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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Jul 21, 2017 4:17:57 GMT
"I'm absolutely not," Lilac said. "If I had been, I'd have saved myself from that fall. I've never felt water feel so... solid."
He held out a hand to carry Lamara. In this form his hands were almost as long as Lamara was tall, and they approximated the shape of human hands although they had no bones or fingernails. On the back side his skin was black and dark purple, on the front it was thinner and paler, with suckers as fine as fingerprints.
On this side Lilac's veins could be faintly seen through his purple skin. As always, if Lamara asked to drink his blood he would happily oblige, but he was still too unfamiliar with her needs to offer. Not to mention she hadn't taken him up on it yet, despite his assurances that he had plenty to spare.
If Lamara allowed him, Lilac would move her to the top of his head and sink into the water until only his face poked above the surface, then slowly swim out into the distant unknown waters.
"Will they have a doctor, you think? I think I may need one. You probably need one too."
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Post by TheHook on Jul 24, 2017 0:34:04 GMT
Lamara looked down at the offered hand, and remembering the offers Lilac had made before in donating blood to her, began to contemplate taking that offer. She was injured, badly, and with his blood she could not only heal herself, but perhaps help him in some way once she had recovered. She had always hated leaving debts, even perceived debts, unpaid.
When his and came into reach, she leaned down to locate a vein and, in a predatory display of speed, sank her teeth down into the exposed vein and began to feed on the oozing blood. It had a very distinctive and powerful, but not unpleasant, flavor of fish, Nephalian port air, and salt. As she drank her fill, those small untreated injuries began to repair themselves with the influx of materials.
Once she pulled back from the vein, Lamara placed a hand over the wound and began to work her sangromancy on Lilac. She could feel the blood pulsing in his massive frame, rushing past little internal and external injuries, damage that perhaps even Lilac was unaware of. He would soon feel his pain dulling and his injuries slowly repairing themselves, although her weakness and his size meant she was doing far more numbing than healing. With his hand sealed and his body treated to the best of her ability, she finally pulled herself onto his hand, clothes soaked through with water and blood, before laying out on whatever surface he gave her.
"I assumed you wouldn't mind." She offered lazily.
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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Jul 24, 2017 3:15:54 GMT
Lilac winced in pain as Lamara bit his hand. It was a small wound, but deep, and his hands were sensitive. He wasn't angry though, especially as he could see Lamara's body healing as she drank Lilac's blood.
Lilac had only the foggiest notion of the extent and nature of his injuries. He knew his chest hurt and he couldn't move very fast. So, as Lamara healed him, he understood very little of what was happening. He smiled serenely as his pain faded. She even fixed up the wound she'd made in his hand.
"Of course not," he said, gently placing Lamara on top of his head. "Any time. And thank you." His head was squishy - perhaps disturbingly so to someone used to skulls - and no wider than Lamara was tall.
"Grab on to my hair," he suggested. "I'll try to swim slowly, so you don't fall off."
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Post by TheHook on Jul 24, 2017 13:43:21 GMT
She didn't need him to repeat himself, garbing his hair and taking a firm seat on his soft, boneless head. After the impact and magical exertion she had gone through, she was feeling, needless to say, a little foggy and was thus having trouble remembering which direction they needed to travel.
"A-Actually, I think we need to go this way." She said, gesturing to the left toward a more decrepit passage lit with various torches and covered in strange markings she was too hazy to make out, and Lilac would not recognize. It was unfortunate that neither of them understood the markings, as they were old Rakdos symbols and graffiti, several decades old by any count.
"Heh, you know this probably used to be the surface a couple hundred years ago." She mused lazily.
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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Jul 24, 2017 14:30:35 GMT
Lilac paused when Lamara made her remarks.
"I can't see you up there, dear. You mean this way?" He drifted toward the passage she indicated, as it was closest. "It's awfully narrow. I'm afraid it'll either dip below the surface or shallow out. It might get too narrow for me to fit through, or drop us off another cliff. If you're sure you know where you're going, I'll follow you, but if you're not I'd rather stay in the open water."
