binging, purging every altar
Nate Wrenzaok
the Lone (Free) Ranger
"Doctor" / Guildmaster

Age: 37 | Height: 6'1" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 10 - Strg: 55 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 50 - Luck: 46 - Int: 1
PEMOTA - Mythical - Starwhale (narwhal) RAMOTH - Mythical - Dragon (Biopulse)
Played by: Johnnie Offline
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Posts: 2,792 | Total: 4,183
MP: 0
#1
- NATE -
Why you don't got any questions?
How you know that this is real?
Nate has exactly enough faith in Hotaru to believe he will get this one chance. That he will be allowed to come, do exactly as he’d said in his letter, and then disappear again. He believes it because he has to, circumstances Nate is never at his best in. But he keeps himself together enough to make the long trip from the portal to Snowcloak, paranoid eyes taking in everything from the safety of a thick, borrowed coat.

The doctor stops to collect Kiada before leading them to the Kraai, conversation utterly non existent until he opens up the bar to usher them inside and locks the door behind them. With a sigh, Nate sheds the winter gear and looks around, something tight tugging at his features.

After a moment, his blue gaze turns to Kiada, a smooth grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “I appreciate you giving me a hand with this you know.” It’ll be the second time she’s helped him out now, a fact he will not be forgetting anytime soon. “And I’m glad you’re uh... okay, with, he gestures towards the door behind them, “everything.
I am feeling such oppression
You can't tell me how to feel
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
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Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#2
KIADA
i wish that i could say,
i am a light that never goes out.
He’d asked her to come, and truthfully he’s quite lucky that she’s still in the area – packing her things, because she absolutely doesn’t intend on staying back in the snowy depths any longer, not with her safety at risk. And so, just like that, she finds herself meeting Nate, arriving with the Doctor to the Kraai, whose doors are shut and boarded up, surprise lacing her features when Nate produces a key – having not realized that the Kraai was under his jurisdiction when she’d assumed it had been under Neron’s.

How peculiar.

But she slinks in behind him, closing and locking the door behind them as her gaze drifts to the bar – cold now that there’s no fire, not that she can feel it but her sensors are certainly aware. It puts her on edge as she glances around the establishment, her gaze only finding Nate when she can feel his gaze bore into her. Their eyes are similar in a way, bright and vibrant and sharp in ways that are hard to explain, but the smile she offers him is genuine and softer edged than she felt like giving most people nowadays. After all, he’d been quite the boon during LongNight for her. And without his help getting to Torchline, who knows what might have happened to her.

Sure.” She says softly, shrugging helplessly. “I mean, I don’t plan on being here much longer than I have to be anyway… So.” She can’t help the huff of a laugh that leaves her. “I’m glad you caught me when you did, let’s put it that way.” Tipping him a wink, she drifts further into the bar, glancing up at the stairs that lead up to the rooms that people had stayed in – that she had stayed in once. “What are we looking for, again?
but i
flicker
from time to time.
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Nate Wrenzaok
the Lone (Free) Ranger
"Doctor" / Guildmaster

Age: 37 | Height: 6'1" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 10 - Strg: 55 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 50 - Luck: 46 - Int: 1
PEMOTA - Mythical - Starwhale (narwhal) RAMOTH - Mythical - Dragon (Biopulse)
Played by: Johnnie Offline
Change author:
Posts: 2,792 | Total: 4,183
MP: 0
#3
- NATE -
Why you don't got any questions?
How you know that this is real?
Something in Nate’s shoulders relaxes at the grin Kiada sends him, genuine ease and friendliness radiating off it, soft touches it feels like he’s been kept from for too long. There is something to be said for time spent with your own kind, with people who intrinsically understand the struggles you go through.

Clever girl.” Nate praises automatically, finally turning away so he can vault over the counter behind the bar, searching first for his jacket and finding the soft leather tucked away neatly. “We’re just clearing out the bar; picking up anything that seems personal, and any of the good stuff left behind.

Do you know where you’re going  to be staying yet?” The question leaves him a touch distractedly, a folded letter slipping out of the leather when he shakes it out, about to pull it on. It would take an idiot to not recognize Hotaru’s writing, a fact that has unease settling over the doctors face as he reaches down to retrieve the paper.
I am feeling such oppression
You can't tell me how to feel
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
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Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#4
KIADA
i wish that i could say,
i am a light that never goes out.
Clever girl is a new one, one that almost gives Kiada the sensation of being a creature in an exhibit, one that’s praised for having a smart thought and intelligence compared to the rest of the lot. But the grin is still fanged and playful, bright and a touch hungry in ways that she hasn’t been able to experience much of lately.

