lifeaftr | Who Is In Control?

Like the flex of an old muscle, he knows something is wrong as soon as he's accidentally stepped too close.

Kravitz has spent a thousand years carefully tracking down abominations of death- finding people who think they can bend reality and enforcing the necessary law of the universe. He hasn't really had to since he got to this island- and in fact, had been yelled at when he tried- and to his absolute surprise, nothing has happened. The Storyteller was right- they have their finger on the pulse of these things. For the most part, as much as he doesn't like people being able to come back to life, it carries none of the consequences or the energy. They're simply alive.

This... this is decidedly not that.

He's running before he even realizes, scythe coming to his hand by will alone as he follows the tension in his muscles, the adrenaline in his body. It's getting closer, this is further into the island than he's ever been but something is wrong wrong wrong--

Kravitz skids into the nearby property, and hones in on the puppet immediately. He doesn't even see who's piloting it, drawing his scythe before finally looking around for who's controlling it as he goes in for his first swing, intending to cleave it's head right off.

Foster has only seconds--his reactions are a projector reel unspooling, leaving only time for the mind to resolve an impression, yet each frame on its own a complete image on its own. Some of those impressions are caught and recognised, afterimages left to be understood precious seconds after they've already passed.

Seconds. Yes.

Seconds.

Kravitz only leaves him a few of those.

By the time Kravitz is across the hoary grass, scythe whipped back, eyes fixed on his prey, Foster has figured out what's going on. His initial mix of excitement and caution at seeing Kravitz morphed to confusion, then understanding (the memory of Taako's indifferent warning about Kravitz's intolerance, the obvious trajectory) and finally back to excitement anew.

The sightless corpse, blooming gentle blue from joints and cranium, ducks and crouches, springs backwards away from Kravitz--

It lands on all fours, clawlike nails digging into the cold earth, jaw hanging open with its heavy lower canines.

And Foster is already galloping in.

He doesn't have time to consider, but for once, he doesn't have to. For once, his mission is unflinchingly, extraordinarily clear. This is the job he was made for, and it shows. The scythe sweeps just in front of where the corpse goes backwards, and he stops at no percieved threat, no show of teeth. His foot digs into the dirt as he catches himself, swinging the weapon back to catch it in his other hand and shifting the weight before he goes to surge forward for another swing.

But he stops, just a moment, ears picking up on the sound of hooves, and turns his head to see Foster rushing forth.

It takes little to put the important pieces together as he points his scythe towards the man oncoming.

"You, I will deal with later." Not a warning- a threat. But the beast must be dispatched first, and he moves without pause to strike again at the undead body right in front of him.

Later?

No. No, Foster does not deal in the unlikelihoods of later. There is no later--no concept of time in the future, no impact to consequences leftover from the past.

If he is to be dealt with, then Foster intends that Kravitz will deal with him now.

And when Kravitz swings, he intervenes. Physically.

It's a rare moment, one that would shock him with his own audacity mere seconds from his execution--his heavy-furred arm outstretched to seize hold of Kravitz's own, black claws closing over fabric, it's a moment so implausible that if he'd been warned an hour ago he'd be committing such an inappropriate act...!

But he does. He does, and the corpse under his command leaps away again, this time up onto Foster's own back; it perches there a second, gargoyle-esque. Long enough for Foster to add some words of his own.

"Taako did tell me you'd be like this."

His blue eyes are bright.

Foster moves faster than he expects, in surprising fashion- most necromancers won't take a fall for their creations, and in certain senses, falling back on his haunches may not be the best tactic here. Because he remembers Foster's words, his glorification of death, and he realizes this will be far more personal.

His eyes go wide as Foster makes contact, and wrenches his arm back with no gentleness or familiarity, drawing his scythe on the other man again.

"Like this? Like this? If you think I'm going to go easy on you--" Something in his mind reminds him that he can't actually kill Foster unless he'd like to see him revive again, and he grits his jaw, forced to change direction. "Stand down and give me the creature."

It's a demand, not a request, and he sidesteps Foster to go for the corpse just behind him. He's forced to be more precise, more careful, but he has failsafes if close combat becomes impractical.

