INT - Windgrace Manor, day (Dinah's room)
Dorian had visited local greensingers to get what he could put together to brighten up his sister's room. He'd specified that he wanted no roses whatsoever. Soon, and very soon, imports would be present again, assuring more variety of goods more readily available. Today, Dorian had left Dinah's bedside long enough to get flowers, and to go to see Irene without riding her. He'd apologize to his mare, brush her mane, assuring her he'd be back soon.
He just needed to see to his sister for a little longer. Or however long it took for her to be alert again and back to her own (very eccentric) variety of normal. Since she'd been out, he'd come and visited vigilantly for hours at a time, off and on. Hours in which to consider what Roesler had said about his sister's dealings in the rite. Just now he donned tweed trousers and plain white undershirt as he was still a little tender about the middle where his side was knitting back together after heavy bruising from melee in the tunnels. And as he'd done before he let
Dorian: himself in and would stand or pace in her bedroom, watching over her, hoping desperately that she'd awaken.
Dinah had been re-dressed and put to bed but she had been utterly unconscious, totally motionless until very recently. Upon waking, she hadn't really stirred, remaining stock-still and staring at the ceiling, tears crawling across her cheeks.
Emily, the mother cultist who had defected from Max's cause, was a healer and so she had been in attendance, perched on the pouf in front of the vanity with a watchful eye on the figure in the bed. When Dinah had stirred, even that little bit to open her eyes, the cultist had been there to adjust the pillows, re-adjust the plushies, and retreat once more, content enough to let Dorian do the majority of the attending unless she clearly needed healing.
She was awake again, just as before, staring motionlessly at the ceiling as if catatonic. No tears this time at least. yet.
Dorian noted that his sister was seemingly awake and propriety alone kept him from leaping into her bed and throwing himself all around her. His breath caught and the moment afterward, he'd murr, quietly, "Dinah... you are awake! That is so good!" He was keenly peering at her, noting she didn't move much, clearly this rite had taken a great deal out of her, but seeing those eyes made his heart begin leaping. He'd modulate his tone like he was trying not to scare away a skittish creature to coo, "Now you can tell me what you would prefer. I was trying to decide whether or not to open the window. The most marvelous thing is happening: the harbour is alive again."
Dinah didn't move. didn't speak. Those huge drape curtains had been removed, and when Dorian mentioned the windows, the mother cultist nodded "We took down the curtains to get a little sunlight" she said softly "some fresh air might help too" before the woman stood up and slipped out of the door to leave dorian alone with his twin.
Di remained immobile, other than the slightest slump of her shoulders, a tremble in her bottom lip, and another slow, tear induced blink. Even her breathing was shallow, barely visible at all.
Dorian saw the tear and the tremor upon her lip and felt something heavy start replacing the elation of seeing her awake. But he'd not show that, he'd hurry to the window, fling it open a few inches, while putting a big broad smile on. The air, now free of the mist, was sweet and salty and blessedly not thick. The town was starting to bustle again with the light of day fully upon it and ships able to come in. Only once he'd mastered his expression, only then he'd get nearer, wedging himself between her bed and wall to lean over her and put a warm hand upon her bare shoulder. He could tell there was something wrong, but he'd put on a brave face, an encouraging one as he leaned over with that hopefully reassuring hand. He quietly inquired as he did, "You are back with us again, aren't you, dearest?"
Dinah was mostly buried beneath the sheets, still the heavier ones for tolerating the chill of the mist. With Dorian opening the window, it rustled the flowers a little and her hands flexed just a little beneath where they lay. His hand on his shoulder though caused her to flinch and utter a sharp gasp, turning her face to stare at him. Even under the blankets she was cold, trembling slightly, and her lower lip wobbled once more. She didn't speak, the connection of her mind utterly walled off. instead she hunched down a little further, not to shrug off his hand; she didn't seem to realise it was there beyond the initial flinch, but just to worm herself more underneath the barrier of her bed up to her chin.
