Summary:Illyana drops in and manages to break Keiko. Just like she promised she would. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Keiko has to have somewhere she puts her head of a night, it's not like she works all the time. Just sometimes it seems it. That place happens to be a room in a boarding house somewhere in Jersey. It's not a nice area but it's inexpensive and Keiko hadn't needed to prove residency to rent there.
Cash talks its seems.
Despite the general condition of the room, it's tidy. The peruvian seems to be neat at least. Her toolbox and backpack and placed by the door and what few clothes she has are folded neatly on the desk in the corner.
The woman herself is sitting on the bed, crosslegged, eating two minute noodles. The food of those on a budget.
What Keiko is likely *not* expecting is the sudden appearance of a stepping disk. The circle of light flares wide near the ceiling, falling down to the floor where it winks out and leaves Illyana in its wake. The blonde is wearing her usual goth/metal attire with one hand set on her hip as she looks around the room. "Quaint." She remarks, for a change not mocking. "Doesn't look terribly lived-in though."
A keen eye might notice that the hand on her hip is also holding what looks like a spiked collar. Like maybe she's lost her dog. Demon-dog. Obviously.
Keiko's already moving as the light flares at the ceiling, taking up the short metal rod that lays next to her pillow. It's not hard to see the way her colour has risen - she's shocked, probably scared, but she's trying not showing it.
When she finally realises its Illyana, the woman settles back onto the bed, legs still crossed, tub of noodles cradled there. "Miss Rasputina." She doesn't meet the blondes eyes, her gaze sliding to the side and then down to the collar. "Did you lose another of your demons? It's not here."
Illyana Rasputina arches a brow as Keiko grabs for her staff, as though to say 'you're going to raise a weapon to me'? even though Keiko doesn't actually do that. When she sets it aside, the blonde's lips curve upwards into that familiar smirk. "Good girl." That's got her familiar mocking overtones. The collar is taptaptaped against her thigh before Illyana moves towards Keiko. "I kinda think it is."
"I'd tell you that you can call me Illyana… But probably not a habit to break you of before we see about pulling off our con." Illyana's free hand reaches out to Keiko's face, turning it so the Peruvian has to look up at her. "There's definitely one habit we *are* gonna need to break though…"
It speaks volumes for the fact that Keiko has the rod so readily accessible. Even more that her first instinct is to reach for it. That she doesn't deploy it - is probably smart.
The 'good girl' has her jaw setting a little "I haven't seen anything here. The rest of the housemates that are here haven't screamed either." She says. Does she know that's not what Illyana is referring to? Probably.
As her head is turned up, her eyes forced to Illyanas, the blonde can see the peruvians confusion. You don't meet a predators gaze. That's dangerous. "Which one…"
Illyana Rasputina holds up the collar with her other hand. "The one where you call Plokta 'lord'." The smile Illyana gives is dark. Anticipatory. Like she's looking forward to this.
With Keiko's chin lifted, it's not a difficult thing for the blonde to loop the collar around Keiko's neck. She lets go of the asiatic woman's jaw to have both hands to close it there. Pale blue eyes hold Keiko's, making it hard to look away. Illyana leans in a bit, dropping her words to a soto-whisper. "I can tell when you're playing dumb."
Keiko's eyes widen at the statement. Plokta is her Lord - more because that's what she's been raised to believe than any real conscious decision to do so. In many ways she's not aware when she does it - muscle memory, is a thing.
There's a growl as the collar closers about her throat, the peruvian trying to pull away as Illyana works to close it. The flash of fear is chased away by anger, the stubborness that has kept Keiko alive this long kicking in. "I haven't seen any of your demons here …" she says before adding "… I'm not your dog …"
Illyana Rasputina is actually fairly strong for her almost delicate appearance. She drags Keiko back and the collar closes around her throat, tight enough to just get a couple of fingers beneath. While Keiko can't see it, as the collar fastens the leather merges into itself, and the silver spikes flatten out and flow over to form an elaborate filigree while the D-ring forms a clasp to seal it closed. A matching pair to Koa's.
"For the next little while, that's *exactly* what you're gonna be." Illyana says, no hint of humor to her words this time. Releasing the collar, Illyana's hands drop back to her sides, though she's still standing in Keiko's personal space. "Now, you want to finish those noodles or shall we just skip to the chase?"
It's a small struggle to get the collar closed, Keiko growling softly as she tries to struggle away. She doesn't attack the Limbo Queen but she's not passive about it. "I'm not a … dog…" It's low and the tone indicates this might be something she's fought before.
Or something similar.
