othellovonryan | (no subject)

[Catherine - clear of the pivot now, and the extension of herself it grants - sags, relief sucking the force out of her shoulders like an hourglass eating sand.]

[a rough swallow and a hand to her head.]

[then she laughs.]

Yeah. The Hashmallim were surprised when I did that to them, too.

[slowly she hauls her limping way over to the console, one hand death-gripped on the Bits-Breaker.]

Let's see what this thing does for Donnie now that it's not doing what you want it to.

[Welcome to the console and its]

[Ooey gooey disgustingness.]

[Horrifying means of connection.]

... I've shoved my hands in worse.

[she says that - but she knows what it did to Donnie, now.]

[and still -]

[well. nothing else for it. she shoves her hands in.]

Not sure what part of Donnie you are, exactly, but I need you to help me fix you.

[Yeah, those tentacles are definitely trying to dig into her arm rather quickly, burning as they dig in-]

[On the other hand, she doesn't have to reach far before she feels a glass lens, metal, clothes on a head-]

[shit shit shit shiiiiit]

[it's not entirely a purposeful move on her part that has her grip clenching viselike around the familiar weight of that person under there and yanking him up back towards her, out of where he's buried in the console - well, having the mental wherewithal to grab him, that was a conscious, careful gesture, but the hasty yank once she found him or the sick relief that she didn't have to let it any deeper into her than that to find him - those are less considered moments in all this, to say the least.]

[but she's going to try and pull him - if not free, at least "loose" from the bowels of alien hell.]

[The Kraang are just the gift that keeps on giving. At least no Technodrone has greatly reduced the infection aspect.]

[Just the trying to connect to your mind in horrifying ways aspect.]

[But he is yankable, and she gets him about halfway before he responds, gasping, eyes snapping open with a shout because now some of the tendrils are getting pulled OUT and that is not a funtime for Anyone involved.]

[WHOOPS. hm. okay. okay. she'll pause for a second, give him a moment to breathe.]

Hey hey hey heyheyheyyy easy there, easy. Hey.

[this would be a great time for a Skyrim joke, if Catherine knew what Skyrim was to make one.]

Under normal circumstances, I'd ask if you're all right first. These aren't normal circumstances. I only just barely understand what this business you're connected to is, though, so first I'm going to ask - clearly, it's going to hurt like a devil's got you if I pull you out any further. Do you want me to, anyway? It'll get that - noise - out of your head, for sure.

[He's breathing harshly and]

[He's not exactly in a great state. He looks hurt, by more than the tendrils. He looks like he's taken a few shots to the arm and a few hits with a bad and blows to the head.]

[There is also teal on his skin, wrapped around him and looking very much like a snake.]

Cat?

Wha-no. No, no, I'm not ready for you yet, I don't know how to keep you safe-

Right.

That answers that.

[sorry, Donnie, this is going to hurt. and she grits her teeth, puts some Night into her muscles atop the Name strength, and heaves.]

[hope you like being yanked bodily out of the console the rest of the way, the hard and fast way,]

[Moving is very difficult when he's all connected, so even as he tries to resist, he just doesn't have the strength or mobility to resist.]

[Getting yanked out really is not a fun time, and there's a scream as the tentacles are all pulled out of his back.]

[There's gonna be a lot of blood.]

[Its really not a good time.]

[right, well. she has Night to call on, so she can in fact start pumping that into him from where she's grabbing him to help like. soothe and also slowly heal those wounds that. she just helped make, yes.]

[can't do much about the blood, but. well. you get used to that.]

Pretty sure I'm not the one that needs - much less needed - saving right now, kid.

[You really kind of do. At least until the sensory issues hit.]

Everyone needs saving. That snake just keeps-keeeps hurting everyone.

[Gasping and there is some relief from the pain as he tries to push himself to his feet. He's not succeeding so well.]

Where....where is the Technodrone? They went quiet.

Everyone gets hurt, Donnie. But the people who try to save everyone rarely save what they're after by trying it.

[The unbridled arrogance of many a hero's downfall, she thinks, irritably - or, sometimes even worse - their victory. some of that irritation is probably what has her putting her next response like this:]

I killed them, Donnie. They weren't going to do you any good.

Oh.

[...]

No, that's good. They were getting too unruly. That gives me more time.

I'm not trying to save everyone, that's ridiculous, its just the people who matter.

... it's not a worthless goal, Donnie.

But if you work with them to save themselves, you'll save a lot more of them than if you leave yourself to try and save them all on your own. Even if the only ones you're trying to save are the ones that matter.

[she offers him a hand up. to help.]

