Heartening though it is to hear Gale acknowledge this fact, he will not grant him the satisfaction of hearing Godfrey agree aloud with him. If all of these grand showings of remorse were genuine, then Godfrey needs to do nothing to affirm his position - he knows his failings already.
This is not what Godfrey thinks he sees. Kindred are not a creature prone to debasing themselves in such shameless shows of self-flagellation, and nor are they a creature particularly disposed to any action which does not have some calculated benefit to themselves. Gale's purpose in encasing his wrongdoing in glass isn't fueled by a genuine sense of guilt; he's already learned what devastating consequence wrought by applying a mortal framing to a kindred subject. This is manipulation. Gale anticipates that Godfrey will ascribe warm blood and see blushing life where there is none.
He anticipates wrongly.
Godfrey stares flatly at Gale and his deathly pallor. ]
The distinction is meaningless to me.
[ There he goes again, showing where his lifeless allegiances truly lie; his pride has been bruised by this fresh embarrassment some other vampire has inflicted upon him. His thoughts turn to the eternal machinations of the vampiric court.
Godfrey cares little for what petty corpse set him up for this shallow fall. ]
[If only it were as simple and laughable as embarrassment. One by one, the pieces are sliding into place— Mystra had known, she'd always known, that he had gone astray during that particular mission, but he has never been able to be certain of exactly how much she knew. She certainly would never say— but the fact that he has been sent here to deal with their newest 'acquisition' makes his stomach roil, and he knows shock will give way to anger once he's had time to collect himself.
What he will do about that remains to be seen. What is there to be done?]
You must have questions.
[Many, he assumes, that Godfrey has already decided upon his own answers for. Gale could hardly blame him for that, given how swiftly he had vanished.]
If not questions, then surely a host of unkind words that even I agree would be well-deserved. The room is yours, should you wish it.
[He lowers his hands, and as the initial shock has faded, he only appears wearied, his gaze heavy and still startlingly human despite his pallor.]
[ That he does, unkind words and severe questions both.
None burn more hotly in his brain than the incredulous demand to know by what right Gale thinks he can offer him anything.
Godfrey makes no effort to hide his distaste; his knotted brow pulls just a little tighter, his shoulders fall in a slow and silent exhalation, something distasteful twisting his mouth into a brief ripple of a frown. Biceps swell in his sleeves as his hands pull into cutting fists behind his back. You must have questions - as though Gale had left him with anything else. As if this empty room to scream in were a grand gift to Godfrey, some final and redemptive gesture of love from a reticent adulterer. As though they could reflect away what Gale had done.
Questions without answer were all he'd had for the better part of these ten years. He'd abandoned his life and all he had ever loved for questions he could not answer, for ashes in his mouth and a man who had only ever sought his ruination. Each breath heaves his shoulders, hollows his collarbones. There was no answer Gale could provide to him that Godfrey had not already sought - but predictably, Gale cannot help himself. He must find some pedestal to stand on, even now, even if he must invent one.
He ought maintain his silence, of course. But he feels that heat setting in against the back of his eyes, and he feels the distance between himself and his own advice grow further and further. The words drop from him like stones. ]
He could have meant any number of things, Gale knows. How many mortals had he been entangled with? How many had he preyed on?
How many times had he lied to him?
He clenches his jaw, his gaze flicking downwards for a brief moment.]
What do you mean?
[There's no feigning innocence, no coyness in his voice. He fully intends to answer, should Godfrey clarify— he owes him so much more than that, but in this moment, honest answers are all he can possibly offer. Even then, they are worth little.]
[ He might actually have believed this performance, had Godfrey not known any better.
But he does. Even if he has to remind himself he knows better - he does know better. Even as it boils him alive to think of how alike this is to the man he'd been tricked into knowing-- the chair groans beneath his weight as it pitches forward, the firm corners of the chair's backboard digging bruises into his strong arms. ]
You know what I ask you.
[ These words do not drop from him, for they are not stones. They seethe from him. They are something sizzling, the squealing crunch of frost forming on glass. Acid boiling from some cold and deep part of his chest through a tight-clenched jaw.
Pathetic, the way Gale cannot put to rest this act to afford even a moment of respect. That he must march this costumery of humankind before him even now, as he taunts him with this moment of recompense. Just as everything was in kindred society - something for a price. He would have his answers when he walked the two of them through his disgracing, step by agonizing step.
Pathetic also that Godfrey feels his feet carry him down this wretched path before he can stop himself. ]
How many times did I taste my own blood on your tongue?
[There is a moment where true surprise flickers across Gale's face before it hardens into something more stern, something raw and angry as he curls his fingers into a fist against the table, his knuckles paling to become whiter still.
He had done many things, terrible things, and he would own them— but there were some things he had never dared to so much as dream, lines he had not let himself cross. Not with Godfrey.]
I never fed on you.
[Though he cannot expect Godfrey to believe him— and why should he?— he answers with vehemence, conviction.]
Not once. I am not proud of my actions, but that line, I never crossed.
This is a question Godfrey has never thought to ask himself before this very moment - before Gale had taken a seat across that table, pale and drained at the mere sight of him, and tried to put a band-aid on the sucking bullet wound he'd left him with.
Is there any answer that would not have left him feeling hollow? Could he have said anything that would have alleviated the pain, even a little?
Godfrey stares at him. He studies his face, the conviction with which he gives an answer that, reasonably, he knows should provide some measure of relief. It is hardly a cure for the years of pain, of loneliness, of doubt and terror and slow-dawning victimhood echoing in his chest, emptied and pitted. But it should be a balm, something to lift a small sliver of pain from him.
He stares at him, and he feels nothing. There is no relief from the slow rise in temperature at the back of his neck, the liquid heat welling behind his eyes. ]
I suppose that I'm meant to simply take the word of the man who can change my thoughts and memories at will.
[ The thin, tiny tremor in his throat, even as he fights to keep it stiff. ]
[There's a hard edge to Gale's words, even as he damns himself. He knows far better than to expect Godfrey to believe him— he'd given the man absolutely no reason to trust him, and their current situation did not exactly lend itself well to him earning it back. Truthfully, he'd never even considered that he might have the opportunity.
He had thought that bridge burned forever. It was meant to be. His hope had been for Godfrey to live a life untouched by the world Gale himself had no choice but to live in.
Clearly, that hope had been in vain.]
I know what I did. I've no interest in making excuses for myself.
[He had changed Godfrey's memories. Not much— but it had been selfish of him. Most of what had transpired between them had been, he supposed.
He should have vanished the moment he'd realized what was building between them, but if he had, the clan would have simply sent someone else after Godfrey, someone who might have taken a far more hands-on approach with their given task.]
I don't care what you think of me now— you should hate me, after everything, but I do care that you're here when I had hoped to keep you as far away from this place as bloody possible.
[ Of course he doesn't care what Godfrey thinks of him. Had he ever? What reason had the kindred to care what their cattle thought of them?
But this was the way of this undead scourge. The aesthetics of caring without commitment. Not even he had it in his cold heart to be moved by one beneath him; even if they could muster up such feelings, certainly their pride would not allow kine to be its source.