She watches as he vaults over the counter and she moves around to collect a few other things, finding a box in the corner that she can toss a few things into. “I think Chuy and I decided on the Grounds. It’s where I’ll be safest.” She says idly, picking up a bottle of what appears to be quite the fruity aged whiskey that even to her numb senses seems like it would taste incredible. “I’m not interested in dying again, you know?” She places it in the box and lifts her head, watching as Nate grabs a jacket and watches as a letter falls out of it.

She’d know her aunt’s handwriting anywhere, too. “Were you expecting a letter?” She’d heard about what happened but none of the fallout, nothing else of what had happened. Idly, she still wonders who the father of Hotaru’s child is, but she doesn’t dare ask Nate about it.
but i
flicker
from time to time.
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Offline
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Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#5
Hotaru
Delicately folded inside the jacket, Hotaru’s elegant script clearly spells out Nate’s name on the front of the envelope. Inside is a letter, if he chooses to read it in that moment.

Nate -

I believe this is my last and only chance to say the things I haven’t been able to since I walked away in The Climb. I don’t expect anything from this letter or from you. No changes, or reconciliation, or forgiveness of any sort. It’s not my intention to hurt you any more than I have, but you deserve to have some form of closure, or understanding. At least I hope this will bring something like it.

I did burn the Advocates. Had I not been pregnant, I would have seen no need to lie. Lying and manipulating the story wasn’t something you deserved, nor even Sunjata, for all I have fewer regrets there. But there is nothing I wouldn’t do to ensure the health of my child, regardless of the circumstances of their creation, and I regret…well. Everything, it seems. Too much to write.

For so long I accepted that it was a product of my own involvement, the fact that nobody ever seemed to stay. So I couldn’t let myself feel angry once the dust had settled. Why be angry when it was clearly some fault in me, something lacking, that caused Sunjata to betray me and his promise hours after making it? So though I left on good terms, as was so frequently pointed out to me, I truly didn’t. I was angry. I was so angry and hurt and betrayed. All the more because he, unlike you, knew how intimately that betrayal would destroy me. As if orchestrated to confirm my every fear and anxiety, which I had bared to him and only him. I was so angry that even with all his expressed regret, he walked away with everything I didn’t - you, and Kamaria, and Safrin’s devotion. Aside from me, which he clearly didn’t care about in my eyes with how he moved one, what had he really lost? I had been left before, but never in such a way that killed every confidence I had in the love I had held. And I grieved you both, even in the midst of that anger, until there was nothing good left in me. Only the darkest parts that no longer were tempered by the goodness you both inspired in me.

But I was never betrayed by you. You made your choice in Sunjata, and it killed me to respect it. To see that once again, there was some lacking in me that could not keep you at my side. Either of you. When I met Kamaria in the market I even thought that maybe -

Here there are even, thick score marks that conceal the following words of which there are a fair amount, but clearly too much had been written to start the letter over.

At the end of it, what I’m trying to say is it was never you I wanted to hurt. I was drunk and in pain, and I wanted Sunjata to lose something even a fraction as precious as I did that night. I wasn’t aware of Peter and Adam living there - and the Slagveld was never my target. But an inactive guild? An assumed empty building? At the time it felt the safest thing to ruin. It was a testament to a memory I didn’t want to recall - the first time he ever took me to bed was the same night he put that guild bracelet on my wrist.

Does it excuse what I did? No. Suppose I should have simply broken a nose if I felt the need to take my anger out, but the thought of hurting either of you physically more than I had that night still makes me ill even now. Pathetic, really. Clearly this hurt you far more regardless.

Even with all that, I was the one that walked away having lost everything all over again. That was my punishment for my anger. I’ve accepted that. It feels a bitter irony, to have had everything taken when I finally indulged in anger instead of acceptance. Maybe I wanted you to fight for me, to miss me. I’m not sure anymore what I wanted then.

Mostly just for the pain to stop.

But to have hurt you by association is a burden I will have to carry, because it was never my intention.

I love you, both of you, even when I shouldn’t. Even when I’ve lost the right to. Even when I was sitting there, subjected to all your hurt and hatred, all I wanted was to start over. I had only brought Deimos to Torchline in the first place because I feared what I would do the moment I laid eyes upon you both again - and I know now that I was right to do so, because even in that moment, when you hated me more than you ever had before, I would have done anything to belong at your sides again.