[and as Donnie takes it - or even as he moves as if to -

Before all five of them an orc lay on a bed, his breathing laboured

Hakram Deadhand, born to the Howling Wolves Clan. Once the Adjutant, now the Warlord. Though victory had been won, or the so the clamour outside claimed, two evils yet lay in him. One was horror in the mundane, the spine cracked by the Prince of Bones’ hand that now stilled his limbs. Light healing had made the wound livable, but little more. Sorcerous healing of so fine a thing was beyond the ken of any on Calernia save perhaps the finest mage-doctors of Ashur. None were here. And so instead the Warden had sent for another.

“It was a wound taken defeating the Prince of Bones,” Hanno of Arwad quietly said. “It is a tragedy, Warden, but I do not know if it is…”

“Unjust?” Catherine Foundling finished, fingers clenching.

It was a powerful boon, Undo. The stuff legends were made of. But like all legends, it had been dealt into hands that would not abuse it: the White Knight could not unmake what he did not see as unjust, and he was a rare kind of man. The kind that dying so others might not, the bloody pyre of heroism. Many of the Named that had died in Keter, most of them, would remain in the grave. It was not unjust to die willingly for something greater than yourself.

“He didn’t die,” the Warden said. “Instead they hurt him, White Knight, and did it where it’d cut deepest. He only just got out of that chair and now they put him back into it. For good.”

The dark-skinned man met her gaze, his face a calm contrast to her stormy one.

“He’s done so much to keep this continent standing that no one but a handful of scholars will ever know about,” she told him. “We both know how the world works, Hanno. In the books he’ll be the Warlord like it’s all he ever was, because that story fits. It’s cleaner. The rest will get swept under the rug, and they’ll just remember him as a footnote – the first Warlord in ages, broken in Keter. End of the tale.”

Her face clenched with fury and grief.

“He deserves better.”

Hanno of Arwad did not answer, though he was brave enough not to shy from her burning gaze. The White Knight was not a man whose convictions were easily moved. And yet he stepped back, when instead of trying tirade or persuasion the Black Queen of Callow got down on her knee. Catherine Foundling was a proud woman, it was known. She had held to the bone of that pride ever since, as a girl, her father had taken into the heart of an empire and the mighty had knelt around them he had told her of a way to live: we do not kneel. Her father’s truth, one he had lived and died by. Refusing compromise even in the face of death, unbending for anything or anyone.

But Catherine went down on her knee, because she was more than her father’s daughter and Hakram Deadhand mattered more to her than pride.

“Please,” she asked. “I know there are others as deserving, that you only get once a day.”

Her fingers clenched.

“And still,” she said. “Please.”

And Hanno of Arwad let conviction move him, offering a hand then another. The first to bring her back to her feet, shamed she had ever knelt before him, and the second laid on the Warlord’s side. Undo. Creation shivered, then the White Knight let out a small breath as he stepped away. The Hierophant replaced him, weaving an incantation, and after his eye ceased moving around he pulled back to give the others a nod.

“His body is in perfect condition save for the limbs cut by the Severance,” he said.

The Warden and the White Knight matched gazes for a long moment, Catherine Foundling dipping her head into a nod that said much without need for words. Hanno returned it.

“I’ll see you outside,” he said.

“Might be you will,” she agreed.

And with a mute goodbye at the Princess, Hanno of Arwad left the small room where he had brought a miracle. He was not one of the Woe, and the last evil that lay in Hakram Deadhand’s body was not the kind to be beheld by outsiders. The orc began to stir awake as the White Knight closed the door behind him, Hierophant still standing by his bedside. Hakram woke feverish and befuddled, as if did not recognize where he was. His vision swam into focus, coming to Catherine, and tension left him.

“Cat,” he gravelled. “Where are we?”

Her jaw clenched.

“Keter,” she told him, hoping.

The Dead King’s curse had been a mind-killer, but only half of it had reached him. Vivienne had caught the other. The confusion on the tall orc’s face deepened, to the horror of the others.

“What is the last thing you remember?” Masego briskly asked.

“Heading for the Arsenal,” Hakram told them. “Would someone get me out of these bindings, they-”

And the horror on his face when he saw the limbs lost to the Severance was like a blow to the stomach for them all. He fought to master his face, but the anguish was too deep and sudden to be smoothed away.

“I,” he began, then his voice broke. “How much did I lose?”

“Two years,” Indrani said.

“There might be more,” Masego said. “It is too early to tell.”

“It should have been less,” Vivienne bit out. “I caught the spell, it-”

Her words caught his eye, and the way he stiffened did not go unseen by any of them.

“You don’t remember who I am, do you?” Vivienne Dartwick softly asked.

Hakram shook his head, the hint of shame on his face burning the rest of them like acid. The Princess swallowed thickly, blue-grey eyes turning to Hierophant.