Dorian had to observe without the usual connections open between them and while it seemed like she was shying away, he didn't take it personally. Instead, he pulled the covers up to her chin for her. This while peering down with his smile fleeing in favour of showing concern. He'd shove his hands into his pockets then try again, this time without questions, just the gentlest timber of his voice he could muster, "I am glad to see your eyes open. We had a bit of a rough go down there, but it looks like everything is right again out there. It worked. You did an impeccable job of it, as you always do."
Dinah dipped her chin a little to rest on top of the blanket as it was pulled up to her chin. Even as soft as it was, it felt like it were made of concrete but at least it was something of a barrier.
Even having been unconscious for...how long had it even been? she couldn't tell. the flowers were new. The sounds of the town coming to life around them were almost startling and she couldn't help but flinch a little. When Dorian spoke, she didn't reply, swallowing at his words. Another tear slithered down her cheek.
Dorian could remember more than once telling Di that she didn't need to worry, that she'd always come back from her magical workings without losing her mind. He rarely worried that it was true. Just now he'd tell himself it had to be and focus on not making her more worried. So he'd pull a little smile onto his lips while his eyes were wrinkled at the corners with fretting, and continue cooing at her, "Just think, soon we will have everything stocked again, and new records to listen to. All because you were so damned magnificent." Though he had some questions for her, clearly this was no time for them, as she seemed so spooked. He hated to imagine why, though he couldn't really help that some of his thoughts ran in that direction.
Dinah: So damned magnificent.
That she was so damned magnificent.
So damned magnificent.
One of the frames shot off the wall from behind the headboard, shooting across the room and shattering, luckily, against the wall between the french windows. Her hands crept up from beneath the blanket, one hand pressing against her mouth, the other clawing against her temple and she shrieked, expelling every last molecule of air out of herself before drawing in another short, sharp breath to do it again
Niles Roesler had seen and heard it happen, if from afar. Damage from the fight and the shift in energy on the island had made it impossible to see to Dinah then - the shard had reacted to the Mist's departure, after all - but in the aftermath as things settled in the need to check on her rose with the unsettling chaos in his mind. It was louder than his normal connections to the shard would account for, tinted by the intruding whims of other voices and whims. The doctor was unaccustomed to dealing with the call of so many gods, even secondhand as it was.
Niles moved with urgency and ignored all house staff that were in the front yard, less graceful than he normally was as unpracticed telekinesis lifted him into the air and dropped him with stumbling steps and a thud of limbs onto the balcony. Gathering himself he strode to the window, pausing only to get a glimpse of the twins inside and stiffen up at the shatter of picture frame against the wall. Waiting wouldn't do. He reached to yank the window open and if he found it locked, blood oozed itself from his hand to find latch and keyhole to deal with that.
Dorian watched the picture fly and then get dashed to bits, taking his eyes off of his sister for a moment in order to do so. Taking notes of who was there, he'd ball his fists in his trouser pockets and would have gone to greet the man, but then his twin was shrieking her face off. He knew firsthand that the French doors were unlocked because he'd gone out there to smoke earlier, so he pulled a hand out of his pocket and waved Niles in. And if the tall dark haired man wondered why he received such a warm welcome despite appearing all of a sudden, Dorian would be explaining to his sister, "Look who it is dearest, this should please you." Then thinking about how she was in night clothes a moment too late, he'd pull the covers up again as if to hide her from view.
His expression was gone all toward concern now, though it wasn't concern that Niles would have to traverse broken glass. He'd send someone up to clean eventually.
Dinah 's screeches caught and rattled, hoarse from dehydration. Another frame, and another launched from the wall, pinwheeling and shattering to pieces, fractures of wood and glass. The hand that was pressed against her temple clenched, digging her fingernails against her skin. If she could hear Dorian's words through her own screaming, she didn't seem to react either way. Her mind still utterly locked in on itself, golden eyes wide and frantic. The fingers at her mouth stopped the screaming, but only when she bit down on them.
Niles Roesler didn't hesitate to step inside once it was clear the doors were unlocked. Little concern was given to the broken glass on the floor thanks to the protection his shoes offered - something he'd have doffed before entry on any other occasion but there were other priorities to be seen to. He was halfway to the bed when the next frame came flying and if Dorian expected him to dodge or redirect it he'd quickly be surprised. The frame smashed right into the doctor's face, turning his head to the side and sticking bits of glass into his pallid skin. Regardless of the impact and the resulting injuries Niles stepped to the bedside where his eyes went from Dinah to Dorian to bore unblinking into the latter.