Foster laughs--he laughs, because now Kravitz is taking this seriously, now, whether Kravitz remembers Foster's entreaties on Ziziphus or not--

Unfortunately, equine footwork is one part of being a taur that Foster excels at. Space eventing, or more specifically space dressage, was his event of choice at the space olympics. He'd learned quite a lot in the process.

So when he wheels to face Kravitz again, his move to evade is not a sidestepping--it's with half passes, light and swift movements taking him not only away from Kravitz on the horizontal, but continuing past him to force him to turn if he wants to face Foster again.

"Why would I think you'd go easy on me?" is what Foster wants to know. "Interesting that you call it a 'creature'... it's nothing I raised, only animated. There is no soul here... only body, only the detritus, the cast-off remains--"

Edited 2018-10-14 02:54 (UTC)

He remembers, but it's not on his mind. What he knows is that Foster is serious, and he's going to have to do this carefully. It isn't the only time he's dealt with a serious and sticky issue, and it won't be the last.

The thing is, though, is that Kravitz is a finely sharpened tool, a blade with a purpose, so he knows what he's doing out here. He's light on his feet, shifting his weight to the ball on his toes with a twist, and bringing the scythe with his fingers closer to him. He won't turn his back to Foster- it's a bad idea and he knows it. So instead, he replies as he brings the scythe around his back, turning with his ankles together near the heel.

"You gave false life to a corpse--" He speaks like he's chastising a child, before sweeping strong behind his back and opening a rift, through which for a moment, Foster can see his own back just behind him. In a moment he's stepped through it, twisting through the jump in spacetime to suddenly be on his other side, making a swipe for the creature with the back end of the stick to knock it far off from Foster's protection. "And that is strictly against the laws of life and death!"

Kravitz has just made the number one mistake, the first thing everyone says not to do around horses and the single easiest way to get one's shit wrecked by one.

You don't stand behind a horse.

Kravitz has the seconds it takes to swing, the same seconds it takes Foster's back end to tense, his muscles to coil, and then two things happen:

One, the shaft of his scythe connects with the corpse on Foster's back, a solid thwack that causes the dead thing no pain but surely unseats it, knocking it off its perch and to the ground.

Two, Foster's back end pops up off the ground, his two back hooves kicking out directly into Kravitz's body. And Foster has the rotation in his midsection to look and aim those two cannons he has for back legs.

See, this is the problem with falling back on old instincts. Kravitz didn't used to have to worry about taking major hits before. The thing about being undead, and specifically with the skillset he had, is that physical bodies and their presence meant very, very little. Damage could be done to whatever his outside shell was- a human body, the skeletal form, whatever golem he had constructed for himself- but it made very little difference. Until his soul was exposed, he couldn't be snuffed out. And since he hasn't really gone after anyone like this since getting to the island, he's still fighting on a thousand years of ingrained memory.

Unfortunately, that was a bad plan.

His eyes travel from where the corpse swings and misses Foster's feet entirely, sending them right into his chest with a crack as he's sent off and a fair bit backwards. He tries to recover himself as he hits the ground, but he goes down hard, gritting his jaw and instantly wrapping a hand around his middle to cover the immediate pain.

It hurts to breathe. That's not good. But he gets back up quickly, even if his legs shake from the impact, scythe still in hand as he moves sideways with a wide berth around Foster's back to swing back towards the corpse, still determined to finish his job.

Somewhere close by, two people are making a fuss about something, and it carries well enough to get his attention. He can recognize those two voices, of course, though he can't make out what they're saying. Not really shocking that one of them is Foster. Imagine that, someone's upset with the great big weirdo!

It might be nice to meet Kravitz face-to-face. Beats sitting around doing... not much at all. He ambles that way in no particular hurry, and hesitates when he's close enough to realize they're actually fighting each other. Foster's gross, bizarre, and a bit of a creep, but... well, it's unexpected. (And he's hardly someone who can dive in to break up a fight. Maybe if they were skeletons.)

As always, he doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut and just walk away. No, he can't do that, because it seems Foster is winning. "Hey! Hey, what are you dummies doing?"

...Smooth.

