[ action | closed ] terrible things happen to good people every day

[black_black_heart]

xxxxxxxxxx"Consequentially, I am not one of the good people.
xxxxxxxxxxI am one of the terrible things."

xxxxxxxxxx — Marianna Paige

Who: Cassian Lynch, Trahearne, Abel Nightroad, Tannusen (and possibly more, will add as needed)
What: Multiple threads involving the Quiet Minds event and its aftermath.
When: First thread is on Friday the 13th. Subsequent threads are anything from a few hours to over a week later.
Warnings: A LOT. Graphic violence and gore, on-screen character death and dismemberment, cannibalism, attempted sexual assault, mentions of past assault, and more angst in the aftermath than you can shake a tree at.

Comments

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen was quick enough to figure out that the other Cassian wasn't on the second floor, but was above. Now, that was interesting. He hadn't seen the attic, but time with a sluagh -- they all preferred such spaces -- had trained him well to notice the stairs to one.

And... to know how noisy the damn things could be.

Normally, the tiger would simply determine the angle the attic stairs would come down at, and wait for his target to come down. He had to eventually, after all. And Tannusen had stalked plenty of people over the years, if never for quite this reason. He'd always been calculating, and patient, like any good tiger on the hunt ought to be.

But.

Today was different. Patience was a virtue that he found himself strangely lacking in.

And so it was that the Fae dropped the Wyrd on the entire house, and then leaped up to grab the stairs and drag them down. Did the Dreaming still make his target dizzy? Would he be disoriented long enough for Tannusen to make it into the attic?

Let's find out!

[feckinboomstick]

Tell you what. The Cassian in the closet did, because he got rather quiet very quickly. Hard to throw a tantrum when you are throwing up.

As for the Cassian in the attic, he was more than just a little well versed in what that feeling was. The attic stairs clattered down, and the sound of the man in the attic shouting curses down at the tiger at the foot of them filled the house as he stumbled and latched on to a support beam to keep from falling.

"Ye'll have to be faster'n that-" The gun was clumsily cocked, due to the disorientation, but it was cocked nevertheless.

[black_black_heart]

"Oh no," Tannusen laughed, starting up the stairs with all the certainty of someone who knew he could take elephant shot to the face. An actual cannon couldn't take him out in one shot, not with the Wyrd dropped. "Not a gun!"

[feckinboomstick]

He didn't have the iron knife with him.

That didn't stop him from having a few other iron knick knacks spread across the attic. Honestly he'd set up a plan for Tannusen, but he really wasn't expecting delivery tonight.

"How'd ye get past the wards-" That wasn't said with the usual annoyance he would have given the tiger if this had been, say, any other occasion.

New plan. Had to come up with a new plan that didn't involve body checking a six foot plus fairy.

[black_black_heart]

Up until now, the Fae had taken every hit Cassian had ever lashed out at him with, and... Cassian had seen him apparently losing a fight to a fake human. Neither fact exactly advertised 'danger'.

So it couldn't be that bad, right?

Tannusen grinned, and then went from casually strolling his way on up the stairs to sprinting.

Better come up with that plan fast, Cass.

[feckinboomstick]

PLAN PICKED.

In the blink of an eye, the house seemed to melt away to nothing, wood and brick replaced by swamp and trees, fog hanging heavily in the air, the ground threatening to give way and suck down anyone stupid enough to test it-

An illusion, mind. A powerful one, but an illusion nevertheless, the heretic himself having seemingly vanished from the scene entirely.

In all actuality he'd gone to snatch up an iron poker, counting on the illusion itself to distract his attacker long enough to let Cass stick the goddamn hell out of him.

[black_black_heart]

Well.

That was certainly an interesting trick.

Tannusen was more resistant to this sort of thing than a human, but he was certainly no outer god. The Fae was momentarily disoriented, thrown further by the way his footing seemed completely off. He shut his eyes, since they could only give him false information anyway, and stood quite still.

[feckinboomstick]

While the hum and murmur of any swamp was obvious, the distinct sound of soft footsteps on wood could baaarely be heard, just behind it. After all, the spell didn't just cause reality to stop existing.

Just fucked with it.

While Cassian would have no issue with traversing the floor, if Tannusen found himself falling just a little too much into the illusion, he may as well have been walking in a real swamp.

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen had enough willpower to avoid ending up under the heel of any of the myriad nobles who'd tried to collect him. Even this version, though it was bent to less savory goals, boasted a huge amount of the stuff.

He didn't turn his head to track Cassian visibly, but concentrated on those tiny sounds. His knees bent, as though he was struggling to keep his footing--

Then he sprang straight at the human. Smart, when he didn't seem to have working vision? Nope. But still not as dumb as holding still.