He searched for nearby minds, and came up with a surprising many. Even in this derelict place, they were far from alone. Pinpoints of consciousness flickered in the ruins both above and below. Lilac checked for anything that seemed hostile, but the worst of them was sitting on his head. It made him feel a little better.
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Post by TheHook on Jul 26, 2017 0:46:30 GMT
"Point taken, let me think for a sec-" As Lamara had been panning around, she caught sight of something...vaguely familiar in the ruins just ahead. It was a section of wall, the rest of the building around it crumbled and decrepit, with a simple carving etched into the stone. A mother, a father, and a daughter etched into the surface, all holding hands inside a square outline, most likely of the house itself. She almost recognized the image in the wall, and began to climb off of Lilac toward the surface, reaching out toward the stone as if touching it would magically restore her memory of it. If Lilac was paying attention he might feel the frustration and subtle unease flowing off Lamara as she moved closer.
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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Jul 26, 2017 15:39:27 GMT
As Lamara climbed off him, Lilac sank down so that only his eyes were above the water, and swam as close as he could to the carving. He said nothing, letting Lamara think. He'd noticed emotional patterns like hers most often in people looking for something important they'd lost. The vampire was ancient, and this was her home plane - perhaps the ruin jogged a half-forgotten memory she was now trying to grasp.
"What is that?" he asked, squinting at it in the darkness.
Lilac's mind had a flair for the dramatic, so he imagined the people in the carving were Lamara and her parents. She must have been very important to be carved in stone like this. Perhaps she'd been a princess, stolen from her royal family, with only vague memories of her old life?
He was sure the truth was much more boring than that. Even if she was a lost princess, Lamara would probably just shrug and go on with her duties anyway.
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Post by TheHook on Jul 27, 2017 2:14:54 GMT
"Its just..." Lamara climbed down off of Lilac's head, inching her way onto solid ground to reach the structure. She crawled into the shattered stone frame and moved in closer to the carving. It was familiar to her, she knew that, a memory was gnawing at the back of her head like a Dimir horror. She reached out to touch the surface and cut her finger on the rough stone. The sharp pinch of parted flesh and the sight of drawn blood tore the memory to the front of her mind.
A little girl crouching in front of chipped stone wall, clutching a kitchen knife as a chisel and a brick as a hammer. She wanted to make her parents smile, so she had decided to indulge an artistic impulse and carve the family permanently into their home out of a child's belief that nothing would ever change. Her parents had seemed excited when they got home, they were very eager to examine her work and detect its durability. They insisted on covering her creation with a box to protect it from damage or prying eyes. She didn't realize till years later they did it to protect her from the Rakdos cultists.
"...This was my home..."
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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Jul 28, 2017 15:09:35 GMT
Lilac watched in mostly silence as Lamara crept around the ruin. He could sympathize with rediscovering the lost past. Years ago, on Gregoria, he'd returned to his childhood home on some ridiculous revenge quest, and found the cave reclaimed by nature. Turned out, it had been his own fault. Even after Lilac had fled the small merfolk village, nobody took up residence in the old cave. Too much grief, fear, and bad blood.
It was his instinct, when someone was feeling badly, to comfort them with hugs and hand-holding, but Lamara hated that kind of thing, even when he was properly small, dry, and hairy. Regardless, he couldn't fit into the ruined building where Lamara now stood.
In an attempt to show some sort of sympathy, he reached one of his feeding tentacles into the ruin, not touching Lamara, but nearby, so she could accept his presence if she chose. The tentacle was longer and thinner than his others, and it ended in a handlike club. The widest part had rows of suckers the size of teacups, which were sturdy but not as vicious as the ones on his shorter tentacles. The club tapered down to the width of a human finger, and the thin end was covered in fine suckers like those on Lilac's palms. The tentacle looked really goofy just sitting there in the room, but Lilac wasn't sure what else to do.