"Has she responded to anything?" he asked and reached up to pluck a bit of glass from his face. The doctor was not entirely mentally present either but being a degree of separation from the mess that was Dinah's mind at least kept things coherent. "Said anything? Screamed anything you could understand?"
Dorian was beside himself, a bit, because he didn't know how to help her. It didn't seem like anything he'd said or done so far had much impact. For once in his life, considering Niles' profession, Dorian was sort of relieved to see him, especially when he started asking questions like a doctor would. Wringing his hands for want of taking hold of his sisters, he'd cover for the nervous gesture by cracking his knuckles, and shake his head, pulling his gaze from Dinah to answer, "Nothing. She hasn't said anything, just what you heard. She is alright, isn't she? I mean she will be, won't she?" Though he didn't ask out loud, not exactly, his the rise of his brows over his worried expression asked Roesler to please do something.
Dinah bit down hard onto her fingers to stop the screaming, the other hand at her temple sliding down to cover her face. At least the screaming had stopped, though there was now just a low, terrified keening coming from her. She kicked and shuffled, pulling herself out from underneath the sheets that had become so confining, shaking in every limb and pressing herself back against the headboard, turning herself to push her brow against it. Away from the windows, away from the light that had cost her everything.
Niles Roesler let out a frustrated growl as if just then realizing the mess his face had become. Blood yanked the shards from his skin all at once, a little spatter of it no doubt spattering the sheets and drawing the revenant's attention. "...has she given you dreams? Visions? Either of you?" he asked quietly. Focus went to the spilled blood and pulled it from the fabric in red ribbons that dispersed into the air itself, smaller particles finding their way to Dinah to be drawn in with each anxious breath. Niles did nothing to touch her mental state, not just yet - he focused first on the physical, trying to force a calming of the rapid beat of her pulse once his blood was intermingled with her own. "Do you know what she's done, Dorian?"
Dorian reached for her blankets, again to try to provide some modesty, but realized halfway through the motion that it was somewhat absurd. So, clutching a fistful of his sister's bed linens, eyes on her frantic movements, he'd just stare at her, bereft, listening with hopeful ears to what Niles had to say. He knew he should be offering Niles something to help fix his face too, and he really meant to, but the circumstances were exigent, and Dinah was in a state whose like Dorian hadn't seen since Paris. All at once he took up one of her pillows, pulled the case off of it and offered this to the bleeding man while answering, "No visions, nothing like that, it's like she's-- she shut me out. I am sorry she caught you in the face like that. But yes, of course I know what she did, she sent the bloody mist away." Turning from his sister to look at the man he'd held out the hopefully absorbent pillow cover to, his statement sounded a little less firm and a little more like a question at the end.
Dinah 's breathing was rapid, frantic, sharp little hiccups of inhalations one after the other. The blood found her quickly and at least her breathing steadied. Her fingers dropped from her mouth, bloody across the joints where her teeth had bitten down and she hunched, sliding onto her side and curling her arms around herself. She was still trembling, but at least her heart rate was slowing, steadying. Another low whine escaped her and one of the frames rattled on the wall, but instead of launching itself, it just shattered where it hung, the glass spiderwebbing but holding itself intact by sheer luck rather than effort.
She remained in that hunched, sobbing heap, though at the mention of the mist, the previously damaged, and another of the frames exploded into splinters, shoulders shaking.
Niles Roesler reached out to grab the pillowcase Dorian offered but did not put it to his face, simply gripping it as if he'd not spared a thought for what to do after taking it. "BEYOND that!" he snapped as Dorian mentioned the mist before gathering some composure again. "...do you understand it? The tongue they speak. Did you hear the words she spoke to achieve that?" The third frame shattered and he flinched from the little flare of emotion from the quivering figure on the bed that had caused the damage.
