this means war

[Delahada]

October 15, 2009.

The moment he saw her, he knew something was wrong. Hardly dressed. Wrapped in a sheet. One eye stuck shut from sleep and a sheen of sweat glistening up her forehead. Cheeks flushed with fever, which he could barely discern. If not for the sickly gray blotches in her aura that bent and warped all the rest of her usual colors, from a distance he might not have known.

Something was wrong. He could see it.

He hadn't much time to brood on it. While Rekah crept unsteadily down the stairs, the hearth opened up and out stepped Tara Rynieyn in all her insane glory. She came to him. A beautiful distraction draped in a robe. He thought she looked like a monk. He could have laughed, if something hadn't kept tugging on the chord in his brain that fired off the alarm bells. Even in Tara's company, he kept sending furtive, sly glances aside and keeping an eye on her.

Something was wrong. He could smell it.

The Inn continued to ebb and flow with its usual hustle and bustle, but something was off. Some dark skinned elf got up from the bar and hurried to intercept Rekah. Drow, he figured, by the contrast of dark skin and light hair, but the way he handled the girl didn't speak of malice. There was concern there, and perhaps affection. There was something vaguely familiar about him; he'd seen him before but couldn't quite remember where.

Tara, sitting beside him at the bar, was trying to flirt with him, but something was off about that too. She was more subdued than usual. Not her more aggressive self. Under normal circumstances she was never this coy, and he wasn't particularly fond of mind games anyway. She should be more blunt than this, more direct and assertive.

Something was wrong. First from the probably drow. "Who made you bleed?"

Then from Tara. "Who is that with her?"

"I've no idea."

"Perhaps we should go find out?" Tara spoke softly. No. Not her usual boisterous self at all. "Given what happened to her last night I am not sure sure it's wise to leave her ... never mind. FiFi's on the way."

So she was. Fio the self-appointed guardian and mother figure of Rekah Illyriana. He still wasn't sure how much he liked that situation, but it hardly mattered given the clue that Tara dropped. Besides, if there was anything certain it was that he could trust Fio to take care of Rekah and keep her safe. So his attention snapped back to the short little sex kitten in his company. "What happened last night?"

"Lady Karos stabbed her. I received this information second-hand."

Where first he had been confused and concerned, those softly spoken words out of Tara Rynieyn's mouth shattered his world into a red haze of outraged fury. "What?" he roared.

Tara flinched, leaning back as he raged and not wanting to get caught up in the tempest, and clarifying no further.

"Lady Karos?" He snarled, the edges of his teeth bared. He wasn't sure he wanted to believe his own ears here. Poor Tara. Being right in the face of his fury, literally, except for the leaning back part. "She did what?" Murder was written in his eyes, clear and burning bright.

"I suspect that child's got more than a fever but even so, an ice bath would help alleviate it. At least somewhat," Tara mused softly. Then she frowned and repeated what she said a second time even though she knew it might spark a similar outburst. "She stabbed her. From the information I gathered from Neo, it appears as if the lunatic has been taking out her aggressions on the child of late, although I cannot verify this personally. Three weeks 'go was the first time I have seen Dawn since we were young. An' seeing her once in my lifetime was enough. Imagine what a second meeting felt like."

Salvador wasn't hearing her much. Nor was he doing much imagining beyond the scope of anything that included brutal bodily harm being imparted upon the slaver's wife, by his own two hands. Tara went on anyway.

She continued, gesturing toward Rekah. "Apparently the little one did nothing to provoke the attack. Dawn jus' went up to her, stabbed her in the gut an' then left but was pursued by Skidley."

Later, when his brain surfaced for air out of the drowning rage it was currently consumed in, he might remember this information. At the moment, however, he was only seeing red. Palm to bar, he stood up like a taught coiled spring ready to snap. "I'm going to kill that puta!" By the looks of things, it seemed as if he had it in mind to walk right out and find her and get on with that killing business right this instant.