In all fairness to Kravitz, Foster has never once in his life attempted to mitigate damage to his physical form, and he didn't have the excuse of a functionally unkillable body for more than a few weeks of it.

He's actually had this horse body much longer!

But it's not the horse that goes for Kravitz this time--it's the corpse. Lance's sightless reanimated body hits the ground hard and rolls, scrambling for purchase in the icy dirt, then it wheels and springs for the reaper, catlike, right as Héctor arrives on the scene.

"False life?" Foster echoes, over Héctor, finally able to respond to Kravitz's words. "What if life is already false?" If living is wasted, or simply a lie?

He too wheels around, cantering around Kravitz at an angle, making an opportunity out of the realisation that there's an advantage to having his hind end available.

"Who are you to say? Does death recognise life? Is what I made 'alive?'" He glances at the skeleton before locking eyes with the necromancer--

"I wouldn't know."

Kravitz pointedly ignores the pain as the corpse moves and decides now it's time to actually play ball, taking the hand wrapped on his middle and reaffixing it back to his scythe. He takes three slices in the air, slamming the blade towards the body in an attempt to decapitate and end this fight as quickly as he can. Two he can maybe handle, but three--

Well, once he gets a quick glimpse of who it is, he doubts that he'll be fighting, but it presents a problem all it's own.

"Hector, get out of here." His voice is stern and he's pointedly not taking his eyes off of the scene, because he knows he can't handle a second blow of that kind of power. "I can't promise I can protect you in this but I'm going to finish my job. This man reanimated a corpse and likely trapped a soul in doing it, and I cannot let that stand." His gaze is still on Foster, a bit of a glare in it, just so he knows he's still talking about him. "I cannot let these crimes go unpunished, even if my Lady is not here to oversee me. There must still be rules."

"He... what?"

Héctor's staring at the walking corpse, revolted, slow-growing horror inside his bones. It's a little too much to take in all at once, and that's before he works out who the corpse is. He has an excellent memory for faces, it doesn't matter much that this face is... twisted.

It's Lance. A friend. Nice young man who certainly deserves better than this. Stranded in another world, life sucked out of him by parasitic cursed flowers and now...

Now his corpse is being puppeted around by a nightmarish creature (who Kravitz calls a 'man', but Héctor can't think of as a person right now), instead of being treated with any sort of dignity. Instead of being laid to rest by his friends and teammates, so that he can move on... or come back the right way, the Storyteller's way.

He draws himself up out of his typical slouch and does not take Kravitz's advice at all. Nope, time for a glare of his own, directed at Foster of course. He may not have any authority or muscle to make anything happen, but he has plenty of anger to go around. "You! Leave Lance alone! You let him go, Foster!"

Foster, however, has gotten the distinct impression that the reason everyone is so upset has nothing to do with what he's actually done. Which is.... vexing, actually. He'd normally be enthusiastic about the opposition, about confrontation and conflict and the clash between his actions and the ideas of others, but... he can usually be assumed to have earned it.

"Not Lance!" he rears up over Kravitz, his voice ringing clearly as Kravitz's scythe severs the corpse's head from its neck. The head, sightless with a pastel bouquet of blooming flowers, hits the ground and sails towards Hector. The rest of Lance's body, however, keeps going--directly into Kravitz, its claws digging into any available flesh.

His tone, incongruously, is bright and energetic.

"Lance's soul is wherever the Storyteller wills. This is only its leavings...." he pauses, glancing aside to Hector while Kravitz is occupied with his creation. "And no, I will not let it go."

He had to go to a lot of trouble to make even this work.

Oh, there is always something to be said about thinking about your enemies as people. Monsters do not do the damage you think. It's always people, in the end, who commit the worst atrocities.

The head comes off and he thinks he's won something for a moment, that he may have stopped this , but apparently it doesn't need to see. It barrels directly into him and he brings the handle of his scythe up to block, just barely avoiding a hit to the face but taking scratches across his arms where the thing's nails dig into him. Both of them stumble backwards, fully into the raspberry bushes now- there's red everywhere, but very little of it blood.