But I’ve accepted that in the end, I was never as necessary in the structure we had. I don’t doubt you loved me, both of you. It would be a disservice to claim you didn’t because you proved it every day. But whether it’s my own doubt or truth, I don’t think I’ll ever believe it was more than you loved each other.

It made it all the easier to drown my sorrows in ways you’ve both done in the past - in bodies, instead of drinks. I certainly never intended anything that happened with Remi. Perhaps it was merely one last punishment for my actions. I regret it, even if I can’t regret being a mother again. But when I gazed upon Frey, it was still only you and Sunjata I saw in their face.

I don’t want to know how long it will remain that way.

Here the handwriting has grown shaky. There is no dampness, but a few curious wrinkles that suggest there once had been. When the writing returns, it is composed once more.

I didn’t set the Wren Society fire, nor did Deimos. You don’t have to believe me. It’s not my place but I have been keeping an ear for any leads on who might have. It’s the least I can do. All I can do, really.

There’s nothing else I can do but move forward. I won’t pretend to believe that moving on is an option.

I pray this jacket, for all its memories, will keep you safe when I cannot.

Love,

Hotaru
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Nate Wrenzaok
the Lone (Free) Ranger
"Doctor" / Guildmaster

Age: 37 | Height: 6'1" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 10 - Strg: 55 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 50 - Luck: 46 - Int: 1
PEMOTA - Mythical - Starwhale (narwhal) RAMOTH - Mythical - Dragon (Biopulse)
Played by: Johnnie Offline
Change author:
Posts: 2,792 | Total: 4,183
MP: 0
#6
- NATE -
Why you don't got any questions?
How you know that this is real?
The Grounds is probably safest right now.” Gods only knew if their plan would be successful, if his words would prove to simply be worry and overactive paranoia after all. “Theres no reason you have to stay there, if it doesn’t work out.” Why not be optimistic? Why not at least try, why not offer Kiada some brightness?

The letter slips to the ground and Nate bends after it, a single brow lifted at the handwriting. “I wasn’t expecting a letter.” He mumbles, working his thumb under the seal of the envelope and cracking it open. There’s more paper stuffed into it than he expects, the folds precise and delicate, making it seems like a much shorter letter.

Silence stretches out while Nate reads through it once, then begins to drag as he reads through it a second time. His brows furrow almost immediately, but any other reaction is kept locked behind his teeth until it grows too big for his jaw, a growl leaving him as he finally rips his focus away, halfway through the third read. Trembling spreads through his body, rage clouding his eyes as he turns, not seeming to notice or care about Kiada’s presence as he turns towards the bar, grabs the closest bottle.

He looks at it, considering the label, then digs out two dusty glasses from underneath the counter. “Did you drink much, before?” Nate still doesn’t look up at Kiada, too focused on the way his shaking hands slop liquor over the wooden counter.
I am feeling such oppression
You can't tell me how to feel
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#7
KIADA
i wish that i could say,
i am a light that never goes out.
There’s a soft smile sent Nate’s way at the mention of not having to stay in the Grounds if it doesn’t work out. It’s a thought she hasn’t had truthfully, one that she hasn’t quite interpreted. Most times, moving felt final – it felt like it was choosing a space to make a home and grow and life and die there. But in a place like Caido? Who’s proven to be shaky with where people tend to congregate? Why hadn’t she thought of that?

So she nods, growing silent as the letter falls out of the pocket and she comments on it. She knows it’s Hotaru’s handwriting, she knows the relationship and now lack there of between them, and she quickly busies herself with something else in the bar as Nate reads and re-reads, and re-reads a third time – nearly jumping out of her skin as soon as he suddenly moves again.

Her dark brows lift and she reaches up to push back the stray hairs that have fallen out of her ponytail as she steps back over to the bar, pretending not to notice as his hands shake and spill the liquor everywhere. “Not often, no.” She admits quietly. “I had… Magic where I came from before. The worlds before it, I should say. Usually when I got in a space where I’d want to drink I’d just go burn something down or tempt fate.” Her slender shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. "Did you?"
but i
flicker
from time to time.
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Nate Wrenzaok
the Lone (Free) Ranger
"Doctor" / Guildmaster

Age: 37 | Height: 6'1" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 10 - Strg: 55 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 50 - Luck: 46 - Int: 1
PEMOTA - Mythical - Starwhale (narwhal) RAMOTH - Mythical - Dragon (Biopulse)
Played by: Johnnie Offline
Change author:
Posts: 2,792 | Total: 4,183
MP: 0
#8
- NATE -
Why you don't got any questions?
How you know that this is real?
"Burning something down does sound fun." And it went hand in hand with tempting fate now, didn't it, though there were easier ways to do that. Ways that involved him keeping a tight hold on his smug moral high ground. "I did." Nate throws his glass back, a drop of whatever cheap whiskey he'd grabbed dripping down his chin while he sucks in a deep breath. It doesn't burn enough. "Drank, or fought when I needed it. Both, usually." His hand opens, sending the glass shattering to the ground, the sound not quite as loud as the one the bottle itself makes when Nate throws it against the wall.