"Please do," Fio called out to him from across the room.

"You don't have to ask!" Snapping a hand at Fio, his teeth were bared. He was thoroughly pissed off here. "She's dead!"

Tara continued on unhindered with her tale, though he hardly heard her. "There was also a commotion with Anubis as well. He overturned some tables, using them as shields, from what I was told. If I had to guess, seeing as both he an' his wife were here? They had some sort of argument related to...." She paused, wondering if she should say what's got Dawn's panties all up in a bunch lately. Then she smirked, pointing to herself. "...well, me. She asked me if the rumors that I was her husband's mistress were true. I did not deny them."

Though hardly hearing her, he was stalled, by Tara's continuation of the tale. He looked back at her and snorted. "Is that what that bullsh*t was all about?" He was all tense under her touch. He remembered a few days before then. He remembered a package being delivered to Anubis here, in the Inn. He remembered one of his slaves scared out of her wits, and a child, a girl child, who stood not at all subserviently at the Egyptian's side. Then he remembered Lucien punching Sin, and not much beyond that where the slaver was involved.

"Indeed," said Tara softly, "an' I do not feel it is necessary to apologize for what it is I did. I love him an' that will never change. However..." Nodding toward Rekah again. "I am sorry to learn she was harmed an' I wish there was something I could do but my hands are tied. If I go after her, he comes after me." Just as softly, she added, "Which would also extend to you or anyone else that attacked her an' which is why I must caution you 'gainst this course of action."

Salvador snorted. "You don't have to go after her. She's mine." Nobody even had to ask him. Though probably secretly in the backs of their minds they were hoping upon hope that-- Again, he snorted. "I'm not afraid of him, Tara."

That was a lie, and nobody knew it but him. There was a time, it was true, in which he hadn't been the least bit terrified of the Egyptian. He had stood up to him, challenged him to try to win his baronial ring. Anubis had thoroughly defeated him, crippled him for two weeks, but he hadn't been afraid. Then, he had elated in the experience. But now... Now he remembered white shadows and what they could do to him.

He did not let his fear show. He did not let it hold him back.

"I don't suppose you are," Tara said quietly. "I am, an' I have my reasons but still, I think you should know he is ... stronger than he appears." She does not say what Anubis truly is, just as she hadn't last night when cautioning Neo not to do to the Egyptian what Sal is proposing to do to Dawn.

Tara didn't need to tell him, though. Salvador already knew. Fae eyes saw more than mortal eyes could ever see. He saw deep into the depths of reality that were masked so carefully to the waking world. He looked far into that place where dreamers dream, quiver in their nightmares, and conveniently forget about upon waking. The trouble was that he wasn't capable of conveniently forgetting. White shadows. He remembered.

"I know what he's capable of," he snarled. "He beat me in our duel. Twice. Kept his stupid f***ing title and put me off my feet for two weeks. That's not going to stop me from killing his whore of a b***h wife, though."

Nobody hurts those he cares for and gets away with it. Nobody harms those he has claimed as his own. Perhaps in some small way he and the Egyptian had a bit in common. Though they treated their respective "property" differently, sure. Rekah was his, and nobody touched her without his good blessing! For good or for ill!

Tara demurred, probably regretfully. "Then I will say that it has been my most esteemed pleasure to have fornicated with you, Salvador, an' I shall visit you, in the afterlife, as often as I can." She doesn't mean this as an insult. She says it in a casual way even. And not to knock Sal's abilities in any way but she's seen Sal rage, plenty of times, and she's also seen Anubis do the same. They are just so very different in scope, magnitude and terror, she doesn't feel confident enough to describe it.

Scoffing, he turned his head and spat on the floor. "There's no afterlife for me, Tara." He stepped aside, yanking his jacket off the stool it had been draped over, the one he'd been sitting on previously. "And I'm not afraid to die." He slid his arms into the sleeves of his coat and paused a moment to consider her with a smirk. "It was good," he told her, and then stepped away from the bar.