"Hector, get out!" He snarls, a too desperate attempt to get him away from this in case Foster decides he's not done today. Unable to get this thing off him, he concentrates on his surroundings instead- there's thorns in the berry patches and that will have to do. He grasps out with his mind and pulls them up by the roots, using a power he typically uses to shield himself on the offensive as they knot and twist around the corpse's limbs.

It lets him take a few steps back as it writhes under it's new trappings, the claw wounds it gave running rivulets of blood down his arm. Kravitz is breathing maybe a bit too heavily, but he's not done. He refuses to be done. He looks towards Foster again, bellowing out at him with his scythe pointed towards what was once Lance.

"You're going to-- because it's finished." And before he thinks Foster can stop him, he brings his scythe up again to cut the beast straight down the chest.

Nothing like seeing the decapitated head of a friend fly at you to really make your day better. He recoils from it, stumbling back before focusing on Foster again. Kravitz may have been the one to do it, technically, but who forced him to? Mutilating Lance on top of everything else... he's going to have to be buried in pieces.

There's not much logic or sense in what he does next--he's not thinking about the consequences and what might happen to him, if Foster pounds him into the ground next. He's just that ticked off. Enough to reach down, snatch up a rock, and let it fly. It's the only outlet he has. That, and his stupid mouth. "Cabrón! Stop it! You have to stop now!"

More rocks are bound to follow... and more adult language. Hardly matters at this point, any kids wandering this way will be traumatized one way or another.

The scythe comes down, splitting Lance's florally infested corpse at the neck and past the shoulder, slicing or splintering or just separating ribs and scapulas from their place. There was actually a decent quantity of blood left in that body, and it splatters into the rain of berries and leaves and hydrangea petals--splatters stale and dark and clotted--into Kravitz's face, mingling black with the brighter hues of the raspberries.

The raspberries are also begored, which is unfortunate, as someone would probably have wanted to eat those.

The scythe makes it all the way past Lance's stomach, spilling guts and more into the bushes and Kravitz's lap before the catches on the pelvic girdle--

Foster is distracted, though. By Héctor. Not his rocks, really, although it turns out the skeleton has pretty good aim, and one of them thuds solidly off his skull, another clipping his nose. It's Héctor's words that distract him--he's not actually very knowledgeable about Spanish, but he does know enough. And after the moment of vindication comes the moment of clarity, of realisation. That these two are the first human beings he's found who aren't white or Asian, and... and.

It's not like he wanted to be friends. They never would have gotten along, that much is obvious. It would have been obvious before this. But the fact that it's these two specifically who hate him this way, and how... it takes the excitement out of his voice, the energy, the fun gone in this little mistake.

So his voice drops, becoming flatter, more focused.

"Not yet," he says to Hector and Kravitz both--and true to his word, Lance's corpse isn't done. Its claws dig into whatever exposed skin they can find on the anti-necromancer, looking to draw blood before they find for his throat.

Alright. Kravitz has some goddamn limits here. He's not attacking this way for fun- in his world, enough damage to the corpse will run a necromancer's puppet derelict, without enough power to move itself with dead muscles. This is decidedly not that, and while his patience was tapped long ago, this one's full ass going for his sanity now.

"Oh come the fuck on!" His scythe is still low from the swipe, meaning now he's just resorting to whatever the fuck he has. And what he has is at least some telekenisis. He reaches out with his mind, grabbing the corpse and shoving it away from him with intent to battle Foster for control, because this should have ended long ago. In fact, he'll say as much.

"This is absolutely ridiculous, you know that? Not only have you broken the biggest tennant of the dead you insist on pushing this agenda when you are decidedly done. You know this looks completly-- this is-- what the fuck! Okay! What the fuck!!!"

This is how you know you actually got him, Foster, because the last time he got like this Taako stole a rock from his form and ate it right in front of him. So it kinda takes a lot, but boy, did he manage it.

More rocks thrown so hard it's making his arm ache (which isn't saying much), and more screaming of curses. He's aiming for Foster's face, and he doesn't look as if he's going to stop anytime soon. Now look what's left of Lance, cut down the middle and leaking everywhere. Look what they'll have to bury, before Lance's friends see this. Doesn't everyone have enough troubles without one of their own actively trying to make it worse?