[feckinboomstick]

No, not a good idea when his vision wasn't working, even worse idea when he had that iron poker and Hastur happily bolstering his swing. Fairy hearts ahoy, right?

The blow was aimed for the chest, an attempt to knock his opponent down adn shatter some ribs in the process.

Make the work after a bit easier anyway.

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen took the hit, and hit the floor with a dull thud. No crunch, though, and now he knew exactly where Cassian was! Eyes still closed, he twisted in place and lashed out with both of his legs in an attempt to bring the human down, too.

Maybe if he bounced the guy off the floor hard enough, it would interrupt this dumb illusion.

[feckinboomstick]

Good thing he moved fast too, because the next move would have been ramming the poker right through his chest.

With a curse, he hit the ground, the illusion flickering for a moment, and starting to fade and haze at the edges.

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen moved very fast indeed... and he didn't stop moving that fast! This was no burst of desperation, no surge of adrenaline that would burn away as quick as it hit. This was just how he moved, when he wasn't playing along with a flailing human's attempts to bat him away like a naughty house cat.

He rolled up onto his target, straddling him and putting all of his weight onto Cassian's stomach. Then he aimed one hell of a punch for his face!

[feckinboomstick]

At the very least, Cassian had some experience with bar room fights, and this wouldn't be the first time someone took to sitting on him to keep him from jumping right back up again. Also, his face was a very popular target.

Still, not many humans had the punching power of a tiger pooka, so the defense he put up to guard not getting punched didn't... quite... work the way he'd wanted it to.

But at the very least he wasn't unconscious.

His jaw probably was broken now though.

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen wouldn't be surprised if it was. Still, it was safer to punch than to use anything... sharper. He didn't want the human bleeding out, after all. So, his claws stayed inside his gloved fingers, and he kept his teeth to himself, as well.

...For now.

He grabbed for the human's wrists, intending to wrench Cassian's arms up beneath his back.

"I must say," the Fae purred, as casually as though this was just some dumb little slap-fight. The tiger wasn't even out of breath! "I'm quite enjoying this side of you. So much fight!"

Meanwhile...

[black_black_heart]

Another Fae appeared downstairs. This Tannusen was here for only one purpose, and it didn't involve hurting Cassian.

Himself, though... that was fair game.

He tipped his head up, listening to the chaos erupting upstairs. Well, he'd certainly guessed correctly where his clone had run off to, it seemed. As though the Wyrd already soaking into the place hadn't told him that much before he'd even teleported in. Still, that much of a ruckus at least meant the fight was on, and not... you know, over.

There was plenty of time.

Tannu paused near the closet door, listening. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on, here.

He took a bit of chalk out of his pocket and started drawing a smaller door inside the locked one. "Hey," he said quietly, not wanting to alert anyone upstairs to his presence just yet, "I'm going to get you out of here."

Then he pulled open the new door, and offered a gloved hand to the occupant of the likely very dark and cramped closet.

[feckinboomstick]

Don't let the doormouse in the closet know that's the goal here, he'd really rather not anyone get trashed.

He'd fallen dead silent after the house fell under enchantment, at first simply due to his own dizziness, but as the sound of violence began to reach him... Well... well maybe just staying quiet in this closet was the best idea. He wasn't sure if Tannusen was effected similarly after all-

He was overly relieved to hear a familiar voice at the door though, and he grabbed the offered hand like a lifeline, stumbling out quickly-

"Thank you." Breathless, soft, and with a distinct lack of the usual heavy brogue. The Cassian that wasn't currently breaking minute parts of reality had another major difference. It'd seemed this one had taken scissors to his hair, clipped short and clumsily so.

"I've been in there for hours. He... He didn't care for the idea of looking for help." A beat-

"Did you..." He gestures helplessly for a moment. The house. The house in general.

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen would do whatever it took to not, in any way, become his father. Anything. Full stop.

If that meant he had to beat himself into the dirt, that was a very small price to pay. And even this 'good' version didn't have a problem with the idea, honestly. Good fights were hard to come by; who better to match him than himself?

But right now, his focus was on this strange, soft-spoken Cassian. Okay, that was weird. Tannusen stared for a brief moment in surprise, then lifted a hand to touch that terrible haircut. Had he done that himself? Why? And where had the thick accent gone?

"Did I what?" he asked, distracted, and then glanced around them. "Oh, the Wyrd? No. That was the other one. I followed him here." That was a far less alarming way to put it than 'guessed where he was going and went there too'.

Then, because he was honestly just that confused, "What happened to your head?"

[feckinboomstick]

"The... other one." Well that just meant that Tannusen was in the same boat he was, first of all, and second of all if that was the case-

He jerked his head towards the attic. "They're going to kill each other- Tannusen, we need to get to the attic! He was-" Okay he really didn't actually want to get into it but...