"You are leaving now to kill her? Is that it?" she asked, watching him put on his coat with a pout.

"Yes." That was the plan. Though her inquiry stalled him momentarily to look back over his shoulder.

"At least give me a kiss before you go, Sal. If it was good, as you say, I deserve that much, no?"

A grin twitched into the corner of his lips, and he turned, dipping a nod. Fair enough. He stepped back to Tara's side, reaching to slide a hand across her hip to the small of her back and leaning in to give her a kiss to remember him by for the rest of her life. Especially if he was going off to die and all.

She closed her lips over his, praying to whatever Gods that listened to her these days that he would be safe and nuzzled him before breaking away. Still she spoke softly. "I wish you well, Sal. Come back to me soon. No one, quite, pulls my hair like you do."

Just for Tara, he growled a little against her mouth, grinning, and let his fingers tip-toe up her spine so he could tug on her hair in fond remembrance. He dipped his chin to nuzzle her jaw with the tip of his nose, and gave her one last kiss to the corner of her mouth. "I will, hermosa." So confident. Or just a real big fat liar. He pulled away and turned to resume his mission doorward.

With nothing else stopping him, Salvador prowled through the commons to the front door and out. Set on a mission of madness that was likely going to get him all kinds of killed.

At least ... that was the plan.


_______________________________________
(Adaptation taken from live play with thanks to Tara Rynieyn.)

[Delahada]

As far as plans go, this wasn't a particularly good one. The more logical and less hostile part of his brain -- the one buried about a thousand feet under beneath a good million metric tons of rubble and rage -- knew that. That was the part of his brain that was clawing and screaming at him, but Salvador just wasn't listening to it.

The human in him was currently smothered. Only the fae side was awake, and it really wasn't a reasonable sort. The monster that raged, usually locked up in him three quarters of the year, was free now. It was autumn. The season took its toll as his mother's essence boiled in his blood. The kill switch had been engaged and there was no stopping him from his goal.

Well, except for perhaps a couple of things. First of all, he had absolutely no idea where to find Dawn Shadowsbane-Karos. Surely, she and her slaver husband had to live somewhere. He just didn't know where that was. Which meant he had to calm down a little bit, just enough, to start asking around.

Secondly, he never got around to asking anybody, because as far as Fate was concerned he was destined first to bump into his sister. The way things were going, without any regard to what was in front of him, that happened quite literally.

"Fancy meeting you here. What's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?" Cassandra Tyra rasped as her brother bounced roughly off her rib cage--all things considered, there wasn't much padding there. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and she looked somewhat haggard, but that did nothing to kill her droll sense of humor.

Nor did it stop Salvador from swiping a fist at her face. She may have been tired, but she wasn't dead. His sister evaded that swing easily enough, leaning to the side and clasping her fingers around his wrist with a sigh.

"Seriously, Sal. I know it's autumn, but it's late. Shouldn't you be with Sin or something?" She sounded weary, even to herself. Things in her life had been coming to a head, and that particular boil had been lanced not an hour before. Of course, it was that chain of events that led her here now. Fate. Perhaps she shouldn't complain.

She slung an arm across his shoulders--possibly one of the few people who could actually get away with such an act with Sal in this particular state--and leaned against him lightly. "So. Tell me what's going on, little brother." Might take some of the load off her mind as well.

Eighteen spikes rolled at their joints in furiously twitching succession down the length of his spine. All inhuman instinct told him that it didn't matter who this woman was. She was in his way. She was an obstacle. She slung her arms around his shoulders and he wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into her throat. And right about then, when he thought as much, is when the jolt of electrically charged synapses slapped him upside the head, wrestled the beast into its cage, and let his more rational side come up for air.