"I won't repeat it but surely she mentioned something of it to you? To your elder brother? Surely ONE of you knew what it was she meant to do when pursuing that ritual?" He ran a hand through his hair and paced, one step away from the bed and right back to it again to speak quietly but no less emphatically into Dorian's face. "I wasn't told. Perhaps if I'd known she planned to pledge her soul to as many gods as we have fingers I might have recommended finding another Rite that would be less damaging."
Dorian wanted to climb into bed beside her, and wrap himself around her, but it didn't seem the thing to do with her flinching away from everything. And it would be a bit unseemly with Niles in the room and decor exploding like flak around the place. He was staring at Niles without comprehending for a long few moments, already shaking his head in answer to some of the questions he'd been asked. He started to answer, his voice halting and hollowing out, "She didn't say that it was different than... wait... what? I don't know anything about magic Niles, I'm the family idiot. But her soul.... she..." The implications of what horrible things that might mean were dawning on him. And denial followed close on the heels of horror, as he said, "Well, there has to be a way out to manage it. A substitution of some sort. A renegotiation." He was shaking his head still when he fell silent, and trying to stiffen his upper lip.
Dinah clenched her eyes shut, her hands curling around her head, shielding her ears. Lips twitched, the rattling start of a word forming but abandoned just as quickly. Whilst the two talked beside her bed, she muttered. Just one word, but over and over again in a little whisper under her breath. 'Zhro'. The eldritch tongue suiting her scream-hoarsened voice. Zhro. Lift the spell. mumbled over, and over and over again.
Niles Roesler tsk'd behind his teeth and turned back to the bed. "They are hungry, insatiable things. Try and take your arm from the mouth of a shark and see how successful you are," he replied only to fall silent as she spoke, listening to the word she repeated over and over. The doctor's brow creased. He had not heard the entirety of the spell, could not recall every detail of its workings. He looked around briefly at the room to seek out notes, journals, tomes perhaps that might hold some clues but logic told him soon enough all of that would be in the tunnels below. Rubbing a palm on the hip of his trousers Niles cleared it of any residual blood before holding it out to Dorian. "Anchor us here, any fashion you're able. The word she's repeating is a command word but I can do little to undo something when I'm unaware of the intricacies. I have to see it - in her head, in her memory."
Dorian looked at the hand that was offered to him for two heartbeats before he gave over his own. He was caught in denial still and he argued with Niles, though there wasn't much oomph to it, "I heard some of it down there, but I don't remember any, and I don't speak it. She really wouldn't do that. She must have had a plan." Even as he said it though, he was remembering just how nervous his sister had been. He didn't want to believe that her soul was in peril, but he'd do just about anything to see her better, thus he'd entwine his fingers with the other man's, and then take a deep breath, close his eyes and think about how soft it was to hold a bunny. That was how he anchored and grounded himself in the moment, likely because his mind wanted to consider anything other than hungry gods who might sunder his sister form him.
"Please, help her," came his ultimate plea, accompanied by pressing the doctor's hand with his own.
Dinah would keep muttering the same word, that undoing word, over and over and over until it became a near buzz on her tongue. She didn't move otherwise, mumbling to herself, eyes closed. At least the furniture had stopped exploding for now.
Niles Roesler stared down at the intertwined fingers in surprise. He'd been expecting something more akin to a handshake but he didn't draw his hand away, simply filing a note into the back of his brain for future reference. The other hand hovered over the quivering bundle of nightclothes and blonde hair that was Dinah Windgrace and he turned his stare to her as he spoke to her twin. "You will see. You'll hear and feel and... experience things beyond comprehension but you must not forget where, when, and who you are Dorian. We'll be lost if you do. Do you understand?"
Dorian nodded, even though he didn't understand. He wasn't really the careful consideration guy so much as the leap to action guy. He didn't think he'd forget who he was, or that it would be all that hard as he was, up until now, largely on the mundane side of all the family business. With a low grumble, he'd answer, "Alright. Lead the way."
He didn't try to crush Niles' hand at all, only held on firmly as if that would indicate that he was on firm standing in his mind as well. Dorian ran hot and his hands were always pretty warm. After taking one long last look at his sister, he'd close his eyes and get ready for whatever magical madness was about to ensue. The rabbit hutch in front of the house was a very local to this short stretch of his life that he'd lived on Callisto, it seemed a good touchstone to him.
