• Closed • Masks Come Off (Max)

[Rey'na]

85th Vhalar

Oh, how her life had changed.

When Rey'na struck down a member of the Mantis just a day prior she expected her life might come to a swift end, or all of the nice gifts she had been getting to soften her up would grind to a stop and be torn away from her. But it seemed her prediction had been far from correct. Whatever it was the Mantis expected sucking up to her would do they were eager to do it, probably in the hope she would side with them over Sephira. As far as plans went it was theoretically a good one, make Rey'na feel like she was purged thanks to them and then offer her sanctuary from the big bad mages. But the one side effect they hadn't accounted for was the lack of emotions, one they had yet to really pick up on. At least, they didn't seem to realise the full repercussions of it. But they would.

Rey'na would make sure of it.

As she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, Rey was lying back on the bed of her cell. It was overly comfy for a prisoner, but the Mantis had assured her that wasn't what she was anymore. Of course, that didn't mean she could ever leave her cell or request her own meals or even see the sun. But it didn't matter much to her, not really. Right now all she had to do was bide her time. If Sephira didn't come and find her then she would be sent to find Sephira, deemed loyal enough to slaughter Sephira in her sleep. Then the two would come back in the dead of night and murder every man and woman in this blacksite.

When the cell door was approached, Rey'na glanced up and saw the all too familiar face. But there was no anger in her eyes, nothing but an intense emptiness. It was a strange feeling to describe and think about. On one hand she still kept care for people, their names and faces still carrying meaning. Yet the care had nothing to back it but the memories they had together. Which meant Max was defined by the little time they had spent and everything she had done in it. Rey'na wasn't really sure how to feel about that particular predicament. When she had her entire soul, Max had been a woman she regarded with both trust and hate. Now that she couldn't hate, somehow, that left her with trust. Even when she had betrayed her own allies, she had been there for Rey'na, holding her hand and comforting her as subtly as she could. It didn't take long for Rey to figure out what was going on, at least vaguely.

"Glad you could join me. Please tell me you brought food, I haven't been bribed in to loyalty today and I'm starving."

[Max]

Maxine hadn't been back down to the dungeon of the Mantis blacksite since she helped the Order rip the Spark from Rey'na's very soul. She found other ways to busy herself rather than return to that cell. Mages to hunt, bottles to empty, and joints to smoke just to name a few. The last two activities were heavily indulged following the night she was complicit in the torture, especially since a less-than-friendly confrontation from a certain Special Assistant followed mere breaks afterward. The bruises and scrapes littering her skin suggested she had been in quite the scrap recently, but her ever-guarded expression as she descended down the stairs suggested anything but weakness.

It wasn't the ex-convict's turn to watch the prisoner. No one dared fight the battle when she informed the ashcloak whose turn it was that it would be in his interest to swap responsibilities that night. Rebekah was quite the ambitious woman. So long as Maxine, a capable mage hunter, remained loyal and under her thumb, there was little she wouldn't do to ensure the dark-haired spitfire got what little she asked for. Her love for Maxine was caught on quick by the other members of the Order. In this endeavor they picked their battles wisely. For now the newer member had earned just enough credibility to keep anyone from hounding her about her few exercises of power.

Walking down the cell block, the ex-convict wanted to be anywhere but here. Each step brought her closer to a place and a time she did not wish to revisit. Her jaw clenched as she came out of the shadowy hallway to peer into Rey'na's cell. With the bed and the spear, one would think the woman was a prisoner of war rather than someone whose very essence was manipulated trials ago. Maxine steadied her caramel eyes upon the vacant face of the once-mage. She searched her eyes for a moment, trying to get some sort of read on her. Instead there was just...nothing. Nothing at all. Her throat tightened.

Remember why the fuck you're here.