Which really only made this conversation a more thorough waste of everybody's time. It mattered very little what words he found. He would never find the magical combination that would make Gale care. He hadn't any left in him.
He feels his blood boil as he watches him, retracting that hollow aesthetic he'd extended in a fit as soon as Godfrey disbelieves him for it. The artifice in him, the mockery he makes as he tries to emulate what he once has - it's almost saddening. It may have been, were he looking at anybody else.
Not from him, though. Godfrey's head hangs low, his eyes bright and furious behind golden strands. ]
I can see your predicament. You had no problem leashing and collaring me when I was soft and pliable. You even taught me tricks.
[ The disgust on that word, tricks, is palpable. He hopes he knows just what he means. All that closeness, all the unguarded skinship Gale had been perfectly comfortable with, back when he had the promise of a good dog.
Godfrey leans forward again, straining against the groaning back of his chair, and pitches his voice low; ]
You'll have a harder time now that I know the power I have held.
A single word, and yet the harsh disgust with which it is spoken is ice in his veins. His expression flickers, his brow furrowed, and for all he wishes to try to be stoic, to not let himself be so overwrought by the storm of emotions brought on by this unexpected reunion, he cannot resist, and his gaze darkens.
He had always hoped that even in all those years apart, Godfrey would remember that what they had was real, even if he remained rightfully furious. Gale's orders had been to make him doubt, but once he had actually met the man himself— it not only seemed an impossible task, but became one he did not wish to carry out. Their entanglement had never been part of anyone else's plan, any scheming.
That had all been him, and it had been selfish.
He clenches his jaw, steeling himself, his eyes do not match the hard lines of his face. They were soft, as they had always been, almost pleading in nature despite the fact that he was the one who currently sat unbound.]
Good.
[His voice is low in a different sort of way, thick with something he is trying desperately to hold back.]
You're going to need that power. If you're to get out of this place, you'll need every bit of strength you can muster. I am the least of your worries, Godfrey.
[That last bit is softer than he had meant for it to be, the ache in his chest persisting.]
I want you to be able to leave here alive. I did love you— I will not see my kin destroy you here.
[ And how glad he is now, to see Gale reduced to that most desperate of vampire tricks.
He leans on the cold artifice of love. He had loved him, Gale implores. His approximation of the one thing he can no longer hold in his own hands; a warm and beating heart. Emotion. Attachment. Core pieces of the human condition. Veins that have long since run dry for Gale and all like him. Perhaps he had once understood these things; perhaps these moments of long-ago warmth echoed back to him now.
This changed nothing. He could not understand what he once did. This was simply one of the many things one must shed when passing into unlife.
Perhaps, charitably, Gale thought that he felt love for him. Godfrey knows better. It is his nature; to invert something as selfless and beautiful as love into something so malicious and self-serving. To turn such emotion into a leash or a cudgel, to use it to pull lesser beings into subordination. At best, Gale thought him no better than a particularly attractive dog.
At worst, he sought to press the soft spots in his heart which no longer existed. Certainly.
Godfrey's gaze drops, and he lets the declaration sit in the room a moment.
Then, he takes a breath. ]
You loved that I loved you.
[ This is the kindest rationalization he can offer.
[Godfrey's response slices through him, and any semblance of calm he may have scraped together is shattered as he rises only to slam a death-pale hand against the table between them, and it creaks and trembles from the impact.]
No!
[Before tonight, Gale had never raised his voice in front of Godfrey, never had any reason to— but the distress of seeing him here, in the very place he had hoped to keep him from, and to hear him refute the very reason why Gale had vanished in the first place—
It was too much. He was not fool enough to think he could convince Godfrey of the truth, his truth, but he would say his piece. After all this time, he would speak it aloud, as he had been unable to do for a decade now, forced to bury his feelings deep and play the part of obedient pet, because what other choice did he have? There had been none.]
No.
[He repeats himself, and the very air in the room takes on a noticeable chill as the temperature drops, reflecting the ice in his voice as he fixes his eyes on Godfrey, his gaze dark and intense and unflinching.]
I loved you. I was ready to leave this place, go as far as I needed to keep us both from their reach, if you could have accepted me— and even if you could not, I would have thought it all worth it just the same.
[Because even now, he still holds onto the memory of that time together, of how despite the both of them doing every wrong thing and breaking every vow they had ever made, it never felt wrong at all. He had been dead almost two centuries, and yet he had never felt so very alive.
He has both cherished and mourned those memories in equal measure.]
I was never able to do what I was sent to do— I knew from the moment I met you that I could not.
[ All told, this should hardly come as a surprise.
For the small sliver of his unlife during which Godfrey had attempted to coexist with him, he had known Gale to have a sort of pride about him. This hadn't bothered Godfrey at the time - indeed, it had seemed well-earned that Gale should consider himself clever, for he was so, and had worked to be so. Back then, in those early days of a correspondence, when one can turn the human flesh of one beloved to gold with a gaze, it had certainly seemed to him that Gale was often the most clever, most brilliant, most charming in any room he entered.
So it would always seem, for unknowing kine laying eyes on the impossibility of kindred splendor for the first time.
He seethes to think on it now - and to see that pride rear before him now. To see Gale, embarrassed and scrambling, trying to retain his poor impression of a man who had loved in this lifetime. Godfrey does not lay eyes on him; his attention does not lift when Gale slams his hand against the table, rails against Godfrey's assessment even as it tightens around his ankle.
But his face hardens. His nose screws like the snout of a wolf biding his time. ]
[He clenches his jaw once more, teeth grit as he struggles to force himself to regain some level of restraint.
It is at least partly successful. Though Godfrey will not look at him, Gale's gaze remains trained on the pale-haired man, and even taking their circumstances into consideration, anger looks foreign on him, out of place. If nothing else, that alone would be proof of how Gale had ruined him.
Heartbreaking. This was never what he had wanted. Should he ever be released to find his way to hell, surely some version of this would play a part in his eternal torment.]
... you were trying to share and spread your faith, too close to the heart of their territory for comfort. I was only meant to deter you, make you doubt— I had intended to do so with philosophy. We spoke for less than five minutes before it was plain to me that you would not be shaken. I should have left it there, said you were harmless and forgotten all about you— but I was selfish.
[He can admit that freely now. He'd made his peace with it years ago.]
Any efforts to deter you were cast aside early. I continued to seek you out because I enjoyed our conversations.
[Everything that took place after that... that was all his fault, as well.
He finally averts his gaze, drawing back up to his full height and closing himself off as the frustration he had worn so openly recedes.]
I am glad that you kept your faith. I never doubted you would. It will serve you well now.
[ You can hear the bitter smile in his voice; his faith, the desiccated joke that it is. His faith, that venomous viper, all stinging teeth and spraying toxin. That hearth he'd turned into an inferno, an all-consuming blaze in his gut.
His shoulders slump against the back of his seat with a derisive snort, his chest trembling with low, amused chuckling. The smile feels foreign on him now.
He betrays himself again. Naturally would Gale think such a foul thing worth preserving; it had always been nothing but a blade that would be turned against him. If ever he'd had any concept of its power to heal and protect, he had been expecting too much to think that it would return to him now.
