristics: 1xp
  • Logic: 1xp

Lores
  • Alessia Amaryllis: doesn't trust Madeira
  • Lore of the consequences of losing Jomi
  • People: Edith Bronwen
  • Edith: hiding something
  • Jomi: dusted by Rothsam

Awards & Retribution
+Jomi's Bones: in a wooden box are the earthly remains of the kelvic badger's human body
+Jomi's Dust: the earthly remains of Jomi's soul

Notes
Notes here.
User avatar
Madeira Dusk
long may she reign
 
Posts: 1774
Words: 1599220
Joined roleplay: October 11th, 2016, 7:45 pm
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 11
Featured Contributor (1) Featured Thread (3)
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
Donor (1) One Thousand Posts! (1)
One Million Words! (1) Lhavit Seasonal Challenge (1)
2018 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)


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