Of course, he was still angry, and shoved her off with a snarl. "No, I shouldn't be home with Sin," he growled irritably. "I don't got no God damn curfew." Not like the old days, once upon a time, when his father had given him one. He broke it on more occasions than not anyway. "The hell are you doing here?" he countered. The words 'you're in my way' were just under his tongue waiting to be spat, but he caged them well, but 'murder' was still painted in the depths of his faintly illuminated rusty eyes.

She just stared down at him for a moment, moonlight glimmering off pale grey eyes and turning them nearly silver. "I'm outdoors at the moment. Sentence left to go back to Ivoire an hour or so ago." And she had no plans to remain at the house they'd once shared. That was clear enough from her voice. "And I know you have no God damn curfew, but--I could ask the same of you, what in hell are you doing here?" Here, in the middle of God knew where, in the middle of the night, and pissed as all get out. Evidence enough that something was, indeed, up, but no indication as to what.

The anger, though? That was normal, at least for their "family". Faye's children were equally as likely to hug each other--awkwardly--as they were to attempt to tear out each others throats. Flip a coin, pick a day. It was all up to chance.

"So tell me, what in hell is going on?"


______________________________________
(Written in collaboration with the amazing Against Descent.)

[Delahada]

Something she said stabbed through. A name. Sentence. Salvador had never been particularly fond of that choice in significant other for his sister. He hadn't hidden the fact much either. Though the connotation she spilled skewered a sharp note of potential concern and maybe even sympathy. There was another name in there he didn't recognize. "Ivoire?" he queried cautiously.

Not a name he knew. Nobody important. If she chose to tell him about it later, so be it, but he wasn't going to hover around that topic. She'd asked a question, and the sound of it burned a tingling fever in his blood. Salvador scratched the left side of his neck with his right hand uncomfortably. He wasn't his mother, not bound to answer any question asked of him, but her essence stirred and swelled inside of him thicker than any other time of the year. So he told her, "I'm off to kill a Karos."

Saying the name reinforced his conviction. The edges of his teeth bared against his lips, and he turned to resume heading in that direction. Whichever direction that was. He didn't get far, though, because when the word kill is involved even Cassandra knew that logic had gone and left the building of her brother's brain. She grabbed his arm.

"Ivoire is where he came from. He went home." Though it wasn't really home, and she knew that much. Though with the next words Salvador said--not only did she grab his arm, she smacked him upside the head. Her lips pressed into a thin line, eyes gone to stone.

"Are you wanting to start a war? That is what you will do." She grimaced. "And that assumes you even get to where you want to go. Suicide mission!" Stupidity, her mien said, as she turned her head and spat off into the darkness. Salvador was not the brains in the family--for that, you came to Mesteno for certain, and sometimes Cass. But Sal--he was like a wind-up toy of destruction. You got him stoked and set him off to go--and that was precisely what it seemed like this Karos woman had done.

The question was why. So she asked it. The tone of her voice demanded an answer.

Salvador had never had a mother figure in his life. Biologically, if it could even be considered that, he had one, but she had never been a part of his raising and rearing. It wasn't her way. One had to wonder if that's not what Faye had in mind when she adopted Cassandra Tyra as her own. Someone certainly had to slap the boy around, and in cases like these that slapping around needed a womanly touch behind it.

He was stunned. Not because the slap particularly hurt, but because nobody ever really hit him quite like that. A punch to the face, yeah sure. He got those plenty enough. Kicks to the groin. Knives through the ribs. All manner of violence. Nobody but Cassandra Tyra ever slapped him upside the head like a little boy who just got caught making the neighbor girl cry. It certainly helped jostle his brains about and clear away the murderous haze, replacing things with a splash of 'what the hell!'

It was a sobering enough experience to allow him to provide an answer when she asked him. There was a lot less venom backing his words. Subdued and unreasonably calm, he said, "The b*tch stabbed Rekah."