“There has to be a way,” she said. “You told us the curse is still in him, why can’t you purge it?”

“It is,” Hierophant simply said, “the Dead King’s work.”

Even from the grave, Trismegistus King’s will was not to be easily overwrit.

“There’s always a way, with curses,” Catherine Foundling said. “You taught me that. The magic fails if there’s not a way out.”

“It has a price,” Hierophant said. “And it will not bring everything back.”

“But most,” Catherine pressed.

“Most,” he conceded.

And the Warden stepped forward, but a hand was laid on her arm and she found Vivienne Dartwick’s gaze had turned to steel.

“No,” Princess said. “Not this time. Let me.”

Neither woman gave, but eventually the Warden was the one to look away. Vivienne knelt by the bed, Masego’s hand on her shoulder, and faced a hesitant Hakram.

“You don’t remember me, right now,” she told him, “but I haven’t forgotten. There’s a debt between us, Hakram Deadhand.”

“I cannot call on it,” he replied.

“You don’t have to,” she said.

And Hierophant’s other hand came to rest atop the orc’s head, his flesh eye finding Princess’ own to seek one last confirmation. A simple nod and magic billowed out like the wind. Currents of it, thick and visible to the naked eye as faint blue trails, as Hierophant bound them all together. It was not a spell, not in the way he had been taught as a boy, but something simpler. Will exercised on the world, the purest manifestation of what he had hoped to become. And through that binding, he drew out the curse as one would a poison. It fought and wriggled and tried to sink its hooks deep, but inch by inch it was drawn out of Hakram Deadhand and into the only place it could be.

Vivienne Dartwick let out a shuddering breath, accepting it whole as she closed her eyes.

The magic ebbed low, then guttered out entirely. Hierophant’s hand retreated and Hakram suddenly clutched his forehead as he let out a roar of pain. Fangs drawing blood from his own lips, he shook wildly until the fit passed and a light returned to his gaze that had been gone. It lit up the room, reflected in the others around him as their hopes soared and he let out a wounded noise at the sight of the Princess.

“Vivienne,” he said. “Gods, Vivienne, what have you-”

The Princess of Callow let out a rasping laugh, eyes opening as the curse’s foul magic flared.

“My turn,” she said. “The choice came, Hakram.”

The curse boiled out, Vivienne Dartwick’s left hand turning to ash until there was not even bone left above her wrist.

“And I judge you well worth a hand,” she finished.

Looking more fragile than anyone had ever seen him, Hakram let out a grieving curse and drew her into his arms. It was as if a dam had broken, all of them coming together onto the sickbed in a pile of limbs clutching the others tight. The Warden rested her chin atop Indrani’s head and breathed in raggedly. For the first time since she had left the Dead King’s all, it felt over. Finally over.

“Alive,” Catherine Foundling whispered.

Crippled and lost, a parade of the mangled, but they had gone through the storm and all five of them come out the other side breathing.

When she finally let herself weep in relief, she was not alone.]

[the memory leaves her ragged, too, in its aftermath, and the words, ironically, come even easier for it.]

You're not fighting alone, Donatello Hamato. Never forget that.

[He does take her hand, to try and get to his feet-]

[Then the memory comes and he jerks away from her, hissing loudly as the teal over his skin burns and sizzles.]

I-I know that! [And he does. He truly, honestly does.] That's not-not the point! The point is no one else seems to!

Don't they?

[she doesn't let go.]

Then ask yourself how I got here, to you. Did I get here alone? Or did I have help?

When the last pieces were thrown, did I still have to go it alone, or did it turn out I had help from somewhere I wasn't even looking for until then?

[That teal keeps sizzling and he's grimacing.]

I understand how teamwork works! The problem is everyone else is so willing to throw it away to die! The only way to stop it is to not let them do that!

[grabbing him by the back of the neck, palms against the underside of his jawline]

And then who's going to save you, Donnie? Who will keep you from falling apart if you're holding them so tightly back from ever trying anything again they can't ever reach you anymore?

You can't win their fights for them. You just can't. You can only help and be helped in return.

[The room shifts. Half of it is still the inside the living ship, but half the room morphs into what looks like the inside of a subway car turned into a modern Medbay.]

I don't need to be saved. I'm careful. I'm careful. [He grimaces, hissing in pain as the teal fights to remain.] I'm the weakest one, the most vulnerable, I know how to keep out of the way, I'm not the one who almost dies-

[Standing in the lair, holding back Leo as he tries to potentially attack a human teenage boy, asking where Raph is-]

[Staring into the sky as the Technodrone explodes and knowing Leo is still up there, he's alone-]

[Looking over crackling scars over Mikey and his own arms, how much worse they're on Mikey, how much worse they could have been if they hadn't helped-]

[Screens light up around the medbay, medical charts of his brothers, how bad the injuries had been.]