"He was going to look for you." That... that came out rather dire. Offhandedly, even as Tannusen felt the need to toy with the haircut-

"I... I cut it. It shouldn't have been allowed to get that long anyway."

[black_black_heart]

Oh good, everyone was hunting each other around here. For one reason or another. It didn't take much imagination to fill in the blanks, knowing what he did of Cassian's curse. One thing he knew for certain was that he couldn't let this Cassian run up there and get in the middle of things!

"Don't worry, I'll be interrupting them shortly," Tannusen just smiled, despite the sound of a heavy thump upstairs. He knew the kind of damage he could take, and knew Cassian actually didn't know. That meant neither version did, not just this one. The tiger had plenty of time.

"Here," he pulled a folded note out of his coat, and pressed it into Cassian's hand, "give this to the tree for me, will you? And, Cassian--" he'd never actually used the guy's name, before.

[feckinboomstick]

It's like a party! Only no one is having fun and everything is totally awful. And this Cassian seems pretty dead set on getting up those stairs and to his double to try and convince him to be less of a bag of dicks. Chances are that conversation wouldn't go well, with or without Tannusen's evil twin.

He flinched at the sound of that, and tried to press past Tannusen, starting to grow frantic.

"They'll kill each other, we need to get up there now!"

Okay fine first he'll take this paper and secon-

... No actually, Tannusen had never used his name before. He looked up from the note, distracted from opening it to take a peek at it. "... Yes?"

[black_black_heart]

The note, written on a small bit of scrap paper, had been folded and opened and folded and re-folded so many times the crease in the middle was just about ready to fall apart. It wasn't Tannusen's handwriting inside, however, but Trahearne's. The sylvari had taken to stocking the bookcase he'd given Tannu, himself, with books he thought the tiger would like, complete with notes stuck between the pages on bits of paper.

Tannusen had taken great pains to make it seem like he'd never read any of them.

But... obviously, he had.

Letting Trahearne know that his efforts to try to make the tiger feel like he belonged somewhere hadn't been totally in vain... that seemed like a decent apology, in lieu of anything better.

But Tannusen wouldn't be letting Cassian past him, no way. He blocked the short priest's way, actively, and then smiled again when the human looked up. "I'm sorry," the tiger said, with a strange sort of gentleness that he never let show, before. "For... everything."

And then he teleported Cassian away. Straight into Trahearne's apartment, aimed to appear a foot or so above the couch-bed so that he didn't splinch into any of the housecats -- or the sylvari himself.

[feckinboomstick]

Nothing Cassian would understand, then. But he tucked it into a pocket nevertheless.

There was a flustered, frantic huff as Tannusen blocked the way, the frail man unable to just shove his way through, and it seemed that he was currently unwilling to attempt to do it too, still trying to wiggle his way around without actually doing anything ruder than put a hand on the tiger.

Sorry? That cut through the cloud, there was a blink, and he opened his mouth to question why he felt he ever had to be sorry, and then his world was a blur, the priest dragged along for the ride with a yelp of surprise before landing neatly in the couch bed, frazzled and confused.

[treesus]

A grey and white blur yowled as it dashed from under the couch and fled into the kitchen, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Trahearne hurried out of the kitchen, a squirming silver tabby in his arms.

"Don't go near the door," he said as he passed Cassian, not sparing the man a glance until he'd shoved the cat into the other room and closed the door. "Or the kitchen for that matter, there's glass on the floor."

Trahearne walked back by the couch and looked down at Cassian, concern in his bright, cat-like eyes. Aside from his general shape, there wasn't much human to him, black seed pods warped the shape of his face and everything about him, down to his clothing, was made of plant material. He radiated magic, magic to make that plant body work and his own necromancy. A glyph of that same magic was drawn on the front door, glowing a faint, ominous green.

"I am assuming that Tannusen sent you here."

[feckinboomstick]

Well this was... this was new. He'd met dryads before of course but-

He's sorry if this sounds offensive but-

"Are you a male dryad?" Distant, confused. A bit dizzy from the teleporting, apparently Tannusen was pretty good at pulling the rug out from under him. He slowly moved to fix himself a bit on the bed couch, uncertain about standing quite yet.

"Y... Yes he did. I think." He was pretty sure that was what he did.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, I need to get back to Everglade, things are a mess, I really can't stay-" Polite and frantic together didn't really fit Cassian, but Trahearne wouldn't know that one, the priest trying to head past him for the door before stopping suddenly.

"He gave me a paper to give to you, it seemed very important..." Dug out of a pocket and held over for the tree being to inspect, after all he could only assume this was what Tannusen meant by the tree.