"I figured you might be," Max answered as she approached the cell with a tray in hand. In a trill the lock snapped open and she slipped inside the cushy confines of the convert. She shoved the door back closed behind her and lowered the plate of a modest meal of chicken, vegetables, and bread at the foot of the bed. The mage hunter backed away as soon as her delivery was made. A part of her willed her to just yank the door back open, leave the dungeons, and forget the young Element altogether. Instead she leaned back against the far wall and watched the woman. Her expression stayed as opaque as Rey'na's.

"I heard you've taken well to your training," she cautiously explained with folded arms. "The story goes that you tore a woman playing the unfortunate role of Sephira apart. With "insect legs", too. If I didn't know better, I would've accused the person who apparently watched was high as shit. But I do know better." The particular Mantis with the big mouth was no idiot. He was a straight edge, never to be found with so much as an ale outside of his duties. When he recalled the scene, Maxine couldn't shake the look in his eyes. Fear, admiration, and eagerness. What a monster they had made he couldn't wait to unleash upon the mage-ridden world.

"Guess that means you're ready," Maxine pushed herself off the wall to take a few steps closer toward Rey'na's bed. Her caramel eyes darkened as her mind drifted. Her ominous voice echoed about the cell, her next words as deliberate as they seemed final. "Ready to come with me, take that little stick of yours, and run Blackwood through. How easy you know it'll be. She'd never expect it from you. The look in her eyes, just before she goes?" Another hard, decisive step toward the woman the Mantis was grooming to turn traitor. "I'll bet it will be absolutely priceless."

[Rey'na]

As Maxine entered the room with food Rey'na glanced, watching her movements. Yet despite her alleged hunger she didn't take a bit of anything, instead opting to meet the eyes of Maxine instead and listen to what she had to say. The woman had always been interesting, but now that there was no emotion to mask it then the interest only grew. Maybe it was the hardened look she gave, or perhaps it was her adoration for her own well-being over anyone else. Whatever it was about her it was unique and different. Rey had a lot of time to think about it, all things considered - and Max had been at the forefront of her mind for the past few trials. Not that it was surprising after what had happened.

As Max spoke of the death of Sephira and how Rey would cause it her eyes stayed as blank and empty, head almost tilting in curiosity. But Maxine wasn't stupid. There was nothing that could persuade Rey'na any different to that. Which meant approaching a woman that had slaughtered your comrades, claiming it was a good thing and outright offering for her to slaughter the only friend she had ever found in Scalvoris? Not a chance. It wasn't like her at all, not from Rey's experience of it. Besides, Max had been kind to her in subtle ways. It would take more than an outright promise of bloodshed, specifically their shared ally, to think Max's subtlety and care had gone out the window.

With a small sigh, Rey'na stood up and looked over to Max who had come close to her in her monologue. When it appeared the Mantis woman was finished, Rey'na turned to face her and kept the simple look across her whole face. As she did the insect legs grew, slowly appearing over and under each shoulder to greet Max's sight. "Both you and I know that me killing a Mantis and me killing Sephira are two different things with two very different outcomes" she said simply. If her assumptions about Max were wrong, she would probably die for them - if not go back to the torture. But she was tired of waiting around this cell and pretending to be a loyal dog. At the very least, she could show Max what she was really thinking. As her voice carried across the room, Rey's insect legs twitched eagerly.

"Unless you believe that me killing one of my captors was a way of proving loyalty. But I trust you to be smarter than the rest of them. If anything, I can't deny you that" she shrugged and took a small step closer to Max before turning slightly, showing off her new appendages. "What do you think? Fun, aren't they? It was a gift from my mother, you probably heard of her" she explained and moved one leg slowly to run down the wall, the sharp tip leaving a small marking in the stone. Without any further explanation, Rey turned towards the ex-convict and looked her dead in the eyes, a small glimmer of feeling showing through, showing her trust without any hesitation.