Godfrey still does not turn his head up to see him. Instead, his eyes roll upward, glaring to him through his eyelashes, his smile stretching to vicious excess. Silence roars in the room, penned in by Gale's charm.
Until Godfrey begins to speak. ]
I bound myself to perdition for you.
[ The words are seething from him through tightly-clenched teeth. Rage flashes just below the surface of his voice. His nose wrinkles like the muzzle of a wolf. ]
You disassembled me for your foul brood. I complied in my own destruction to please you. And still--
[ Godfrey's head twists to catch his eyes, like a serpent, flashing and dangerous. His tongue begins to move too quickly in his mouth, his heart pounding in his ears. ]
--still, you would presume to lecture me. You would tell me of love.You, a man who only knows matters of a warm heart when he eats them- you, whose hand was in mine as I turned my back on everything. You. You who has given nothing but to those who would rot this world from its core. You--
[ Godfrey does not shout - he is not the sort of man who lets the clap of thunder seep into his words. His is the rumble of thunderstorms to come; the gradual, earth-shattering crack of long-frozen hearts of ice. Godfrey takes a harsh breath. ]
You did not love me. You did not even understand me. You don't know the meaning of the word.
[The insistence erupts from him without his giving it permission; he turns sharply back towards Godfrey and stalks towards him, fingertips dragging against the table as he stops just short of where the man is actually bound and seated, and there's heat and hurt in his gaze as his eyes seem somehow sharper than before, irises once golden brown now tinged red by the surge of frustration.
Compared to Godfrey's palpable rage, he is still restrained, but barely— tears prick at the corners of his now clearly inhuman eyes, and there's a tic above his jaw that shows just above the line of his neatly-kept beard.]
This is no lecture, Godfrey. Believe me, you would know full well if it was.
[His refusal is all but hissed, though he can hear his own voice threatening to become thick with emotion once more. When it came to interrogations, he was generally considered to be the best their clan had to offer— sharp, clever, cool, calculated, but he feels none of that now.
These are hardly the usual circumstances, in his defense.]
I will not begrudge you your anger, because it is rightfully yours, and I have wronged you— irrevocably, I am well aware— but it was never my intention to harm you! Exactly the opposite— and you cannot tell me what I did or do not feel, because it is clear you do not understand me. I am not so far from human. We come from you! Not every one of us who is condemned to such a life loses their very soul.
[His face is mere inches from Godfrey's now, and he does not know when he had chosen to lean down; it had happened without his realizing, as though getting closer and declaring himself where he could not look away would make things stick.]
If you knew even a fraction of what I have done, what I have endured in my efforts to keep you safe, you would not doubt that I know well the meaning of what it is to love, and given the chance, I would suffer it all again if it meant keeping you from their grasp— but your being here means that it was all for nothing.
[ It had been long nights alone with the Society's libraries that had let him piece together the truth of what had happened to him.
He'd spent a short while proceeding as many initiates to the Society of Leopold do; he had spread himself over many tomes, trying to map out these new and unknown borders of his world. He had thought himself sure of where they lay, when they had suddenly, violently extended into the darkness, and he realized that all he'd been looking at was a murky ditch. For if vampires crawled the night, what else did?
The Society had some answers. He found the existence of further horrors, for the Society hunters could not afford to ignore such terrors whilst they focused their fire on the children of Cain. They moved below him like the shadows of Miocene horrors, their huge bodies parting waters far beneath his feet. Werewolves, and their fight against the Great Wyrm. Wraiths. Changelings, and the dreams they infested. On and on those borders stretched, just beyond him as soon as Godfrey believes he feels them below his fingers. It was not long before Godfrey made the sensible conclusion - that he would never know - and moved to what he ought to be learning.
Each new piece a horror, a fresh pit in his stomach. He'd remembered sitting in front of those books, staring sightless at words that threatened to choke him. All that had happened to him, written in ink and bound in cracking leather.
He had faced down his share of night-creatures since then. These dark and lonely moments had been fire in his chest then. Kindling for a great inferno; a chugging and violent engine pushing him through them, that it may not be done to another in his place. He had not been daunted, and he had not been broken.
Gale circling the table and standing imperiously at his side of it puts every one of those pits in his stomach anew. He does not sense his words laced with blood-power, but that does not mean it does not pull him. Godfrey squares his shoulders as well as he can, and feels his arms tighten around the back of his chair again. ]
One walks in the light of Christ - but not as a fool.
[ It seethes from him - an attempt to reclaim lost ground. ]
Perhaps I was once such a man as you wish your words would now touch; the sort foolish enough to believe the scorpion as he tells me how inert his drooling tail is.
[ It would gladden Gale to think that he could do such a thing. It would gladden Godfrey even more to grab his resolve to make good on those words in both hands and wrestle it back. He sucks a breath down to the pits of him and feels the engine flicker. ]
I am he no longer. I never will be. And whether you are yourself one of the slithering vipers in this pit, whether you have simply spent so long among them that you consider yourself one - it makes no difference.
[He stands firm, an austere figure with harder lines than he had worn during those evenings he had spent with Godfrey above ground; they have both changed over the last decade, for how could they not, and Gale does not feel it was for the better in either case. His mouth pulls into a thin line, and he finds himself feeling an urgent need to reclaim some semblance of control, of neutrality; in any other case, it would not have mattered who sat at this table, he would have done his job to the letter and felt very little about it, because to allow himself to do anything otherwise would be opening himself up to be disciplined all over again.
Godfrey, as ever, makes him want to break all the rules, even when it spells nothing but trouble for him.]
You do not have to believe me. I've done nothing to earn your trust. I do not expect you to.
[His response is cool, terse as a more guarded expression becomes his mask, a vain attempt to hide the hurt and the frustration despite the fact that it's far too late to pretend he feels otherwise.]
That does not make it any less true. If it had meant your safety, I would have been fine to accept that you thought me a monster. The tragedy here is not that you have come to hate me— it is that I failed you. You were never meant to walk in this world.
[ Naturally. Naturally Gale would retreat back into cool reticence. He'd baited Godfrey into reacting, and react he had. Gale had no reason to persist in the facade of emotion any longer; one small concession, a sweet taste of superiority, and he could go back to being the cool and reasonable half of the conversation. He could pantomime that pedestal as much as he wanted - it couldn't change the nature of him. He could do nothing for his own bloodlessness; he'd been dead too long. Bloodlessness and callous manipulation was all that he knew.
Anger wells up in him then. Anger with himself. He should have been better. Never again, he had told himself - and he had engaged again. Godfrey should have kept his silence, and he had not. He had been fool enough to engage with him on his own battleground.
No more.
He feels it just as he most needs to; the white-hot love of his God, brewing in the bottom of his chest, beginning to well up into something he can use. Thunder in his chest. He lifts his chin to look at Gale in his face, closer than he's been since-- ]
I adjure you under penalty, Ancient Serpent. In the name of the Judge of the Living and the Dead.
[ It's a low, simmering thing. No warmer than a campfire to combat the dead chill in the room, centered in Godfrey's very lap.
A deterrence. ]
In the name of your Creator. In the name of Him who has power to consign you to Hell.
