[b]Sayanastia![/b]

It would feel so good to curse these children.

She loved curses; spitting one was like crunching through the shell of a watermelon on a hot day - but that description itself was everything that was wrong with her. She was not meant to appreciate hot days, or the feeling of her teeth in her mouth, or the thrill of strength rewarded. How could she wish a twisted, corrupting harm on these fools when an idea so warm and lazy was drifting through her head? She was meant to remember the cathartic energy of her joints cracking and her scales flaring and breaking a nervous little smile into the wail of a condemned ghost. She should see the tainted spirit wander free to spread her misery, until...

Until. Her lips twitched in a bitter smile. Until someone rescued them. Until the Hero - or maybe a close friend or lover - braved the knife-hair and the shadowflame and reached out to the trapped soul of the corrupted one. They would drag it free, cleanse it, and nurse it slowly back to health until the victim was restored. And then what became of the rage that had ignited the curse in the first place? Perhaps it did not return to her, and she became less until she was what she was now. Or perhaps it returned to her, confused with the memory of kindness and warmth, until that confusion seeped into her very bones.

"The Hero of Ages is concerned with the stability of the Realm and the welfare of the Faun," said Rurik. "If those who seek to tame him prove unworthy, she may take it upon herself to tame [i]them[/i]."

The world had a way of progressing before she had decided. She might work up the energy to make Rurik into a tin soldier and these travelers into bat-winged vampiresses but by the time she'd built the willpower to do that the initial moment of potential had faded into the past and the action would be... inelegant. Elegant. Another concept that had scratched its way inside her head somehow. Somehow doing something beautifully had become almost as important as doing it at all. Maybe it hadn't been losing to Heron in those blood-soaked exhausting battles of endurance that had changed her, maybe it had been the concept-shaking tilt that had come with losing to someone who had done it while looking better than she ever had.

"Seneschal," she said quietly.

"Yes, Lady!" said Rurik. "Now, if you can swallow your rudeness for a moment, the Hero of Ages did not ask for your professions or political opinions. She asked for your [i]stories[/i]. Provide them, or this meeting is at an end."

[b]Kalentia![/b]

There was a right and a wrong way to do this.

One of the paths involves patient discussion, the careful and mutual development of goals, the careful management of related symptoms leading into a gradual re-introduction to society. First contact theory, manapoisoning protocols, keeping the patient firmly inside her care until holistic health was guaranteed...

But Kalentia Pious had not gotten into the white mage business because she was into [i]medicine[/i].

One of the most controversial spells in the arsenal of light was the Mark. A Taunt effect was one which enraged a specific monster, making them prioritize you above all other targets - this was one commonly wielded by Civil Paladins amongst others. The Mark was an inversion of that; a glyph drawn on the body that made you the target for any ill fortune that might befall a region. Some in the Civil Clergy regarded it as tantamount to black magic, a dangerous curse to applied to the unwilling, sometimes even used as a punishment for crimes. Some regarded it as a more efficient Taunt, something to be used on oneself so that they might suffer what others would otherwise befall others. Others still regarded it as a corrupting influence - not redirecting danger but creating it outright, and every use played into the agenda of the Fallen Stars.

It is not considered a safe spell, then, to use on yourself to expedite your own kidnapping. But... you know... you can't just go around [i]hoping [/i]to get kidnapped. Some girls spend their entire lives hoping that some monster will wing down from the sky and scoop them up and carry them away to their wicked lair, until they are rescued/joined by their True Love. 

Kalentia had spent a lot of her life hoping.

But now she finally had someone hoping in the same direction.

[Call upon a toxic power: 11]