"They want me to kill Sephira. Let's assume I do, stab her with my stick and end her life before she can even cry at the betrayal, suck it out of her. Am I supposed to believe they do anything but weaponize me further, if not just kill me?" she asked and finally stepped close to Max, not an ounce of aggression in her tone. Cautiously, as if making an offer, Rey'na placed a hand near to Max's shoulder and met her eyes. "I killed that woman so I would have one less to slaughter when I break out of this cage, one way or another. I don't want to have to do the same to you."

"But I don't think I'll have to. Will I?"

[Max]

The mention of her murder, the mere discussion of the task the Mantis was inevitably setting before her, none of it seemed to resonate with Rey'na. She just continued to look at the mage hunter with her void-like eyes as though none of it meant a thing. Max raised a brow as the bizarre insect legs she'd heard about indeed made their dramatic appearance. Like strange, deformed wings they extended out from the woman's shoulders grimly. She uncrossed her arms all the same. This Rey'na was not the one she'd mocked and taunted at Kura's cabin. She certainly wasn't the girl she caught crying herself nearly into a panic outside the Scalvoris team's temporary place of stay either. Whoever she was now, she was impossible for the manipulative ex-convict to read. That, coupled with tales of her behavior, made her dangerous.

As Rey'na moved on to reveal the flaws in the Mantis plans, claiming openly and boldly that she planned to do anything but their bidding, Maxine found her gaze studying the strange appendages that twitched every so often. She tilted her head slightly. The fighter in her was already trying to do the math. How exactly did their anatomy work? How fast could they move and strike? Was there anything they could do beyond anything that could be superficially gauged? She snapped back at mention of Rey'na's mother. The last time there was any talk of mothers had been the night Max took the teary-eyed woman out for drinks and ambrosia. Truth be told, she wrote the story off. Yet, given the sight of Rey'na's new cosmetics, she was quickly gathering that whatever genes she got from her mother weren't very...mortal.

"Looks like your mommy issues continue," she commented while one sinister leg scratched down the stones. Evidently, they were as sharp as they looked. "I'm guessing you two patched shit up. Touching." The prisoner turned, and for the briefest moment, Maxine thought she saw something in the way Rey'na looked at her. Something small, but something all the same. Before she had a chance to decipher just what it was, her fists were already clenching at her sides at the hypothetical Rey'na spit back at her. Max was frozen in place even as this unpredictable, immortal-touched woman advanced. Her caramel eyes watched closely as Rey'na's hand lowered toward her shoulder. Max stiffened. The last time such a gesture had been made, it was to ball fingers up in her ashcloak while the room was deafened by screams. Perhaps Rey'na's accusation doubling as a threat would've had more of an effect, had the ex-convict's mind not been drifting to the last time she was standing in this cell.

She's trying to expose you. You can't trust her.

Without warning, Maxine snapped with no regard for the unsettling emptiness of her target or the looming shadow of insect legs. She snatched the hand away from her shoulder, bodying the woman toward the closest wall to brace her other forearm across Rey'na's throat. Her eyes flared with warning and her lip curled. Self-loathing to lay another hand on the woman began to consume her, but she was no stranger to the emotion now. She could stomach it a few more bits if necessary. And if she needed to do something more? Well. She'd learn to live with that too.

"Bold move for a girl trapped in a cage," Maxine growled, her forearm pressing just a bit further against the woman's windpipe. "Playing to the plan is the only thing keeping you alive. They can still make an example out of you. String you up, burn you, drop you down on your knees before an axeman. You're the simple solution to an alternative packed with casualties. How ungrateful they'd think you are." She smirked then, raising a brow at the presumptive woman. "Just what the fuck do you think is stopping me from walking back up those stairs to tell the Order of your treachery?"

[Rey'na]

"I wouldn't say patched up is the right word. Found some mutual...interests" she replied, eyes glancing over her shoulder to the two legs. It was a strange sight for even her, a four limbs she had full control over, all of which could help tear a man limb from limb. Growing it at will had proven to be an interesting experience for the young Mortalborn, no repercussions for a power that offered much more than just a weapon. "With or without my mother, I wouldn't lose these legs. All the better. If they're the key to the Mantis trusting me by slaughtering their own, maybe they are worth keeping anyway."