[ Before long, the simmer grows to a boil, its temperature rising steadily with his voice. ]
To depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions--
[ Godfrey pulls his arms and feels the magical chains wither.
[It is not enough to make the chill vanish entirely, but Gale can feel the shift even so, feel the ripple through the air as that heat rises within Godfrey himself, comes to a boil.
Then the man is on his feet, and if Gale's heart could beat, it would have stopped in that moment.
For the space of a single breath, the man towers over him— an impressive feat in itself, given Gale's own stature— but even softened towards Godfrey as he is, he is not such a fool as to remain within easy reach. Though the man's rage is well-deserved, Gale will not be able to help either of them if he allows himself to be smote here.
He vanishes, just for a moment, disappearing into mist before coming into view on the opposite side of the room, every muscle in him tense, realizing full well he may have to defend himself.]
How long have you been working towards that?
[He's likely been praying his chains away for hours, Gale thinks.]
Godfrey. I wish to help you leave this place alive. I cannot do that if you finish me here.
[ That, as though his efforts had been some parlour trick; the result of a child's afternoon with a sketchpad and crayon box.
He might have kept his head high at any other juncture of this terrible conversation. He may have been able to remind himself that Gale and those of his kin had no understanding of his power; they had to look down their nose at it, lest they see how crushing and severe it truly is.
This wisdom no longer reaches him; the conversation has reached its fever pitch. Blood is roaring in his ears, and each minute is a second.
Gale reconstitutes at his back. Godfrey turns, and for a frigid second, falls still as stone. He hears Gale's voice before he realizes words had been spoken.
In the next instant, the table flashes in his face, flipped and sent sprawling in one fast motion by Godfrey, before he can surge forward and get his hand around his throat. ]
You--
[ He wants to resist the urge to crush his throat in his hand. Godfrey wishes he could. Instead, he feels its stillness beneath his hand, and finds new fury in his own younger stupidity all over again. His fingers begin to tighten. ]
You have done nothing but drag me into this darkness. [ Godfrey's anger does not push him to shout; the words continue to seep from him, slow and strained, ] I worsen for every moment I spend here, infected by this disease. You are a noose around my throat.
[He has no need for breath, but he still feels pain, and his body still remembers what it was like to breathe, still reacts accordingly when the larger man's hand closes around his throat— firm and without crushing, but Gale knows it would be a simple thing for him to do the latter, can feel the strength coursing through him as his fingers tighten.
It wouldn't kill him, perhaps, but the pain would be excruciating, the recovery agony even when aided by magic.
For the first time, there is not only hurt and upset in his gaze, but fear, even if only for a moment. A brief flicker of it crosses his face as he reaches to grab onto Godfrey's wrist with both hands, letting his own surprising strength be felt as he makes an effort to stay his grip.]
Please.
[His voice is strained; he may not require air, but that tightening grip around his throat makes it difficult to force anything out regardless.
As though he has the right to ask Godfrey to grant him clemency. He knows he does not.]
This isn't— it isn't what I wanted—
[What little color he possessed has drained from his face entirely now, his back against the wall, but before he can struggle to say anything more, the door on the opposite room flies open despite having been locked after his arrival. It swings wide, hitting the wall behind it, and a dark-haired woman glides into the room with as much urgency as though she were intending on joining the pair of them for tea— but as her gaze comes to rest on their current predicament, she sighs heavily.]
"You two simply couldn't wait to get your hands on one another, could you?"
[She makes a broad gesture with one hand; it forces Godfrey to release his hold on her magister, sending him through the air so that his back slams hard against the opposite wall, forcing space between the pair of them.
She smiles, and there is no kindness in it.]
"Aren't you happy to see one another again?"
[Gale's gaze narrows sharply as he stumbles forward a few steps, clasping a hand against his throat where the sting of Godfrey's threat remains, a choking gasp preceding his words as he struggles to regain full use of his voice.]
You... you arranged this. Of-fucking-course you did!
[ All else - insult, indignity, the man whose throat is crushed between his hands - is cast into shadow as she bursts into the room, a star-point of roiling blood magic. The wound from which the spiritual ill of all around him festers. The new and worthy focus of his unparalleled, cold, single-minded fury. He would have thrown Gale down himself, had she not thrown him away first.
Instead, he and the wall fall quickly away from his hands, and he is cast between the helpless legs of the upturned table, crushed gasping against the opposite edge of the room. His delicate, golden cross spills from his button-down and spins helpless against his broad chest, glinting in the shadowy bowels of this nightwalker nest.
Brandishing it, though normally possible, would mean pulling the chain over his head. Ducking his head down from the wall, drawing his hand far enough over it to pull the chain free, holding it aloft. Godfrey's faith was a tarnished thing, but it was strong, and it could be channeled through even this smooth little cross of gold. Not so now. Mystra holds him against the wall with immense strength and negligent effort, as though cupping a firefly in her hands.
He cannot stride, but he can wiggle.
Achingly, he folds down his ring and pinkie, holding them in place with his thumb. He peels his arm from the wall. He musters that golden light into his chest.
He takes a breath, and he speaks, projects the rumble of his chest through as much of the little chamber as he can, his arm trembling all the way up; ]
In nómine [ Two fingers against the very center of his forehead, ] Pátris--
[ The more he drives himself, the easier it gets, though by gasping shreds instead of the centimeters he may have dared to hope for. Godfrey takes a breath and, teeth grit, moves his fingers down to his sternum. ]
Et Fílii, [ Right shoulder, ] et Spirítus Sancti--
Edited (no godfrey you were right the first time) 2024-07-25 20:32 (UTC)
[The woman watches his efforts without so much as batting an eye; she does not appear threatened, only bemused as Godfrey struggles to fight against the force of her spell. She appears untouched by Gale's anger, as well; she walks past him without so much as acknowledging his rage, her every movement fluid and made with purpose, coming to a full stop a few feet in front of their captive. She lifts a hand and gives a twist of her wrist; the moment she does so, Godfrey can feel his own throat tightening, constricting as she limits the airflow to his lungs.]
"It's almost endearing, really, your determination to try. Don't over-exert yourself. I have great plans for you."
[Behind her, Gale grits his teeth before taking a few steps forward, uncertain of what she may pull, uncomfortable with just how close she is to Godfrey. All those years ago, this was exactly what he'd wanted to avoid.]
Mystra—
[He says her name in a warning tone, but she cuts him off before he can say more, laughing as she looks back over her shoulder.]
"You should be thanking me. I intend to let you keep him as a pet. I could have easily flayed him alive, but I thought even you deserve a little something now and then."
[Her gaze turns back to Godfrey, cold and haughty, a cruel smile turning her lips upwards.]
"Your pretty words are useless against me. Who do you think you're dealing with, my husband?"
[Gale's fingers curl into white-knuckled fists. No matter how angry she made him, neither he nor Godfrey would benefit from his lashing out without thought.]
She would not do the same to him. Godfrey sees this for what it really is. She attempts to cast aspersion over his faith. In so doing, she does the opposite; were his words truly so useless, she would not be expending energy to crush his throat just to protect her ears from them.