There doesn't seem to be anything about the collar - yet - except that it is a collar. She feels the spikes flatten and her eyes widen more.
"What do you want?" She doesn't answer the question about the noodles. Or the chase. There might be the latter in a moment. "How long?"
Illyana Rasputina reaches out to ruffle Keiko's hair as she objects. "You're whatever I want to call you. You don't want to be a dog, prove it. Right now with all the growling, you're not making your case."
The questions get an arched brow. "I want you to accept you're mine." Her tone says 'duh'.
There's a pause, and then Illyana pushes out a sigh and drops down to one knee, so she's at a bit more of an even level with Keiko. Though now the Peruvian is the taller one. When she speaks, there's no humor. No mocking. This part isn't a game. "Until you decide you're not. After we pull off the con, if we make it out alive. But if we're going to *do* that then you *are* mine. I'm coming back to my friend, my family, damnit. I'm not leaving Limbo open for Belasco to take again so he can corrupt another child to let the Elder Gods loose to destroy the Earth. So if that means that I break you and we can never put you back together? Then that's what I'm going to do."
Keiko pulls her head away from the ruffling, eyes flashing as she struggles to keep her temper. The brand on her chest throbs as her anger rises, it hurts - not that she lets anyone know that.
"Yours instead of Plokta's?" she's clarifying, trying to get some room to think. The easy response is that Illyana could have asked but Keiko knows better.
People like Illyana don't ask. The Magi's didn't either.
"This is to take the Nightfall done? Stop them doing whatever they're doing?"
At least the growling has stopped.
"Definitely mine instead of Plokta's. We're selling him out, remember?" Illyana clarifies.
Keiko's next questions get a bit of a chuckle. "That's the objective, right? Hopefully make their job harder. Cut off some of their support. There's no guarantee that it'll stop them." As a demon, Illyana doesn't like to make promises, or speak in absolutes. They're a bit like lawyers like that.
The blonde clucks her tongue, lifting her hand before Keiko's chest with fingers splayed wide. "So very angry. Why? Because I don't ask what I already know the answer to?"
"And you think putting a collar on me does that?" Keiko might not know how to do anything but challenge. It probably doesn't, but it's a statement at least. There's likely more that Keiko has to do, consciously, to carry this off.
The question she has, that she doesn't ask yet, is what she'll be able to do when this is all over. One way or another she'll not be beholden to any Lord or to a different one.
"Why not? It's kept alive at the worst times of my life. I'm sitting here, my space invaded, collared and being told that you'll take me apart to save others." It's really enough to make anyone feel bitter.
Illyana Rasputina chuckles at her answer. "Because being mine means I'll protect you. Is it that bad? Having your space invaded?" The blonde puts her hands on Keiko's knees, leaning in further until Keiko has no choice but to meet Illyana's eyes. Her hands slide up, onto Keiko's thighs before stopping. "Being collared, meaning someone cares enough that if you should get lost they can get you back?" Illyana's close enough that she can speak very softly, and Keiko can feel the warmth of her breath. Smell the almost smoky scent of her soap. "Stop fighting. For just a bit. Give in. I know they made you hard so you could hold your spirits, but that doesn't mean you can't let go when there's someone there to catch you."
"I've had that …" Keiko notes bitterly. "Being marked by those who cared enough to find me if I got lost. I managed to get away from them and I don't want to go back. Why would I swap that for another similar capitivity?"
Illyana's not wrong. The Nightfall had made her hard so she could hold her spirits. So she could pass the Trials to prove she was ready for the final Test.
The peruvian trembles as the blonde draws closer. She doesn't try to draw back though - tries not to show fear or weakness. She can smell the soap, feel the breath on her face though. "You know I won't fight. I want them stopped. But I don't have to like it." Anger turns to sullen as she sits there.
Illyana Rasputina mmms softly. "I suppose you did. And they hurt you. Over and over, and told you it was 'for your own good'." She leans to the side a bit and leans further forward, until her hair brushes over Keiko's skin and lips brush her ear. "Close your eyes."
Then Illyana leans back, taking the warmth of her body, of her touch away. The scent of her lingers though. The blonde stands back up and closes her eyes as well, her hands raised on each side of Keiko's head. Magic gathers, a slow whisper at first that builds. Keiko will see the play of light against closed eyelids as it gathers and crackles and then with a small sense of implosion she's… elsewhere. Not teleported, just suddenly she opens her eyes and she's standing in darkness with Illyana at her side. The blonde looks around for a bit and then waves a hand like one might swipe on a large touchscreen and the world tilts and *shifts*.