Yet the rest of her sentences had gone down much worse than the rest. As her hands rested on Max's shoulder for the briefest moment the thoughts of what she could do ran through Rey's head, what was smartest. If she really wanted to those four legs could slam down on the woman and puncture something important. Or perhaps she could coat herself in a paralytic venom and leave her vulnerable, make her fall over weak and do what she wanted to her. All of it could happen, all of it had pros and cons. But even as her body was pressed against the wall, Rey's cold and calculating expression remained away from her sinister side. Even if she could kill Maxine, which she imagined was possible, why would she? Sign her own death certificate and end the life of the only person she trusted in this Blacksite?

As Max snarled and snapped in her face, Rey kept her eyes as blank as she felt. A small wince spread across her as Max put her arm against Rey's throat, before the Mortalborn fell silent and listened. Once Max was done, Rey kept her pause intentionally long, a few extra trills of silence before she spoke again. "I'm not stopping you. If I was afraid you would go and tell them, you only have two hands to try and stop four legs and two arms. That maths doesn't add up well in your favour. But here you stand, hand to my throat. Not a single leg or arm has tried to stop you" she replied, not once breaking eye contact with Maxine. If she wanted trust she had to earn it, somehow.

"I wouldn't dare assume why you won't go and get me killed. It would make Sephira an easier target too, for all of you. One less person to worry about, just like the blonde girl I tore open without thought" she admitted, raising both hands slowly and holding them up to either side of her, not holding Max's arm or attempting to struggle. If she showed resistance she showed hostility to the one woman she didn't want hostilities with. Instead, she stayed as still as she could before offering Max more words. If this was what it took to live through this and to keep Sephira safe, so be it. If one of the two had to happen, then at the very least Sephira would have her chance to run.

"So do it. We never got along, me and you. I was green first, weak the next and a failure finally. Every day we spent I made mistakes, be it crying and letting myself be weak or starting the events that got me and Sephira on a harsh watch. I failed. I was sent, a new Element with potential, to Rynmere for one mission - and here I stand in a cell. Which means I failed" she whispered quietly, loud enough for Maxine to hear. As she spoke, despite the blank expression across her face, what little emotion she felt came back in the form of one tear. Slowly the one tear fell, the only sign of what Rey'na had been before sliding down her face.

"The last thing Sephira told me, before I was put in this cell, was to stop making excuses. I didn't want to, nobody really wants to admit to their mistakes" she sighed with what breath she could muster before lowering her hands in defeat, the insect legs drooping slightly. "But if this is how I admit my mistake, so be it. I fucked up and it got you, her and a lot of people in a situation that could kill them all. I hurt people more than any Spark removal ever could, more than anything I went through ever could. But despite losing what feeling I had left?"

"Letting Sephira Blackwood down will always haunt me. Because I love her - and because no torture will ever take that away."

[Max]

It was in Rey's silence that Maxine slowly began to realize her mistake just before it was voiced aloud. As much as it had infuriated the Old Man, the marked woman had always been an emotional fighter. Anger drove her reckless advances, and it was that belligerence in which she applied herself completely that she'd come out alive. That violent rage was not usually blind. It was combat-oriented and focused on the finer details she could exploit and destroy in her opponent. The trouble was, as hard as she tried, she couldn't see Rey as that: her opponent. Maxine didn't trust the woman as far as she could throw her. Yet neither could she really apply that forearm well enough to cut short her breath. This new and unforeseen blindspot had driven her directly into a place of disadvantage. They both knew it.