"Rekah?" The reasonably harmless (when one compared her to, say, Cass herself, or any number of dangerous females who wandered Rhydin) crazy girl who was one of Salvador's friends. That explained a lot. Pretty well explained the murderous rampage, in truth. He was a spirit of vengeance, after all, and Rekah certainly couldn't string two coherent thoughts together long enough to avenge herself.

Cass' lips thinned again. On one hand, she could agree with the motivation behind Salvador's clear and burning desire. On the other hand--walking straight into Anubis Karos' stronghold to get at someone who belonged to him was akin to going to the white shadow that had hunted Salvador for so long and saying "Here I am, take me." It smacked of bending over to kiss your own ass goodbye and not bothering to think twice about it. So that was why she was here.

"So tell me, how does it help Rekah if you waltz in, get your ass handed to you or worse, and your vengeance doesn't get served? You'd never touch the Karos b*tch and have nothing to show for it. What good does that do you? Sin? Rekah? Me, anyone. I don't know who all looks to you now." She'd been out of touch.

In the back of his brain, the less hostile side of him was screaming in tandem with his sister's much more calm and splash of cold water approach. You see there! That's what I was trying to say! But you weren't listening! You never listen! You're a stupid, mindless monster!

Shut up, he silently told that side of himself. Outwardly, his lips were curling up in a sneer but otherwise he remained rigidly unmoving. Looking into his sister's eyes, he knew one thing. She was right. God damn her, she was right. But he insisted on arguing the point. "I'm not afraid to die," he told her, eyes narrowing. That part was true. Some little inkling of knowing that he couldn't possibly name nor detail told him he had nothing to fear from dying. Even though he knew that when he died there was no afterlife awaiting him. He'd die and be nothing, he'd die and--

The silent voice of reason deep inside of him unearthed a memory and pitched it at his conscious awareness so hard that he actually flinched. Sophie's prophetic words murmured at him from beyond the grave. When you die, he dies. "Sin," he whispered. And then an echo of his sister's words. I don't know who all looks to you now. "Rekah," he murmured. "Taneth." A pause to remember whose company he had just vacated some time ago. "Tara." More and more. "Fio and Ali." Last, but certainly not least: "Skid." Defeated by reason, he exhaled, deflated, and turned his head aside.

"I can't just let her get away with this, Cass," he said somberly. "Rekah's done nothing to her. Nothing." And she's mine. He kept that to himself, but she may have seen the hint of it in his body language, the way he clenched a fist at his side and scowled most vehemently.

Cass smirked slightly, lifting eyes to the star-strewn sky, and laid a finger alongside her lips. "I do not once recall saying to let her get away with it, Salvador. Not once." Folding her arms across her chest, then, she tilted her head to fix her gaze upon her brother.


______________________________________
(Written in collaboration with the amazing Against Descent.)

[Delahada]

Those words rang heavy in the air between them. They filled up Salvador's vengeful cup and swirled about with something a little bit more than blind, murderous rage, for a change. His eyes turned and ticked, his fingers twitching, in time to the multitude of calculations turning circles in his mind.

"Don't let her get away with it. There are many ways, I think, that you--or we, even--could get back at her. I was simply suggesting that you not go marching into their stronghold." Like a shithead, she didn't say.

Like an idiot. That other half of his whole echoed the sentiment in its own way. She didn't have to say it. With the adrenaline rush gone and the blinded ambition smothered, the fear came trickling back in. A whisper on the breeze that reminded him of... White shadows. Her next two words brought his attention back on her, and he looked vaguely haunted.

"Listen. Salvador. All I want you to do, is find whoever might not like what has happened to Rekah, and try to plan something. You know you will have my help if you want it." Because Cassandra herself never did like it when the strong decided to take advantage of the weak. "Try to think this through. That's all. I know that's asking a lot, but...I can count the people I have on one hand, and you're one of them. I've already had the number go down by one. Let's not make it two, okay?" Another unspoken thought was that she didn't think she could handle it...