Instead of the blackness they're standing in a memory of Keiko's from about a year ago.
Keiko has no idea what the Nightfall would do with her once they caught her. She'd seen what they'd done to the other caller just before she ran, it wasn't something she cared to find out.
"Something like that." She shivers again as the Limbo Queen get closer. She doesn't flinch or pull away - that's not allowed - but her eyes close as directed.
The blackness, when her eyes open, resolves to the streets in the slums of Juarez. On the border of Mexico and El Paso. It had taken her two years to get here. Wandering, running, avoiding detection or rather, finding high population centres to blend into.
She's hunkered in the corner of an alley. Mouldy bread in hand that she picks at.
Illyana Rasputina walks over towards that Keiko in a slow amble, the blonde's arms crossing in front of her. She watches previous-Keiko for a moment before looking back to actual-Keiko. "How long? From running away from Nightfall to finding a place where you didn't have to look over your shoulder? When you didn't have hunger constantly gnawing at your belly?"
"How long?" Keiko stares at the woman she'd been a year ago. She was gaunter, but not by much, her eyes only slightly less haunted. "Never really. Three years I've been running and still they found me. I only started eating better when I made New York… about eight months ago."
And even then, eating is entirely dependant on the work that she can get. Or when Koa takes pity on her and shouts her dinner.
"I won't ever be safe unless we break them. I know that."
"I was six, almost seven when Belasco kidnapped me. He told me how I was special. How I had a great and glorious destiny. How he loved me." Illyana says, her words bitter and laced with mocking of that younger, naive girl she was. "He bound me to Limbo's heart and made me his apprentice. If I didn't please him, or if he was in a bad mood, he'd give me to his demons to punish. Or if his demons had pleased him, then they got to 'play' with me."
Illyana lifts her hand and swipes again. Another *shift* and now they're another five years back into Keiko's life. "Why did you run? After a while you get used to the pain. Expect it. It becomes the familiar. A comfort, in its own way."
Illyana wouldn't know that there's bits of Keiko's memory that she's suppressed. Something of it had come back recently.
"In comparison, my upbringing was nothing. It was comfortable. We didn't know any different, really. I was taken when I was about six, put into a Sibko and started training." The Limbo Queen isn't wrong about the pain and discomfit. It was just how things were.
The peruvian doesn't say 'sorry' for Illyana's upbringing. You just don't do that.
The memory now is a group of adolescents between sixteen and twenty, training. A male is marked like Keiko, creatures on their arms and torso's. Keiko has the outline of the Dragon on her left hand shoulder, but it's not filled in. The marks on her back, don't exist.
Two more of the others, the oldest of the group, have tattooes on their faces and heads. The final one isn't marked as extensively but he's working out with what looks like nun-chucs.
"Why? I … saw one of the Magi use their sacred writings on Neil, we were getting ready for the part of our final trail. They corrupted him. It wasn't meant to happen like that. All I remember is that I ran."
Illyana Rasputina walks through these memories of Keiko's like the sorceress has the right to while glancing back to the tattooed woman. "Was it really? I've seen you deal with pain. You don't get that from a 'comfortable' upbringing."
While Illyana looks at the others in the memory, it's obviously Keiko and not the setting or the people that draws her interest. "When my mutant power manifested when I was about thirteen or fourteen, I didn't think twice. I left. Went back to my happy memories. What I could remember of them. They were fuzzy, and probably remembered as happier than they were. My family is from a poor farm in Siberia." Who knew they even *had* farms in Siberia? It's not all snow year-round?
Illyana lifts a hand and swipes again. This time they go back further. Keiko gave Illyana the timeframe she wants. Back before Keiko was taken. To times she might not even remember, but that Illyana's magic can try to help reconstruct between Keiko's partial memories and the sorceresses own ability to scry through time and space.
"Pain makes us stronger." Keiko murmurs, watching the landscape of her memories as they're displayed. So much training. The testing. It was a camp, really. Where the children were trained to become soldiers. Those with differing aptitudes trained to different things.
In between that, a bit of farming and sleeping. Not much time to be just children.
"I didn't get to 'play' with demons. So comfortable."
The memories that Illyana tries to access are murky. The training and experiences the peruvian has had clouds them. Perhaps too, they were suppressed to a greater degree.
It's a farm in a backwater somewhere in Peru. Not a wealthy village and Keiko has several older brothers and sisters. Her parents are older, the tattooed woman a late life child.