Maxine's hand dropped to her waist to procure one of her throwing daggers. She bore the point against the soft bit of flesh just below Rey'na's sternum as the woman pointed out her metaphorical high ground. It was the best, most instinctive idea she had as far as evening out the scales went. More fury swelled in her eyes. The prisoner's hands raised but the dagger didn't move from its mark. Twice now she'd threatened her life whether it was her intention or not. Max did not know this woman anymore. She could not trust this woman. Was she in defiance of the Mantis as she claimed or playing the part of a gifted, deceptive pawn on their behalf? She couldn't be sure, and so her own mortal threat remained in kind. Her body position stayed where it could engage the prisoner fatally if it came to it. But she listened. And she couldn't look away.

Take the bait. Do it. Do it like she challenged. What better way is there to ensure she never executes the Order's plan? Turn her in. No, kill her yourself. Right now. You'll never have to think twice about where her loyalties lie again.

Her tight, sinister stare caught sight of that single tear as it cascaded down the hardened woman's face. Her own facade subtly slipped. Could it be there was still something behind her statuesque condition? Was it possible Maxine's actions hadn't resulted in tearing absolutely every bit of the girl they'd known away, contrary to the overwhelmingly true accusation Sephira had thrown in her face? Her forearms slipped to the top of Rey'na's clavicle, bracing the prisoner firmly against the wall while her dagger's tip threateningly pressed. Just the slightest movement. Just the slightest jerk of a muscle and it could be done and over with before she thought too long about it.

The dagger moved with rapid precision. One moment it was pressed to the woman's solar plexus, and the next it was neatly tucked back from whence it came beneath her ashcloak. She placed her hands on either side of Rey'na's face, suspiciously studying the sincerity she seemed to be offering with difficulty. The veil fell from her expression, the anger dissipating with it. Her shoulders drooped with her next exhale. Sorrow filled the gaze she trained on the woman.

"Rey, no one will ever put a hand on you again," Max promised, locking eyes with her teammate so that even if she could not feel herself, she could perhaps detect the resolution in what she offered. "Not one of them. Not even me. Understand?" She dropped her hands from Rey'na's face to rest them on her shoulders instead. "We're going to get you out of here." Her mind reeled as it worked to come up with a plan on the spot. She wanted her freed. Right this trill. Her brow furrowed, for as ugly as it was, her deceptive mind quickly concocted a new betrayal that would fit the job. "Your food is safe. Eat it. Rest up. Try not to do anything stupid." That threatening look flared back up on her face. "But if you meant nothing of what you said. If you lead us into an ambush and get someone killed...I will hurt you in ways that the Mantis can't even imagine."

[Rey'na]

Emotions were a strange thing, losing them even more so. Maxine was a woman driven by them, constantly feeling something. Whether it was a vicious anger, a full pride or whatever emotions but the two Maxine often showed were going through the ex-convicts head. Rey'na had been the same for a while, though her anger and pride were replaced by bitterness and pain. It had been the worst place she had ever been in. After her emotions had been removed with her Spark and Max had been there to help her, albeit subtly, Rey'na had wondered if Max was the same. Slowly tearing herself apart with her own feelings, trapped in a cycle she didn't care to get out of. It wouldn't surprise her either way.

As the conversation continued Max pressed a blade to Rey's neck, the same unmoving look in her eyes despite it. A knife wasn't going to put her off what she wanted to do here. If her attempts at proving herself as loyal were futile at least she could say she tried. Nobody could expect more than that, not after everything she had been through since entering the hell they called Rynmere. It would have been a hard enough journey without the past however many trials had passed. Without a window it wasn't easy to keep track of how long she had been here, same as it had been when Moseke kept her locked in a hole in the ground. But she had no hope then, nobody to believe in. Now she had two people, one of which had been there for her day in and out, even if the last time they spoke had ended sourly.

The other held a knife to her throat.

Yet the blade was put away immediately, Max's demeanour changing. When the woman placed her hands comfortingly on Rey'na's cheeks the young Element cracked. Her straight face fell in to a slight frown and the few tears she could muster filled her eyes, relief written over her features. Something inside of Rey'na cared, what little of it could. Even without the joy she felt from her friends company, without the sadness she felt when she was alone - she cared. Which meant the promise of being free and seeing Sephira and Max again, outside of a cell with all forgiven? It was all she had wanted to hear since she got in here. Even with Max's final warning.