Fae eyes saw more than human eyes could ever see. He watched his sister's colors, her aura, twist and coil in upon itself in a ghostly array. So much she kept to herself. Another common family trait. Never admit weakness. Never cry. Be strong no matter what. Nothing can hurt you if you don't let the pain show. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder. "Gracias, hermana," he said softly. "I welcome the help." Though he didn't ask for it, never would have asked for it, he was grateful, regardless, that she offered it, and accepted.

She just grimaced a little for a moment. Thanking her was perilously close to rubbing salt on a fresh wound--don't thank me for slapping sense into your idiot head, she wanted to snarl, but didn't. Getting angry was yet another common trait. Get angry, so you don't let them see how close you are to crying. Easier to do that.

She elbowed him in the side. "Get real. Who else would have to pull your fat out of the fire?" Well, certainly there were others who'd do it, but family would probably be the first to know. Assuming Mesteno wasn't up to his eyebrows in trouble as well.

They sort of had a penchant for it, after all.

The jibes were in some ridiculously crazy way reassuring. Salvador cut a sharp grin and chuckled breathily at his sister, withdrawing his hand from her shoulder. There certainly were others who would pull his fat out of the fire, Sin for a start, but for her sake he didn't bother mentioning that. For his sake, he decided not to think on him for too long either.

"So. This is your deal. You're in charge. Where do we start?" Because the when was right now.

He looked down the road in the direction he had been heading and considered. Damn her for being right. Alone he wasn't going to get anywhere. Even a team of two, himself and his sister, weren't likely to succeed. Somewhere down that way lay casa Karos. He just didn't have any idea where, and now that he had a moment to think on it more clearly he knew it probably wasn't a good idea to go storming the castle anyway. A man like Anubis Karos had resources, likely an enormous slave army.

Slaves, he thought. Innocents. Despite being bound to Anubis' will, collared into servitude, he couldn't stomach the idea of killing them.

Sighing his defeat, he tore his eyes off that impossible and unknown destination and looked back down the way he had come. When it came to recruiting an army, the first person he trusted above all others was Sin. "Home," he decided. "I have to tell Sin about this." Whether or not the sinner was willing to help was another matter entirely. He'd probably cuss Sal out for the first hour or ten. Though he wasn't looking forward to it, he knew a nice long lecture was rightly deserved.

Thinking on their house by the sea reminded him of another place. A mansion. "Then Seaside," he added. "Jaycy's going to want to know about it too." After all, the baroness had taken Rekah under her wing as a student. An added bonus was that she wasn't very fond of the Karos clan either.

"All right. I'm sure you can find me when you need me, right?" She slapped Salvador's shoulder in a far more comradely gesture than she had been, reassuringly instead of pimp slapping him around like an unruly whore. This likely meant that her ire had dissipated. Not that Cass couldn't hold a grudge given enough motivation. She gave him one last pat and cast a casual wave over her shoulder as she walked off down the road.

He looked back at her, looked her over more than once. Somewhere deep within the kinder recesses of his thoughts was an inkling of invitation, slithering around in his eyes. He could have invited her with him, offered her the guest bedroom as a place to stay. She looked like a woman more thoroughly defeated than he felt himself with this minor set-back. But no. He refrained. To offer her sanctuary, family comfort, would be to break her further. He knew that. So he let her go.

"Sí," he told her retreating back. "I'll find you." That, at least, he could promise. What better way to mend the broken heart of one of Faye's children, after all, than to offer her the opportunity to dish out some violence. To smite evil-doers! Or something.

He watched her until he couldn't see her any more with his human eyes. If he opened up his fae sight, he could have stood there in the street all night and watched her travel scores of blocks away from him. But they were loners by nature, Faye's children. So when she was beyond seeing as a man should see, he turned and walked the other way, toward home.


______________________________________
(Written in collaboration with the amazing Against Descent.)