The image that Illyana can reconstruct in some degree is of a four or five year old. Dirt streaked down her face as she works to pull weeds from the garden. Her mother is working beside her, pulling weeds as well and ruffles her hair before dropping a kiss on the grimy forehead.
"And what was it like when you got home?"
"Don't diminish the pain you felt just because mine 'sounds worse'." Illyana says, her words a soft murmur but even with her standing a dozen steps away, Keiko can hear her. "Each moment is unique, and can't be compared apples-to-apples against another's. You and I both survived, and that's all that matters."
Illyana raises a hand and 'taps' the air as little-Keiko's mother kisses the child's brow. The blonde walks over and drops into a crouch next to the pair. "There we are." She reaches out, fingers moving in a dance of arcane gestures and a globe of light rises from the child.
Illyana's attention is still on the scene in front of her when she answers Keiko's question. "My parents didn't recognize me. Didn't believe I was their child. Only days had passed for them, while seven years had gone for me. They yelled at me. Cursed me for torturing them with the loss of their only daughter." The globe of light moves to hover over Illyana's upturned palm and the blonde rises to her feet. "I've never been home again."
Illyana walks over to Keiko, gesturing for her to put her hands out and into them she carefully puts that glowing light. Keiko's hands tingle, and then warmth starts to flow into her, followed by the feeling of child-Keiko in that moment. Surrounded by family. Safe. The approval of her mother. Love.
"I was fed. I was trained. I survived." Keiko murmurs, listening carefully to Illyana as she speaks. The inky darkness about them doesn't seem to exist for the small asiatic woman. She's watching the child and mother intently. Almost … hungrily.
She doesn't remember that. Doesn't remember much before the compound. Maybe her mind had blocked it out though it's likely there was some arcane interference.
"I never went home. I … don't know where it is." Maybe they could find it but maybe she doesn't want to. Judging by the look of pain she shoots to Illyana at the blondes story, she might not.
"I'…" The peruvian swallows the apology as it forms on her lips. "Your brother adores you though. That much is obvious. Your parents were foolish - maybe understandably but still…"
"I don't want to …" it's the faintest of protests that Keiko gives Illyana even as her hands touch that light. Her eyes close as tears slowly run down her cheeks. "Why would you do this to me…"
Illyana Rasputina's hands cup Keiko's, gently forcing her to hold that small light that has that good memory. That warm memory. That memory of being loved. "The question is, why would you not want this?" Illyana asks quietly.
"My brother does love me. He would sacrifice himself over and over and over again without hesitation to try to save me. That love saves me. What saves you?" Illyana's hands push Keiko's to close around the warmth of the memory and, as though it were the only light in the darkness they're standing in, the world around them goes dark as Keiko's hands finish closing.
And then Keiko is opening her eyes. And she's sitting on her bed in that empty room she calls her own, with Illyana standing before her. As she opens her cupped hands, there is a small crystal that glows, ever so faintly and is warm to the touch. And if Keiko concentrates, she can feel the pulse of magic in that stone, and feel the kiss of the emotions of that moment. "Like me, my magic is tainted, so I can't just give you something. But I can steal it from you."
Illyana reaches down for the crystal, an oval shape that's flat on one side and rounded on the others, sort of like half of an egg but only about an inch long. Then Illyana presses it to the center of the collar she put on Keiko's neck and the silver that clasps it together curls around it to hold it securely.
There's the faintest of resistance as Illyana makes Keiko hold that light. She really doesn't want it. "Because that's not the life for me. If I don't have it, I can't miss it."
The love is weakness for Keiko. She's lived without it. "My strength. My will." Comes the answer in broken tones.
Back on her bed, legs still crossed, the now cooling container of noodles between them, Keiko can feel the pulse of magic - she doesn't have to concentrate, her tattooes tingle in reponse.
"You stole my magic?" That's not right. Illyana stole that memory she couldn't recall.
Illyana Rasputina gives a derisive snort at that. "No, silly girl. I stole your memory. There wasn't much to start with, and now you don't have it at all. Until I give it back." Except Keiko does. It's just not in her head where she can't find it anymore.
One of Illyana's hands comes up to cup Keiko's cheek, looking down at her. "That is the life for you. That's the life you're going to fight to get back. Maybe not *that* one. That door's closed. But you can open new ones. You can have that again. Feel that again. But you have to let yourself."
Illyana's said before she wanted to break Keiko. But the sorceress also learned that the 'usual' methods wouldn't work. Keiko was too used to pain. Too used to resisting. But in doing that, Nightfall left that opening, like the missing gem in Smaug's armored hide. Something Keiko has no defenses against.
Love.