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Post by TheHook on Jul 29, 2017 1:40:02 GMT
Lamara had never been one for tears, even as a child. There had been a few close calls, but once Lamara developed the capacity to stand and speak tears became a rarity. So it was particularly surprising when she caught her eyes growing clouded with the beginnings of tears, which she hastily wiped away with her already outstretched hand. She knew Lilac would be able to sense her emotions, but the physical display of vulnerability was beneath her. She had been prepared to stand and turn to Lilac when she caught sight of his outstretched tentacle, and was admittedly relieved to see the gesture.
Taking the tentacle, Lamara used it as a support to climb back onto Lilac's head, settling into her previous seat.
"Let's move on Lilac, I think I remember the way now."
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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Aug 4, 2017 15:57:42 GMT
Lilac kept the thin end of his tentacle wrapped around Lamara as he sank back into the water and swam onward.
She was so upset - what could she have lost that was so important? It was almost refreshing to think it might have been her family, or her humanity. His instinct was to remove her sadness, but no doubt she'd consider his altruism some kind of mental violation. He'd just have to console her like a regular person.
"How long ago did you live here?"
He monitored Lamara's emotions closely, wishing her could sense her thoughts as well as her feelings. It was unlikely he'd ever be able to alter her feelings without her noticing, because he'd never know her as well as she knew herself, but it didn't hurt to try.
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Post by TheHook on Aug 5, 2017 1:21:58 GMT
"Its been centuries, but I can't say for certain. After a few hundred years time starts to lose its meaning." Perhaps not the most satisfying answer, but the most accurate. Lamara stopped keeping track of the years after she lost count in the mid 200's, being immortal meant that the ticking of the clock no longer meant anything to her. She could stand in the Promenade until the stonework crumbled to dust, a new society crawled from the ashes, and they returned to the dust from whence they came without feeling a single second.
"How about you Lilac, how long have you been alive?" This was a serious departure from her usual process of keeping either of their personal details out of their relationship. But she now realized that, for better or worse, she would have to get used to Lilac as she was his only guide to the larger Multiverse, and Lamara was not one to shirk responsibility.
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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Aug 10, 2017 19:12:25 GMT
"Me? Fifty-four years, which until I met you I thought was dreadfully long. Although I suppose, unlike you, I am getting closer to death each year. I don't expect to live much longer. It's a little depressing to keep discovering new things as I get older. First my mind-control, now the existence of other planes - there's so much and I won't be able to see it all."
Lilac was still curious, but he was smart enough to know a subject-change when he heard one. Perhaps she just didn't remember much about the time when she'd lived here. He did notice her wording, though - "how long have you been alive?" Lilac hadn't asked her how old she was, just how long ago she'd lived here. Perhaps his guess had been right, and this had been her childhood home.
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Post by TheHook on Aug 11, 2017 1:46:08 GMT
"Death will catches everyone eventually Lilac, I just can't die in any boring fashion." Somewhat of a morbid joke no doubt influence by her interactions with the Rakdos, Orzhov, and Innistradi, but there was truth to it. While she was immune to time, disease, and many of the other ravages of organic life, she wasn't invulnerable and the odds were something would come along and finally end her long life. She could accept death, but she neither sought it actively or flirted with it recklessly.
"I wouldn't worry Lilac, a resourceful cephalopod like you could no doubt find some method of self prolongment." A made up word, but a real sentiment. Lilac Marshal wasn't the naïve human she had found wandering the roads of Zendikar, just unaccustomed to the nature of the Multiverse, just like she was so long ago.
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Post by Emrakul the Promised Friend on Aug 11, 2017 2:50:09 GMT
"Hell, if falling a great distance into still water can't kill you, what can?" he said, smiling at her comment. "Can you drown? You seemed concerned when we went to Gregoria and you ended up underwater."
The water was getting shallower. The land was still far beneath them, but the submerged ruins were getting closer. Lilac couldn't tell if they'd come to a hill, or if the buildings in this area were just taller.
"You said we were looking for a passage up and out? Do you have any idea where we'll come up?" He glanced around at the far-distant minds under the water's surface, no doubt belonging to merfolk. "Do you think they'll be afraid of me? I usually disguised myself as a normal mermaid, unless I was around my own followers."
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