And here Godfrey proves another boon of mortality. Gale had no living lungs to starve; his own had long since stopped, likely atrophied black in his chest. A Cainite did not contend with lungs which hungered for air. When boots were put to neck, more often than not, they were their wearers, not beneath their treads. Such vulnerability as a true mortal human experiences is what has built the civilizations that the Cainite parasitizes, grows fat upon. They have been dead too long to remember what wonders a flash of mortal peril does for one's ability to innovate.
Godfrey's lungs begin to scream in a matter of seconds. He feels them seizing in his chest as his throat closes. His face grows hot as they bicker uselessly. Godfrey's head pitches, golden strands falling before his brilliant eyes as he watches the woman before him, pale and swanlike throat flashing in fluorescents as she turns to emasculate her husband.
He waits. He bides his time. He holds that golden light in his chest as his head pounds.
Pushes it to his extremities. Feels his fingertips aflame with it, beneath his skin.
She turns back to him and speaks, Godfrey snarling soundlessly at her.
Then, he endeavors to make her regret standing so close.
One of his hands snaps to catch her face, bursting with morning light across her lips, fingers pinching the hollows of her dead cheeks.
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Heartening though it is to hear Gale acknowledge this fact, he will not grant him the satisfaction of hearing Godfrey agree aloud with him. If all of these grand showings of remorse were genuine, then Godfrey needs to do nothing to affirm his position - he knows his failings already.
This is not what Godfrey thinks he sees. Kindred are not a creature prone to debasing themselves in such shameless shows of self-flagellation, and nor are they a creature particularly disposed to any action which does not have some calculated benefit to themselves. Gale's purpose in encasing his wrongdoing in glass isn't fueled by a genuine sense of guilt; he's already learned what devastating consequence wrought by applying a mortal framing to a kindred subject. This is manipulation. Gale anticipates that Godfrey will ascribe warm blood and see blushing life where there is none.
He anticipates wrongly.
Godfrey stares flatly at Gale and his deathly pallor. ]
The distinction is meaningless to me.
[ There he goes again, showing where his lifeless allegiances truly lie; his pride has been bruised by this fresh embarrassment some other vampire has inflicted upon him. His thoughts turn to the eternal machinations of the vampiric court.
Godfrey cares little for what petty corpse set him up for this shallow fall. ]
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[If only it were as simple and laughable as embarrassment. One by one, the pieces are sliding into place— Mystra had known, she'd always known, that he had gone astray during that particular mission, but he has never been able to be certain of exactly how much she knew. She certainly would never say— but the fact that he has been sent here to deal with their newest 'acquisition' makes his stomach roil, and he knows shock will give way to anger once he's had time to collect himself.
What he will do about that remains to be seen. What is there to be done?]
You must have questions.
[Many, he assumes, that Godfrey has already decided upon his own answers for. Gale could hardly blame him for that, given how swiftly he had vanished.]
If not questions, then surely a host of unkind words that even I agree would be well-deserved. The room is yours, should you wish it.
[He lowers his hands, and as the initial shock has faded, he only appears wearied, his gaze heavy and still startlingly human despite his pallor.]
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None burn more hotly in his brain than the incredulous demand to know by what right Gale thinks he can offer him anything.
Godfrey makes no effort to hide his distaste; his knotted brow pulls just a little tighter, his shoulders fall in a slow and silent exhalation, something distasteful twisting his mouth into a brief ripple of a frown. Biceps swell in his sleeves as his hands pull into cutting fists behind his back. You must have questions - as though Gale had left him with anything else. As if this empty room to scream in were a grand gift to Godfrey, some final and redemptive gesture of love from a reticent adulterer. As though they could reflect away what Gale had done.
Questions without answer were all he'd had for the better part of these ten years. He'd abandoned his life and all he had ever loved for questions he could not answer, for ashes in his mouth and a man who had only ever sought his ruination. Each breath heaves his shoulders, hollows his collarbones. There was no answer Gale could provide to him that Godfrey had not already sought - but predictably, Gale cannot help himself. He must find some pedestal to stand on, even now, even if he must invent one.
He ought maintain his silence, of course. But he feels that heat setting in against the back of his eyes, and he feels the distance between himself and his own advice grow further and further. The words drop from him like stones. ]
How many times?
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He could have meant any number of things, Gale knows. How many mortals had he been entangled with? How many had he preyed on?
How many times had he lied to him?
He clenches his jaw, his gaze flicking downwards for a brief moment.]
What do you mean?
[There's no feigning innocence, no coyness in his voice. He fully intends to answer, should Godfrey clarify— he owes him so much more than that, but in this moment, honest answers are all he can possibly offer. Even then, they are worth little.]
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But he does. Even if he has to remind himself he knows better - he does know better. Even as it boils him alive to think of how alike this is to the man he'd been tricked into knowing-- the chair groans beneath his weight as it pitches forward, the firm corners of the chair's backboard digging bruises into his strong arms. ]
You know what I ask you.
[ These words do not drop from him, for they are not stones. They seethe from him. They are something sizzling, the squealing crunch of frost forming on glass. Acid boiling from some cold and deep part of his chest through a tight-clenched jaw.
Pathetic, the way Gale cannot put to rest this act to afford even a moment of respect. That he must march this costumery of humankind before him even now, as he taunts him with this moment of recompense. Just as everything was in kindred society - something for a price. He would have his answers when he walked the two of them through his disgracing, step by agonizing step.
Pathetic also that Godfrey feels his feet carry him down this wretched path before he can stop himself. ]
How many times did I taste my own blood on your tongue?
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He had done many things, terrible things, and he would own them— but there were some things he had never dared to so much as dream, lines he had not let himself cross. Not with Godfrey.]
I never fed on you.
[Though he cannot expect Godfrey to believe him— and why should he?— he answers with vehemence, conviction.]
Not once. I am not proud of my actions, but that line, I never crossed.
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This is a question Godfrey has never thought to ask himself before this very moment - before Gale had taken a seat across that table, pale and drained at the mere sight of him, and tried to put a band-aid on the sucking bullet wound he'd left him with.
Is there any answer that would not have left him feeling hollow? Could he have said anything that would have alleviated the pain, even a little?
Godfrey stares at him. He studies his face, the conviction with which he gives an answer that, reasonably, he knows should provide some measure of relief. It is hardly a cure for the years of pain, of loneliness, of doubt and terror and slow-dawning victimhood echoing in his chest, emptied and pitted. But it should be a balm, something to lift a small sliver of pain from him.
He stares at him, and he feels nothing. There is no relief from the slow rise in temperature at the back of his neck, the liquid heat welling behind his eyes. ]
I suppose that I'm meant to simply take the word of the man who can change my thoughts and memories at will.
[ The thin, tiny tremor in his throat, even as he fights to keep it stiff. ]
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[There's a hard edge to Gale's words, even as he damns himself. He knows far better than to expect Godfrey to believe him— he'd given the man absolutely no reason to trust him, and their current situation did not exactly lend itself well to him earning it back. Truthfully, he'd never even considered that he might have the opportunity.
He had thought that bridge burned forever. It was meant to be. His hope had been for Godfrey to live a life untouched by the world Gale himself had no choice but to live in.