Despite the last threat Max made, Rey'na let her instincts act. Without a second thought her arms wrapped over Max, hugging her for just a few trills. Once it was done the Mortalborn stepped back, wiping her own eyes and hardening her face, nodding with a determined glance to her ally. "I expected nothing less from you, Max" she assured, the smallest glimmer of confidence in her features. Giving Max some space, Rey'na moved back to her bed and looked to the food, sitting down and giving Max one final look.

"Good luck - and thank you. You're a good friend, Max."

[Max]

More tears spilled from the Element's eyes and Maxine's resolve hardened. Even this small, fleeting glimmer of the Rey'na she'd suffered before the unfortunate mage burning was enough to wound the fortitude of Maxine's original plot. She could not leave her here to rot any more than she could initially give up the blacksite's location to Sephira. The voice of reason willed her not to give into the trifling nature of emotions best asphyxiated from her being. The safest course of action was to do nothing at all, to proceed with her original plan and leave one casualty behind. That was what she was supposed to do. Yet every trill Rey'na remained in this cage, the anger that was so near to her core threatened to tear this whole Mantis stronghold asunder. Consequences be damned.

She flinched when she felt the Element's arms suddenly wrap around her body. The instinct toward self-preservation she'd developed in Slags Deep suggested at first the gesture was initially an attack. The ex-convict took a breath to steady herself and beat back the defensive response tensing in her muscles. Then, despite herself, she found her own arms encircling the imprisoned woman's torso. The hug was quick and tight, and the few trills it lasted was all Maxine could endure to keep from cracking completely within the comforting embrace she did not deserve.

The marked mage hunter knew what to do now. She knew how and where; what weaknesses to exploit and which strengths would remain a robust challenge. Already the possibilities of each scenario were running through her conniving head. This was not the time to break. This was not the time to feel. To do what must be done, she had to return to ice and stone. Physical distance from the woman she wronged was a step in the right direction. A deep exhale and she envisioned the emotions she felt here in this cell exiting her body like air through her nose. The hardened mask returned. The mage hunter tightened the strings of her ashcloak.

"No I'm not, Rey," Maxine replied to the prisoner seated on the bed as she reached the cell door. "Don't thank me. Don't ever thank me. Not for this." She pressed through the door and gently closed it behind her, turning the key to lock her teammate firmly in her confinement. Caramel eyes peered through at the Element one last time before she turned and made her way toward the stairs that would take her out of the dungeon. Her thoughts were consumed with nothing but the execution of one final betrayal.

[Kasoria]

Review Rewards

Name Rey-Rey

Points awarded: 15

Knowledge:
Discipline: Stay calm to ease someone's anger
Discipline: Letting yourself feel is ok
Discipline: Living without emotions is still living
Discipline: Admitting to mistakes
Discipline: Keeping cool with a knife to the throat
Endurance: Slammed in to a wall

Name Maxxie

Points awarded: 15

Knowledge:
Acting: Feigning Indifference
Acting: Playing the Traitor
Acting: Breaking Character
Acting: Returning to Character
Deception: Reverse Psychology
Interrogation: Demanding Answers at Knife Point
Tactics: Planning a Jailbreak
Tactics: Assessing Physical Attributes of an Enemy

Notes:
So, I edited one of your Lores, Rey, because just having the blade at your throat wouldn't count as Endurance. Having the nerve to keep cogent and not freak out while it was there, though...

This was an interesting if sometimes confusing read from you two fine writers. Lots of plots within plots, lots unseen and unsaid, often conflicting with the words spoken. I had to squint and almost let my coffee go cold to follow everything going on... but it was worth it! Here's hoping this is a messily glorious as it should be, when all machinations come to a head!

Your review request is here. Also, please indicate on your request thread that this has been reviewed by using the button below. Thanks!

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