"Are you even listening to us?! You freak! People aren't your playthings!"

He can't win a fight with rocks and yet... there goes another one! Give the man a bridge he can't cross, a lunatic he can't convince, any impossible obstacle to defeat... and he'll probably throw himself at it until he's dust.

Foster did not know it was possible for Kravitz, for a servant of death itself, to just completely lose their shit over something, but Kravitz loses his severity and censure and it's like he loses every bit of cool he ever had or ever could have.

And that is a reaction Foster can deal with.

He doesn't have to lift a finger for Lance's body to be regraved. It's an act of consciousness, of deliberate will, and in the span it takes for him to blink but once, the whole thing falls apart--not literally, exactly, but magically. Which... well, given the way Lance's body has been beheaded, bifurcated, and otherwise broken, is a bit literal. So Lance's animated, mutilated body--all flowers and claws and raw meat and only somewhat putrid organs--collapses all over Kravitz, and Foster is laughing, and it would actually be fairly dramatic, except then a stone strikes him directly between the eyes, just a bit above the bridge of his nose, and he's momentarily stunned. Not by the blow itself, really, but--well, it's hard to get hit in the face with a rock and not take a second or two to recover.

He hisses in surprise and pain, blood in his right eye--the only eye he could actually see out of, because the left is covered by a dense shelf of heavy purple bracket fungus. He ducks his head to rub it out with the heel of one paw, still breaking back out into laughter before recomposing himself, and then losing that composure again--

"That's not a person," he tells Héctor, at last.

Kravitz has all but lost any patience at this point, so when the thing basically disintegrates in front of him, he just screams again. It's decidedly not the scream of someone who is scared, but rather, someone who is so at the end of their rope they're about to break the world in half. He closes his eyes and mouth when he's done to wipe a hand down his face, removing the extraneous blood and viscera from him so it doesn't get in his mouth, gods forbid, and steps around what's left of the body. Even though his gait is not as strong, shoots of pain emanating from his chest and gashes down his arms and torso, he walks with purpose towards Foster, extending his scythe towards him even as he breathes heavy. Once he's made it to swinging range- but not to where Foster can fucking kick him again- he extends his free hand, summoning a large black book covered in runes. It opens itself in his arms as he begins to speak.

"Foster van Denend! You stand here on multiple counts of necromancy, the desecration of the dead, and the reanimation of a corpse. How do you plead?"

He probably shouldn't be bringing on the potential of more conflict, not when he's breathing like this, not when he's already injured. But if he's doing this, he's doing this the fuck right, thank you very much.

"Yes, he--why--Oh, forget you!"

Much harsher than it must sound to either of them. Why don't you go away, Foster. Just... cease existing. Forever and ever. All of this because he's decided Lance isn't a person. Far as Héctor knows, Lance could still be feeling everything that happened to his corpse, and obviously Kravitz is hurting. What's to stop Foster from running off and doing the same thing to everyone else who died from the plague? Yes, forget you.

He doesn't fling any more rocks, though he's listening to be sure the fighting is done with. Damned if he knows why anyone would expect the freak to take a trial seriously, but... at least the corpse is no longer moving. Now he just has to steel himself and pick up Lance's head with his bare hands. He's taking some deep pseudo-breaths as his fingers cross that last half inch of space. This is so, so wrong.

Foster will grant Kravitz this: he certainly carries himself with the power befitting his station. It's... magnificent. A figure capable of recomposing himself, covered in the abhorrent remains of that which he most loathes, driven to edge of control by that which he finds anathema, and still capable of composing himself to his purpose--

Honestly, having the personification of death, the avatar of Creation's only absolute law, in front of him is still a rush that Foster cannot possibly articulate, to be judged by him, for even a single crime, a single instant of his existence--well. It was inevitable, sooner or later, but.

He just has one question.

"Mmmm. Corpse, singular?"

At least the severed head's bountiful array of hydrangeas covers its eyes... but the oversized, tusklike canines prevent its mouth from closing all the way, and it's spattered with blood and pulped raspberries. And is it better or worse that the skin is dry and cold?