Clearly, that hope had been in vain.]
I know what I did. I've no interest in making excuses for myself.
[He had changed Godfrey's memories. Not much— but it had been selfish of him. Most of what had transpired between them had been, he supposed.
He should have vanished the moment he'd realized what was building between them, but if he had, the clan would have simply sent someone else after Godfrey, someone who might have taken a far more hands-on approach with their given task.]
I don't care what you think of me now— you should hate me, after everything, but I do care that you're here when I had hoped to keep you as far away from this place as bloody possible.
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[ Of course he doesn't care what Godfrey thinks of him. Had he ever? What reason had the kindred to care what their cattle thought of them?
But this was the way of this undead scourge. The aesthetics of caring without commitment. Not even he had it in his cold heart to be moved by one beneath him; even if they could muster up such feelings, certainly their pride would not allow kine to be its source.
Which really only made this conversation a more thorough waste of everybody's time. It mattered very little what words he found. He would never find the magical combination that would make Gale care. He hadn't any left in him.
He feels his blood boil as he watches him, retracting that hollow aesthetic he'd extended in a fit as soon as Godfrey disbelieves him for it. The artifice in him, the mockery he makes as he tries to emulate what he once has - it's almost saddening. It may have been, were he looking at anybody else.
Not from him, though. Godfrey's head hangs low, his eyes bright and furious behind golden strands. ]
I can see your predicament. You had no problem leashing and collaring me when I was soft and pliable. You even taught me tricks.
[ The disgust on that word, tricks, is palpable. He hopes he knows just what he means. All that closeness, all the unguarded skinship Gale had been perfectly comfortable with, back when he had the promise of a good dog.
Godfrey leans forward again, straining against the groaning back of his chair, and pitches his voice low; ]
You'll have a harder time now that I know the power I have held.
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A single word, and yet the harsh disgust with which it is spoken is ice in his veins. His expression flickers, his brow furrowed, and for all he wishes to try to be stoic, to not let himself be so overwrought by the storm of emotions brought on by this unexpected reunion, he cannot resist, and his gaze darkens.
He had always hoped that even in all those years apart, Godfrey would remember that what they had was real, even if he remained rightfully furious. Gale's orders had been to make him doubt, but once he had actually met the man himself— it not only seemed an impossible task, but became one he did not wish to carry out. Their entanglement had never been part of anyone else's plan, any scheming.
That had all been him, and it had been selfish.
He clenches his jaw, steeling himself, his eyes do not match the hard lines of his face. They were soft, as they had always been, almost pleading in nature despite the fact that he was the one who currently sat unbound.]
Good.
[His voice is low in a different sort of way, thick with something he is trying desperately to hold back.]
You're going to need that power. If you're to get out of this place, you'll need every bit of strength you can muster. I am the least of your worries, Godfrey.
[That last bit is softer than he had meant for it to be, the ache in his chest persisting.]
I want you to be able to leave here alive. I did love you— I will not see my kin destroy you here.
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He leans on the cold artifice of love. He had loved him, Gale implores. His approximation of the one thing he can no longer hold in his own hands; a warm and beating heart. Emotion. Attachment. Core pieces of the human condition. Veins that have long since run dry for Gale and all like him. Perhaps he had once understood these things; perhaps these moments of long-ago warmth echoed back to him now.
This changed nothing. He could not understand what he once did. This was simply one of the many things one must shed when passing into unlife.
Perhaps, charitably, Gale thought that he felt love for him. Godfrey knows better. It is his nature; to invert something as selfless and beautiful as love into something so malicious and self-serving. To turn such emotion into a leash or a cudgel, to use it to pull lesser beings into subordination. At best, Gale thought him no better than a particularly attractive dog.
At worst, he sought to press the soft spots in his heart which no longer existed. Certainly.
Godfrey's gaze drops, and he lets the declaration sit in the room a moment.
Then, he takes a breath. ]
You loved that I loved you.
[ This is the kindest rationalization he can offer.
More sternly; ]
You will not pretend it is the same.
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No!
[Before tonight, Gale had never raised his voice in front of Godfrey, never had any reason to— but the distress of seeing him here, in the very place he had hoped to keep him from, and to hear him refute the very reason why Gale had vanished in the first place—
It was too much. He was not fool enough to think he could convince Godfrey of the truth, his truth, but he would say his piece. After all this time, he would speak it aloud, as he had been unable to do for a decade now, forced to bury his feelings deep and play the part of obedient pet, because what other choice did he have? There had been none.]
No.
[He repeats himself, and the very air in the room takes on a noticeable chill as the temperature drops, reflecting the ice in his voice as he fixes his eyes on Godfrey, his gaze dark and intense and unflinching.]
I loved you. I was ready to leave this place, go as far as I needed to keep us both from their reach, if you could have accepted me— and even if you could not, I would have thought it all worth it just the same.
[Because even now, he still holds onto the memory of that time together, of how despite the both of them doing every wrong thing and breaking every vow they had ever made, it never felt wrong at all. He had been dead almost two centuries, and yet he had never felt so very alive.
He has both cherished and mourned those memories in equal measure.]
I was never able to do what I was sent to do— I knew from the moment I met you that I could not.
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For the small sliver of his unlife during which Godfrey had attempted to coexist with him, he had known Gale to have a sort of pride about him. This hadn't bothered Godfrey at the time - indeed, it had seemed well-earned that Gale should consider himself clever, for he was so, and had worked to be so. Back then, in those early days of a correspondence, when one can turn the human flesh of one beloved to gold with a gaze, it had certainly seemed to him that Gale was often the most clever, most brilliant, most charming in any room he entered.
So it would always seem, for unknowing kine laying eyes on the impossibility of kindred splendor for the first time.
He seethes to think on it now - and to see that pride rear before him now. To see Gale, embarrassed and scrambling, trying to retain his poor impression of a man who had loved in this lifetime. Godfrey does not lay eyes on him; his attention does not lift when Gale slams his hand against the table, rails against Godfrey's assessment even as it tightens around his ankle.
But his face hardens. His nose screws like the snout of a wolf biding his time. ]
Had you not succeeded, I would not be before you.
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[He clenches his jaw once more, teeth grit as he struggles to force himself to regain some level of restraint.
It is at least partly successful. Though Godfrey will not look at him, Gale's gaze remains trained on the pale-haired man, and even taking their circumstances into consideration, anger looks foreign on him, out of place. If nothing else, that alone would be proof of how Gale had ruined him.
Heartbreaking. This was never what he had wanted. Should he ever be released to find his way to hell, surely some version of this would play a part in his eternal torment.]
... you were trying to share and spread your faith, too close to the heart of their territory for comfort. I was only meant to deter you, make you doubt— I had intended to do so with philosophy. We spoke for less than five minutes before it was plain to me that you would not be shaken. I should have left it there, said you were harmless and forgotten all about you— but I was selfish.
[He can admit that freely now. He'd made his peace with it years ago.]
Any efforts to deter you were cast aside early. I continued to seek you out because I enjoyed our conversations.
[Everything that took place after that... that was all his fault, as well.