Niles Roesler nodded and brushed strands of Dinah's hair away from her shoulder to lay his hand directly on her skin. His hand gripped tightly lest she try to move away, blood forcing itself through his skin to bind like cords around her arms and neck for further prevention of escape. Once secure he shut his eyes and stilled his movements, standing slim and statuesque but for the grip of his hand.
Seconds passed before the subtle motion beneath his skin became visible, wriggling and worm-like. Pale pinkish-white tendrils broke through the surface to embed themselves in Dinah, working their way in to make connections not just between minds but between moments in time. Niles navigated the flood of memory from that moment in the bedroom back to the chaos of the ritual night itself, bearing both his and Dorian's perceptions to witness Dinah's own as she began her incantations.
Dinah would have been thrilled if she were coherent to see the collaboration, even if it were to her own end. Instead she remained quailing against the headboard, shivering as if chilled. She didn't react as the bloodcords tied around her, though when the wriggling tendrils broke the skin she cried out and lashed against them, falling limp against the pillows.
The memories were chaotic, a thick mire of murk and horror. Navigating them backwards, it became clearer the further away from the 'now' it became. In the ritual chamber, she stood before the altar. Her mind of singular purpose, though afraid.
Her duty. The family magus. It had to be her. there WAS no one else.
Drystan would be able to perform the rite if the worst happened to her.
"I, Dinah Windgrace, whose secret name is Astraea, pledge my allegiance to the Elder pathway.
By Aletheia
By Shub-Niggurath,
By Mother Yidhra
By the two snakes,Mlandoth and Mril Thorion
By Nyarlathotep, The black Pharaoh
By that which created the Voids,
By the imprisoned,
By Azathoth,
By the free,
By the King in Yellow,
By the One who Must Not Be Named
<"This dark pledge I seal with my immortal soul">"
And then the whispers began. Promises, threats. secrets in the elder tongue as the power had begun to gather about her, secrets of what could be. what had already happened. The vilest of promises of eternal servitude and exactly what that would entail. the consuming. Each of the gods in turn, All except the Sleeper who thankfully remained asleep but even then the weight of presence was there in his stead. The full Sight of the gods who did not normally notice mortalkind.
All at once.
Dorian somehow knew that he'd spared himself seeing precisely when Niles lay a hand on his sister and that little knit of pique over that knowledge served to further entrench him in who he was. His native telepathy wasn't a finely honed thing, was largely reserved for Dinah for most of his life, but he could let himself take a psychical journey with Niles as his guide. He was sure he could. And it was going apace...
....until it wasn't. The pledge itself was hefty, but what came after was so difficult to process that Dorian didn't realize he was clutching a handful of his hair with the hand that wasn't holding Niles'. He didn't realize when his breathing went uneven, caught and went erratic once more, because his simple mind was trying to understand and forget what he'd witnessed in turn. No. No. "No. Nooooo. No. No no no no no no." When he finally heard himself saying no over and over, he'd stop. But his head wouldn't stop shaking for all of that. Eyes pressed shut, he'd try to remember anything but what he'd witnessed. When bunnies came to mind, that's when a tear leaked out of one eye, but he didn't notice.
Niles Roesler stood as a silent witness for the duration of the rite, never sparing a glance for the fight in the chamber beyond that ritual space. It would not do to glimpse himself there nor would it be helpful for Dorian to see his body apart from his mind so the doctor focused, keeping eye and ear and all perceivable senses on Dinah. They felt the weight of her words, the tingle of energy in the air like electricity, heavy and dangerous and mad.
He didn't expect what followed. They were dragged with her out of that room, through the minds of every fog-addled being on the isle as it was pushed out from the island, out to sea, down under the waves to the monstrosities it had brought along with it. The journey was broken by screams, by the churning of flesh, by the cacophany of voices and demands from the many she'd invoked. It was maddening. If not for Dorian and his own little mantra of No's, for the odd ripple of bunny-soft fur sitting in the grass like a beacon for his brain, he'd have been just as lost as Dinah.