Truly, he barely has any energy left. The portaling, the hit, the strength it took to repel the corpse and the blood drying on his legs from where it connected are all proof of that. But the fact that Foster can still find words in all this, find one more realm of defiance, makes his blood boil. Even though he can't fly properly anymore- nor can he construct bodies to enhance his own ability- Foster doesn't need to know any of that. He grits his teeth between pain and exertion and the book disappears in front of him, as does the scythe. In a matter of seconds, he telekineticly lifts his own body, just enough to make it up to Foster's face, and slaps him right across the cheek with the back of his hand.

"I. Have had it up to here--" He even takes the time to put his hand above his head on the good side of his body, for emphasis. "--With your shenanigans today. There is one law, if I can help it, and it is not to disturb the dead. You have made a mockery of that singular rule in a place already lax about the deceased."

He's breathing more heavily than he probably needs to, the face of a man who should not start another fight and is yet prepared to. "So you will never do this again. And I will take you to the Storyteller, right now, for judgement."

Kravitz backs up with a huff, lowering himself towards the ground but looking no less intimidating than when he started. "How. Do. You. Plead."

Don't disturb the dead, Kravitz says. Well, color this second dead guy seriously disturbed. He'd trade every single story he's earned so far for a pair of gloves right now.

...And perhaps something to block out the smell, too.

With the head retrieved, he kneels beside the rest of the corpse, somewhat more off balance than usual. Put a nice thick blanket on his list of things he needs and doesn't have. Seeing the mess up close has him shooting another glare Foster's way. His thoughts are mirroring Kravitz's, unbeknownst to any of them. What does it take? Have some sense. Just accept, plead guilty, and let them get on with the burial.

Foster was wholly unprepared for it--it's not the hardest slap he's ever received (that accolade goes to his super strong vampire girlfriend), but it's enough to hurt, and keep hurting well after Kravitz is back on the ground. There's that second of shock, too, and that presses him into silence, at least temporarily.

The sensations that follow--of fractured bewilderment because his question was completely serious and reverent ecstasy at the moment of sincere rage Kravitz honoured him with--are not exactly visible on his face, especially once Kravitz repositions himself and commands Foster to order.

Foster's expression sobers, even as his heart is actually racing--fast enough to leave him nauseous now--and he answers through a lightheaded mix of dismay and euphoria.

".... guilty."

Maybe thankfully for this whole party, Kravitz is too blisteringly angry to notice that Foster may be enjoying this in some capacity. He's also too used to dealing with corpses for the rot nearby and on him to truly bother his senses, though it's unfortunate that he'll have to clean this himself this time. Still, he keeps his scythe by his side as he tilts his head, not letting Foster out of view, to address Hector.

"I'm going to bring him to the Storyteller's temple, and then I'll be back. You do not need to stay here, but... I would appreciate it, if you did." He isn't supposed to allow mortals to help with his work, could be dangerous having them involved. But he's not the reaper he wants to be, and he's going to need a hand before this is all over, so the least he can do is not drag someone else into it. Kravitz turns back to Foster, using his scythe to point to the Mana Pool.

"Go on. We're going back to Ensö."

"Go on, don't worry. I won't go anywhere."

Just tell yourself he's not exactly a mortal anymore, Kravitz. He eases himself down, sitting in the dirt and settling in to wait.

"...maybe you should bring back some blankets too."

Who Is In Control?

NECROMANCY IS NOT FUN, FOSTER

There is a good chance Foster does not know what fun actually is

you know what? yeah,

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Sometimes I write tags and the background information feels too absurd to be crau canon but it is

this whole thing is fucking absurd and i love it

He'll talk next tag, but also Kravitz you should have known better

yeah he really should have huh

here's the dumbass you ordered

Is anyone here not a dumbass? Anyone? Kravitz? (Bueller?)

nah this is dumbass country. dumbasses only

sorry for slowness!

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CW body horror wrt a corpse, please wash those raspberries before eating

this has just gotten absurd and i adore it

/insert you DENSE motherfucker image again

I.... did not know it was my tag? Notifs?? Hello?????

ITS FINE

ffffffffff sorry!

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