He finally averts his gaze, drawing back up to his full height and closing himself off as the frustration he had worn so openly recedes.]
I am glad that you kept your faith. I never doubted you would. It will serve you well now.
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[ You can hear the bitter smile in his voice; his faith, the desiccated joke that it is. His faith, that venomous viper, all stinging teeth and spraying toxin. That hearth he'd turned into an inferno, an all-consuming blaze in his gut.
His shoulders slump against the back of his seat with a derisive snort, his chest trembling with low, amused chuckling. The smile feels foreign on him now.
He betrays himself again. Naturally would Gale think such a foul thing worth preserving; it had always been nothing but a blade that would be turned against him. If ever he'd had any concept of its power to heal and protect, he had been expecting too much to think that it would return to him now.
Godfrey still does not turn his head up to see him. Instead, his eyes roll upward, glaring to him through his eyelashes, his smile stretching to vicious excess. Silence roars in the room, penned in by Gale's charm.
Until Godfrey begins to speak. ]
I bound myself to perdition for you.
[ The words are seething from him through tightly-clenched teeth. Rage flashes just below the surface of his voice. His nose wrinkles like the muzzle of a wolf. ]
You disassembled me for your foul brood. I complied in my own destruction to please you. And still--
[ Godfrey's head twists to catch his eyes, like a serpent, flashing and dangerous. His tongue begins to move too quickly in his mouth, his heart pounding in his ears. ]
--still, you would presume to lecture me. You would tell me of love. You, a man who only knows matters of a warm heart when he eats them- you, whose hand was in mine as I turned my back on everything. You. You who has given nothing but to those who would rot this world from its core. You--
[ Godfrey does not shout - he is not the sort of man who lets the clap of thunder seep into his words. His is the rumble of thunderstorms to come; the gradual, earth-shattering crack of long-frozen hearts of ice. Godfrey takes a harsh breath. ]
You did not love me. You did not even understand me. You don't know the meaning of the word.
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[The insistence erupts from him without his giving it permission; he turns sharply back towards Godfrey and stalks towards him, fingertips dragging against the table as he stops just short of where the man is actually bound and seated, and there's heat and hurt in his gaze as his eyes seem somehow sharper than before, irises once golden brown now tinged red by the surge of frustration.
Compared to Godfrey's palpable rage, he is still restrained, but barely— tears prick at the corners of his now clearly inhuman eyes, and there's a tic above his jaw that shows just above the line of his neatly-kept beard.]
This is no lecture, Godfrey. Believe me, you would know full well if it was.
[His refusal is all but hissed, though he can hear his own voice threatening to become thick with emotion once more. When it came to interrogations, he was generally considered to be the best their clan had to offer— sharp, clever, cool, calculated, but he feels none of that now.
These are hardly the usual circumstances, in his defense.]
I will not begrudge you your anger, because it is rightfully yours, and I have wronged you— irrevocably, I am well aware— but it was never my intention to harm you! Exactly the opposite— and you cannot tell me what I did or do not feel, because it is clear you do not understand me. I am not so far from human. We come from you! Not every one of us who is condemned to such a life loses their very soul.
[His face is mere inches from Godfrey's now, and he does not know when he had chosen to lean down; it had happened without his realizing, as though getting closer and declaring himself where he could not look away would make things stick.]
If you knew even a fraction of what I have done, what I have endured in my efforts to keep you safe, you would not doubt that I know well the meaning of what it is to love, and given the chance, I would suffer it all again if it meant keeping you from their grasp— but your being here means that it was all for nothing.
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He'd spent a short while proceeding as many initiates to the Society of Leopold do; he had spread himself over many tomes, trying to map out these new and unknown borders of his world. He had thought himself sure of where they lay, when they had suddenly, violently extended into the darkness, and he realized that all he'd been looking at was a murky ditch. For if vampires crawled the night, what else did?
The Society had some answers. He found the existence of further horrors, for the Society hunters could not afford to ignore such terrors whilst they focused their fire on the children of Cain. They moved below him like the shadows of Miocene horrors, their huge bodies parting waters far beneath his feet. Werewolves, and their fight against the Great Wyrm. Wraiths. Changelings, and the dreams they infested. On and on those borders stretched, just beyond him as soon as Godfrey believes he feels them below his fingers. It was not long before Godfrey made the sensible conclusion - that he would never know - and moved to what he ought to be learning.
Each new piece a horror, a fresh pit in his stomach. He'd remembered sitting in front of those books, staring sightless at words that threatened to choke him. All that had happened to him, written in ink and bound in cracking leather.
He had faced down his share of night-creatures since then. These dark and lonely moments had been fire in his chest then. Kindling for a great inferno; a chugging and violent engine pushing him through them, that it may not be done to another in his place. He had not been daunted, and he had not been broken.
Gale circling the table and standing imperiously at his side of it puts every one of those pits in his stomach anew. He does not sense his words laced with blood-power, but that does not mean it does not pull him. Godfrey squares his shoulders as well as he can, and feels his arms tighten around the back of his chair again. ]
One walks in the light of Christ - but not as a fool.
[ It seethes from him - an attempt to reclaim lost ground. ]
Perhaps I was once such a man as you wish your words would now touch; the sort foolish enough to believe the scorpion as he tells me how inert his drooling tail is.
[ It would gladden Gale to think that he could do such a thing. It would gladden Godfrey even more to grab his resolve to make good on those words in both hands and wrestle it back. He sucks a breath down to the pits of him and feels the engine flicker. ]
I am he no longer. I never will be. And whether you are yourself one of the slithering vipers in this pit, whether you have simply spent so long among them that you consider yourself one - it makes no difference.
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Godfrey, as ever, makes him want to break all the rules, even when it spells nothing but trouble for him.]
You do not have to believe me. I've done nothing to earn your trust. I do not expect you to.
[His response is cool, terse as a more guarded expression becomes his mask, a vain attempt to hide the hurt and the frustration despite the fact that it's far too late to pretend he feels otherwise.]
That does not make it any less true. If it had meant your safety, I would have been fine to accept that you thought me a monster. The tragedy here is not that you have come to hate me— it is that I failed you. You were never meant to walk in this world.
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Anger wells up in him then. Anger with himself. He should have been better. Never again, he had told himself - and he had engaged again. Godfrey should have kept his silence, and he had not. He had been fool enough to engage with him on his own battleground.
No more.
He feels it just as he most needs to; the white-hot love of his God, brewing in the bottom of his chest, beginning to well up into something he can use. Thunder in his chest. He lifts his chin to look at Gale in his face, closer than he's been since-- ]
I adjure you under penalty, Ancient Serpent. In the name of the Judge of the Living and the Dead.
[ It's a low, simmering thing. No warmer than a campfire to combat the dead chill in the room, centered in Godfrey's very lap.
A deterrence. ]
In the name of your Creator. In the name of Him who has power to consign you to Hell.
[ Before long, the simmer grows to a boil, its temperature rising steadily with his voice. ]
To depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions--
[ Godfrey pulls his arms and feels the magical chains wither.
And he stands. ]
--from this servant of God.
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Then the man is on his feet, and if Gale's heart could beat, it would have stopped in that moment.