< Astraea! > he called her by the name she had given, naming her for himself and for Dorian both to hear and connect to the mind they were attempting to salvage. < We come by paths opened by Yog-Sothoth in whom past, present, and future are one. We see you. We make a Gate through the madness, through the many. > His voice, his mind directed itself then at the gods that tore at her mind, tugging her to and fro between them. When he spoke again it was in their tongue, known to Dorian in meaning by his connection to his sibling and to Niles in those moments.
< She has given her pledge but in your continued destruction of her mind you create imbalance. By Mlandoth and Mril Thorion it must be equalized, her mind restored, that he soul she offers be whole. We return her to the present to make her whole, and close the Gate to these visions to preserve her gift to you. >
He reached for her, calling and grasping at what of Dinah he could find to connect to Dorian's anchor of a self.
Dinah had fought it, powered through the whispers with every scrap of resolve she had. They had come so far. There were so many that were being hurt. that were dying. She was not a naturally altruistic person, but if she were to stumble and fall now, what would happen would have been far, far worse. The Nameless Mist, second only of all of them, malevolent and crawling but so often thankfully, blessedly ignorant of the presence of mankind. Calling forth the ritual had called forth its attention; the attacks were evident of that, and with it's power trapped in that circle, she had needed as much as she could to counterbalance that unknowable, unstoppable force. It had needed to end. Whatever the cost, or the cost would have been more than their tiny island.
<Still he sleeps. The time of unmaking is not yet come to pass. The one who must not be named is not yet upon us. >
<Unmake the mist>
...The prophecies, the tablets, the grimoires and stars, all had said that the world would be unmade when Azazoth awoken... but the nameless mist was HERE, and NOW, and sending crawling, slithering minions to intercept them...
She was so afraid. but was that...her name, she could hear? Her brother?
And then the winds and shrieks and whispers and cackling, ghastly laughter had taken her from her body whilst the knife of her tail had etched their marks into the soft flesh of her throat, each in turn, her healing making the wound vanished into pale pink marks before she even hit the floor.
They, and she, pushed from her body and spread, reaching across the isles like water dumped from a vase, Seeking out those who had been touched and afflicted by the dark violence of the ever-hungry god summoned on Maximilian's crusade. They absorbed it, drawing it from them and showing her, inflicting each monstrous thought and act they had wished and inflicted before it was on to the next. And the next. And the next.
The mist had been here a while. there were many souls to 'save' before they had even reached the sea, the ships with their doomed crews, the loyalist deep ones who prowled below the surface, and the worst...
there were words. she could hear speech. two voices. The reaching, pale hand plunged into the icy cold waters she had swept through and the ephemeral wreckage of her mind snatched desperately towards them from the memory of one of the drifting ships.
<Mayday, mayday! here, i'm here, please don't go, don't go, please, i'm here, i'm here, i'm not lost, please don't go...>
Dorian had not let go of Niles' hand, had not opened his eyes because he was waiting for a cue that he could. Part of him wanted to with the lingering flashes of the most terrible things that were in store for his sister which kept defying his attempts to bury it all. Bunnivere's slightly uneven ears, and Bouncelot's impossibly fast, impossibly soft feet. They were welcome thoughts over the others. After remembering them, after hearing Niles' well reasoned plea, he was going to tack on one of his own, was trying to find words, when the mayday came ringing through. However faintly. He'd speak aloud, not with his inner voice, "We have to get her Niles, we have to bring her back. I hear her!" His grasp on Niles' hand tightened but not critically, as he urged the man to do something. He didn't know how to project himself into the proceedings, but he tried to tell the doctor with images of a fog bound ship that's what he beheld. He called to his sister from her bedside, "We're here Di! We're coming for you!"
Niles Roesler: A voice. He heard her through the maelstrom of otherwordly voices, cackling and sobbing and speaking over each other in a confusing chorus. Dorian's voice, his mind directed her and he reached further, directing them to that drifting ship and the voice calling for them. There were rabbits bouncing around that hutch in the ruinous dark, one with uneven ears and one with a quick patter of feet, circling like guardians of their gateway home.