The world could have ended and I was the only one who didn't almost die. I don't need help.

[she almost shouts it, mostly because the intensity of Donnie's own emotions threatens to carry her away on it, too, and she has to reassert control somehow - but she doesn't. she bites down and doesn't let go.]

Why do you think your brothers throw themselves in the way of things like that? Because they don't want it to happen to you. Your brothers love you. They know you fear being too weak to help them, too fragile to bear the weight of the same burdens they do - and so they respond to your fear by taking on those burdens even more, to defend you.

You're heroes, Donnie. [she does her best to keep the bitterness out of the word, for his sake.] Love isn't going to betray you unless your story's supposed to be a tragedy, and - look at me - I know you've seen some pretty horrible things, but I just don't think that's the kind of story you've been given a chance to live out, here.

Think about it, Donnie - if you're right, and the problem is that they're sacrificing themselves so much and not thinking about how what you're really afraid of losing is them - how is what they've done different from what you're trying to do now? How is it going to be better for them, when what they're doing is trying to keep you safe, to only realize what's gone wrong - what they've gotten wrong - after you've burned yourself out failing to do their job for them, thrice over?

I don't want them to! I work so hard so they don't have to.

[Younger, so much younger this time, designing his first battleshell. He can see Raph to the side, looking nervous, but tentatively hopeful. Donnie's back aches, covered in bandages, and Raph has bits of foam at the ends of the spikes of his shell.]

I know they love me, but they're so good, Cat. They're so painfully good people, they care so much about everything to the point of insanity. They'll give up everything for the world without a second thought.

But heroics are not so neat. All the answers won't be to almost die and save the world. They won't just be beat the bad guy and there's no complicated feelings. Sometimes the answer isn't good and evil, but evil and a greater evil and they're-

[There are tears in his eyes, between the pain and the emotions.]

They would destroy themselves for it.

I wouldn't. I could do it. That was always the plan. I would do what they couldn't...even if it meant having to be a monster to them.

I would give up everything to save them, even if it means they would hate me. Why not just do it now, when I could keep them from being broken, from being forced to make those hard choices because I can't do it for them?

No. No, they won't.

[she nods, slowly, every ache in her body reminding her of it.]

Good's just a long con that suckers the most painfully desperate of us, the ones who throw it all on faith that their prayers'll be answered by anything that cares - and Evil is, at best, what takes in the rest of us, that won't give up betting on our own ability to turn the tide before it gets that far. That's the truth of my experience, and I've the scars to show for it.

[she sighs.] But "good people" still deserve their fair shake, same as the rest of us, even if they need a shorter chain around their ankles to keep it fair.

[she reaches up, to wipe the tears from his eyes, and gives him a weary grin.]

Even though it hurts ... even though you're not wrong about the possibility - You can't just take away their right to fight beside you just because they might try to fight instead of you. Not if you love them. Not if they love you. Not really.

[The teal is receding on his skin. It seems like the pain is meant to keep people from trying to get rid of it, because it hurts as its forced to fade from his skin. Pulling pained whimpers and grimaces, but Donnie isn't fighting to get away from her.]

We're the thing that tries to answer. That cares. When mutants go crazy. When things threaten the world. We can do it. We can fight those things others can't hope to stand against. To give hope. I didn't hate that idea. To make the world better, even if we had to be set apart of it.

As long as I had my family, that...

That was all I needed.

But if I lost them-

I can't be the last one standing, Cat. I can't.

... I'd love to promise you that you won't be, but you and I both know there's no promise that stands up better than actions you can take. None at all.

But I can tell you the truth - and that's got to be worth more than a promise. You deserve more than to be set apart from the world. That's the problem with being a hero and being a villain, Good and Evil with capital letters. Feeding those impulses convinces you you're a part of something that's outside the pressures of the rest of the world, above or beyond or overseeing it all, and you're not.

You're always part of the world. You don't make the world better by being something other than the world. You make the world better by remembering you're just another crab in the goddamned bucket, and you're never getting out of there alive on your own.

And you know what? If your brothers need you to remind them of that? Then you do it. Because if anyone can get it through their heads, Donnie, I know you can. If I can, I'll help. I'm good at being a looming reminder of people's chances at surviving a stupid idea.

But you can't do that by hiding them away from every possible danger to themselves they might throw themselves at, out of a certainty that at least it'll be better if you can throw yourself at them instead. Because -

Because Donnie, how are they ever going to survive anything if they don't have you, either?