For the space of a single breath, the man towers over him— an impressive feat in itself, given Gale's own stature— but even softened towards Godfrey as he is, he is not such a fool as to remain within easy reach. Though the man's rage is well-deserved, Gale will not be able to help either of them if he allows himself to be smote here.
He vanishes, just for a moment, disappearing into mist before coming into view on the opposite side of the room, every muscle in him tense, realizing full well he may have to defend himself.]
How long have you been working towards that?
[He's likely been praying his chains away for hours, Gale thinks.]
Godfrey. I wish to help you leave this place alive. I cannot do that if you finish me here.
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He might have kept his head high at any other juncture of this terrible conversation. He may have been able to remind himself that Gale and those of his kin had no understanding of his power; they had to look down their nose at it, lest they see how crushing and severe it truly is.
This wisdom no longer reaches him; the conversation has reached its fever pitch. Blood is roaring in his ears, and each minute is a second.
Gale reconstitutes at his back. Godfrey turns, and for a frigid second, falls still as stone. He hears Gale's voice before he realizes words had been spoken.
In the next instant, the table flashes in his face, flipped and sent sprawling in one fast motion by Godfrey, before he can surge forward and get his hand around his throat. ]
You--
[ He wants to resist the urge to crush his throat in his hand. Godfrey wishes he could. Instead, he feels its stillness beneath his hand, and finds new fury in his own younger stupidity all over again. His fingers begin to tighten. ]
You have done nothing but drag me into this darkness. [ Godfrey's anger does not push him to shout; the words continue to seep from him, slow and strained, ] I worsen for every moment I spend here, infected by this disease. You are a noose around my throat.
THROWS THE LID OFF MY COFFIN
It wouldn't kill him, perhaps, but the pain would be excruciating, the recovery agony even when aided by magic.
For the first time, there is not only hurt and upset in his gaze, but fear, even if only for a moment. A brief flicker of it crosses his face as he reaches to grab onto Godfrey's wrist with both hands, letting his own surprising strength be felt as he makes an effort to stay his grip.]
Please.
[His voice is strained; he may not require air, but that tightening grip around his throat makes it difficult to force anything out regardless.
As though he has the right to ask Godfrey to grant him clemency. He knows he does not.]
This isn't— it isn't what I wanted—
[What little color he possessed has drained from his face entirely now, his back against the wall, but before he can struggle to say anything more, the door on the opposite room flies open despite having been locked after his arrival. It swings wide, hitting the wall behind it, and a dark-haired woman glides into the room with as much urgency as though she were intending on joining the pair of them for tea— but as her gaze comes to rest on their current predicament, she sighs heavily.]
"You two simply couldn't wait to get your hands on one another, could you?"
[She makes a broad gesture with one hand; it forces Godfrey to release his hold on her magister, sending him through the air so that his back slams hard against the opposite wall, forcing space between the pair of them.
She smiles, and there is no kindness in it.]
"Aren't you happy to see one another again?"
[Gale's gaze narrows sharply as he stumbles forward a few steps, clasping a hand against his throat where the sting of Godfrey's threat remains, a choking gasp preceding his words as he struggles to regain full use of his voice.]
You... you arranged this. Of-fucking-course you did!
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[ All else - insult, indignity, the man whose throat is crushed between his hands - is cast into shadow as she bursts into the room, a star-point of roiling blood magic. The wound from which the spiritual ill of all around him festers. The new and worthy focus of his unparalleled, cold, single-minded fury. He would have thrown Gale down himself, had she not thrown him away first.
Instead, he and the wall fall quickly away from his hands, and he is cast between the helpless legs of the upturned table, crushed gasping against the opposite edge of the room. His delicate, golden cross spills from his button-down and spins helpless against his broad chest, glinting in the shadowy bowels of this nightwalker nest.
Brandishing it, though normally possible, would mean pulling the chain over his head. Ducking his head down from the wall, drawing his hand far enough over it to pull the chain free, holding it aloft. Godfrey's faith was a tarnished thing, but it was strong, and it could be channeled through even this smooth little cross of gold. Not so now. Mystra holds him against the wall with immense strength and negligent effort, as though cupping a firefly in her hands.
He cannot stride, but he can wiggle.
Achingly, he folds down his ring and pinkie, holding them in place with his thumb. He peels his arm from the wall. He musters that golden light into his chest.
He takes a breath, and he speaks, projects the rumble of his chest through as much of the little chamber as he can, his arm trembling all the way up; ]
In nómine [ Two fingers against the very center of his forehead, ] Pátris--
[ The more he drives himself, the easier it gets, though by gasping shreds instead of the centimeters he may have dared to hope for. Godfrey takes a breath and, teeth grit, moves his fingers down to his sternum. ]
Et Fílii, [ Right shoulder, ] et Spirítus Sancti--
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"It's almost endearing, really, your determination to try. Don't over-exert yourself. I have great plans for you."
[Behind her, Gale grits his teeth before taking a few steps forward, uncertain of what she may pull, uncomfortable with just how close she is to Godfrey. All those years ago, this was exactly what he'd wanted to avoid.]
Mystra—
[He says her name in a warning tone, but she cuts him off before he can say more, laughing as she looks back over her shoulder.]
"You should be thanking me. I intend to let you keep him as a pet. I could have easily flayed him alive, but I thought even you deserve a little something now and then."
[Her gaze turns back to Godfrey, cold and haughty, a cruel smile turning her lips upwards.]
"Your pretty words are useless against me. Who do you think you're dealing with, my husband?"
[Gale's fingers curl into white-knuckled fists. No matter how angry she made him, neither he nor Godfrey would benefit from his lashing out without thought.]
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She would not do the same to him. Godfrey sees this for what it really is. She attempts to cast aspersion over his faith. In so doing, she does the opposite; were his words truly so useless, she would not be expending energy to crush his throat just to protect her ears from them.
And here Godfrey proves another boon of mortality. Gale had no living lungs to starve; his own had long since stopped, likely atrophied black in his chest. A Cainite did not contend with lungs which hungered for air. When boots were put to neck, more often than not, they were their wearers, not beneath their treads. Such vulnerability as a true mortal human experiences is what has built the civilizations that the Cainite parasitizes, grows fat upon. They have been dead too long to remember what wonders a flash of mortal peril does for one's ability to innovate.
Godfrey's lungs begin to scream in a matter of seconds. He feels them seizing in his chest as his throat closes. His face grows hot as they bicker uselessly. Godfrey's head pitches, golden strands falling before his brilliant eyes as he watches the woman before him, pale and swanlike throat flashing in fluorescents as she turns to emasculate her husband.
He waits. He bides his time. He holds that golden light in his chest as his head pounds.
Pushes it to his extremities. Feels his fingertips aflame with it, beneath his skin.
She turns back to him and speaks, Godfrey snarling soundlessly at her.
Then, he endeavors to make her regret standing so close.
One of his hands snaps to catch her face, bursting with morning light across her lips, fingers pinching the hollows of her dead cheeks.
And it squeezes. ]
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THROWS OFF MY SHROUD ONCE MORE, 2025 the year of chris' resurrection