< Call her name again Dorian. Her true name, her secret name. The self and soul she gave to them. Astraea, > he directed, his own grip responding to Dorian's with a tangle of blood woven around his wrist. In the present world the coils of red and the worm-like appendages grew as if to consume more of her, to snatch her like a net through the chaos and drag her back to shore as the doctor's mind mimicked it in the mindscape, reaching and grasping, diving through hull and deck to the source of her voice.
Dinah was the fog, the water, bloodstains and rotted remains. Each of them shifted and reached into grasping fingers and snatching hands, finding nothing on each reach.
The ship, empty of people. she'd seen what had happened to the crew, dragged below the water...
fighting through the memories of choking on saltwater and panic, she struggled and pulled. Her physical body jerked and twisted even as the veins delved deeper and another insubstantial hand snatched at the air, closer to them, so close, so close...
< I'm here, i'm here, please...>
Dorian followed Niles' instruction without even a moment's pause, for once. And when he did, he'd use the blunt instrument that was his mind to call his sister's name in a psychic and outward shout, "DINAH!" <DINAH!> He'd keep the recriminations and nightmares for later, for now there was a sister to find. He'd put a knee on her bed and reach for her bodily with his free hand now that it wasn't in his hair anymore.
Niles Roesler realized, finally that the presence of her was in the surroundings. They were not looking for a body but the pieces of her in each gruesome fragment that made up that memory. His hands reached for gore still crusted to the deck, swarms of his blood coiling into the water, through the fog, sweeping at the blood as if to gather as much of it, to call her with the bond they'd forged when she consumed his blood. When he felt her, truly felt her he grabbed her and squeezed, pulled on Dorian both mentally and physically, attempting to yank them back to the real world through the gateway Dorian's mental anchor created - bunnies and fluff. The doctor's mind echoed Dinah's former mantra - Zhro - in an attempt to loose her from the grip of the mad visions and bring her back to the now.
Dinah could feel the scattered parts of herself, gathering. joining and reforming. Bound together by blood and bunnyfluff. as enough of her formed to react, a semi-corporeal hand grabbed at each of them, latching herself to them and she was jolted back into consciousness in her body, vein and blood bound but gasping and coughing, choking as if she'd been submerged in water. She spluttered and swayed, golden eyes tracking to each of them in turn before they rolled back into her head and she thunked sideways against the headboard again. At least this just seemed like a mundane, exhausted passing out rather than the horror show that she had borne before.
Dorian would move some of his sister's hair where it had tumbled once again, that was where his hand had found its way to while his eyes were closed. He had opened his eyes when she began stirring. The first words from his mouth were quiet ones, half mumbled, "What did you do, Dinah? What did you... no." He coughed and then turned to look at the man whose hand he still held.
"No. No Niles. I mean thank you." Dorian's grip on Niles again went a little tighter but after a twitch of tightening he'd let go altogether. His hands flew toward each other, for want of something to do and he'd cup his tightly clenched fist with his other hand. The impossibility of being able to do anything about it was so overwhelming that he couldn't stop arguing with it. "No." He picked up an urn of flowers he'd brought in and exited out the glass doors to the balcony which Niles had come through then hucked the thing at a tree, sending the flowers to pieces and the urn too. While he did this, more tears that he couldn't stop fell from his eyes.
By the time he returned scant seconds later, he'd swiped them away with his sleeve, but he was staying afloat by continuing to try to bury what he couldn't un-know.
Niles Roesler | When the gate closed and she returned to them the connections broke like the snap of a string, blood flinging and nerves yanking from her skin to burrow back into the lanky doctor. He stumbled backward and fell to the floor, twice slamming a fist into the wooden floor as his mind reoriented itself to the time and place they occupied. It had been a taxing effort. Blood beaded like sweat on his brow, running from his hairline and down his neck. It was lucky Dorian had let go or he'd have been dragged to the floor too.
When Dorian returned he had mostly regained his composure though he hadn't yet gotten to his feet. He sat with his back against the foot of the bed, one hand rubbing the site those wriggling nerves had burst from his skin. "See to her. She'll need you. And be gentle, Dorian. Words can be had once she's recovered properly," he said, quiet and tired. For a moment blackish smoke swirled around his form before dissipating and he coughed, shook his head and rested it against the wood. "...I'll leave when I've the energy to move," he promised and shut his eyes.