A still gaze watches liquor and sparkling shards slide their way down the wall slowly, Nate snorting and turning back to Kiada. "Drink up, darlin', we've got more to go through still." While he speaks, Nate reaches behind him, fingers looking for the specific feel of a specific bottle and sending others toppling to the ground, a flood of broken glass and mixing liquor lapping at the edges of his boots on his side of the bar.

He finds it after a breath, a triumphant sound rumbling in his throat as his fingers wrap around the neck of the bottle and snatch it close. The cork is worked out with his teeth, Nate spitting it to the side and lifting the bottle to his lips to take a long, greedy pull. It's better, but... it still doesn't burn right. Maybe fire is the right answer.
I am feeling such oppression
You can't tell me how to feel
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#9
KIADA
i wish that i could say,
i am a light that never goes out.
Seems a bit tricky given our circumstance now, don’t you think?” She asks quietly, eyeing Nate as his voice takes on a deeper, almost dangerous tone. She knows that sound. She’s been there before. Too many times, she thinks silently to herself. At the mention of fighting, though, she raises a dark brow in response, drawing back and lets her shoulders smooth out. “I’m not opposed to a good old fashioned bar brawl.

Oh, but they don’t get that far, because she watches as the glass hits the ground, shattering into a million small slivers of diamond, distracted from the bottle that hits the wall. She isn’t afraid of it, though. She isn’t afraid of him, but a part of her still activates the armored plates in her skin to cover her torso just in case he did plan on setting something ablaze.

She works her jaw and steps toward the bar again, carefully over the spilled amber and shattered glass to reach for a bottle that does nothing to her anymore, uncorking it and tossing the cork to the ground with the mess before she takes a heavy swig of it and sets it on the bar top, before she’s slinking around the corner to meet him, face to face even if she has to look up at him.

If there’s one thing they’re both good at, it’s having a large presence regardless of height. And she uses it here as she plants her feet. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” Whether it’s breaking more bottles, trying to save some, or burning the whole thing down. They're family now, aren't they?
but i
flicker
from time to time.
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Nate Wrenzaok
the Lone (Free) Ranger
"Doctor" / Guildmaster

Age: 37 | Height: 6'1" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 10 - Strg: 55 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 50 - Luck: 46 - Int: 1
PEMOTA - Mythical - Starwhale (narwhal) RAMOTH - Mythical - Dragon (Biopulse)
Played by: Johnnie Offline
Change author:
Posts: 2,792 | Total: 4,183
MP: 0
#10
- NATE -
Why you don't got any questions?
How you know that this is real?
Out of the corner of his eyes, Nate catches a glimpse of a familiar label clinging stubbornly to shattered shards of a bottle, and it’s the only indication that’s he’s not quite as far gone as he seems. He glances towards the bar shelf, staticky arms reaching out to grab a few bottles and deposit them in the box of things they’re keeping. It’s a quick gesture that fills the moments between Kiada being across him and in front of him, netting his eyes without hesitation.

The bottle he holds is dropped as easily as the rest of them, Nate reaching out to wrap his hands around Kiada’s and pull her close. It should be too much from his right now, but the slant of Nate’s run is warm, his eyes bright and glittering with a vibrant life. He’s found a kindred spirit in the Harpy, a gift that he’s not going to take lightly. “Lets wreck the place up, huh?

And wreck they do, smashing yet more bottles and shelves, shredding papers in the back rooms, throwing everything in the kitchen in a messy heap. Every now and then, Nate pauses, saves something tiny, inconsequential. A small box with velvet inside, a scarf he recognizes as Sunjata’s favourite, a ring that he doesn’t recognize but that catches his eye anyway. And by the end of it, hes in a much better mood, an arm slug around Kiada’s shoulders and the box of things he s keeping balanced on his opposite hip.

Theyll part sooner rather than later, but not before Nate wraps the other ascended in a warm hug, the closest thing to a thanks he can bear to offer before he leaves.

Fin~
I am feeling such oppression
You can't tell me how to feel


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