Siren Song

[Samantha McManus]

"It's gotten worse, because of course it has."

[Leo N. Eskandari]

With Katarina's attention on others, Leo found the willpower to make a dash to try and snatch the orb. If he could get it, they had a chance.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina gracefully turned towards the charging Leo.

"Stumble and fall," she ordered the mostly naked beast man, as Leo would find his toe caught on a particularly jutty-out rock, sending him face first into the wet, muddy sand about a foot away from Katarina.

[Miriam Bell]

"It's gotten worse, because of course it has."

"I can tell. That man is just full on nude." Miriam comments as Leo charges forth and briefly draws her attention. It doesn't take a magical orb or Siren command to make her look at the woman in the scale-dress instead. "Is this always how these things go?" It's almost easy to forget she's not entirely in control of herself right now. A kind of detached casualness about acknowledging that Katarina is not someone she'd want to antagonize. Maybe that's just how the magic works in aligning her thoughts but it doesn't feel unnatural.

[Toshiro Narumi]

As Agent Eskandari took a face full of mud, Tosh shifted to the small, sneaky Ennio. He quickly gathered up rainwater and fired off a powerful stream at the orb, hoping to knock it from her grasp.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina gasped for a moment, clutching at the orb. She lost control of it for maybe a second, but was able to double-clutch and retain control, bringing it in tight to her chest as she held on.

She glared at Ennio, and pointed at Wyldclay. "Ride 'em, Cowboy," she commanded, as the Wyldclay remained on his hands and knees.

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't suppose you can be convinced to not try to rip my face off if I attempt to fix this?" She asks sidelong to the fury.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Ennio abandoned his efforts and jumped onto the Wyldclay's back and proceeded to ride him like a horse. "Yah! Giddy-up!"

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"It... does need fixing." Ryn concedes, though that's not really an answer one way or the other. She does, however, not look like she's in the best shape. The injuries to her face run deeper than they seem and there's a frailty of spun glass to her she's hiding. She broke an oath and tried to defy her curse, it's testament to her resilience and age that she's still recognizably her, but her essence is unmoored, in flux.

[Samantha McManus]

"Maybe an olive branch is in order."

"I gave you those eyes. It's been too long since you've seen for yourself."

Unseen by most, but certainly noticeable to Miriam and Ryn, two birds break from the flock, and try to catch the strands of the fury's curse in their beaks.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The Wyldclay let out a whinny as Ennio kicked them, hard, in the ribs to spur them forward -- just be glad he wasn't actually wearing spurs, Fae!. Rearing back for just a moment, they proceeded to bound forward, towards the sands and away from Katarina.

[Leo N. Eskandari]

Leo had not been ordered to stay down, and so suddenly leaped like a cat in an attempt to tackle her to the ground. Granted, a big, naked beast man tackling an unarmed woman isn't the best optics, but needs must and all that.

[Erynies Adrasteia]

The Morrigan's ravens and eyes certainly don't have the nicest of connotations and benevolent or not, the process is unpleasant. The spectral birds descend on Ryn's face and she curls her face towards the ground as sharp beaks snap and pull. She manages not to scream, if only to not upset Katarina, but as the ravens take to the air again, clutching and swallowing a blue eye of cold flame, her body unclenches and she braces her hands against the ground to catch her breath.

[Katarina Kane]

Leo had not been ordered to stay down, and so suddenly leaped like a cat in an attempt to tackle her to the ground. Granted, a big, naked beast man tackling an unarmed woman isn't the best optics, but needs must and all that.

Katarina let out an oof as the much larger Leo slammed into her, the bestial agent bringing the Siren down to the muddy sand. The orb, for a second rolled out, but Katarina was able to stretch out a hand and hold on to it.

She looked back behind her at Leo pinning her down -- at all of Leo pinning her down. "Agent! Go and hide your shame," she commanded.

[Samantha McManus]

"No easy way to do that, going on or coming off..."

[Toshiro Narumi]

Without any actual reigns, Ennio took a while to figure out how to guide the wild Wyldclay. He ultimately decided to use a compact "rope" of water around the neck to keep the fae under control. He came around, riding straight for Katarina and twirling a lasso of water over his head. As Leo scrambled off of her, the tiny cowboy attempted to lasso the orb.

[Erynies Adrasteia]

Ryn lifts her head to look at Sam. Well, not so much look as turn her charred eye-sockets towards her. She'll heal, but at least for now she's blind. But some of her strength seems returned and she's free to no longer look at Katarina.

"I will not thank you, Phantom Queen, but you... have my respect."

[Katarina Kane]

Without any actual reigns, Ennio took a while to figure out how to guide the wild Wyldclay. He ultimately decided to use a compact "rope" of water around the neck to keep the fae under control. He came around, riding straight for Katarina and twirling a lasso of water over his head. As Leo scrambled off of her, the tiny cowboy attempted to lasso the orb.

To say the Wyldclay was not amenable to being led around by reigns strapped around his neck would be an understatement. No mere stallion; Oberon's chosen struggled against Ennio with every tug and yank on the rope.

But this wasn't Ennio's first rodeo!

...OK, it may have literally been Ennio's first rodeo, but shapeshifting function follows shapeshifting form to a certain extent, and Ennio knew how to ride, from the tip of his invisible hat to the soles of his non-existent boots. Given time, he may have been able to break this Wyld stallyon and show it who was really boss in these here parts, but for now, he could at least get it riding out of control in the proper general direction.

Ennio galloped towards Katarina, twirling his lasso, and throwing it with surprising accuracy considering the circumstances. The orb was an ambitious target compared to the siren herself; small round and slippery (especially in the rain!) does not make for a great target in the grand scheme of things. That being said -- it's a mentally controlled rope of pure water, so Ennio knew what he was doing. The lasso wrapped around the orb and, just for a second, cinched tight. It was attainable, after all!

"Release the orb, and go tie up the war goddess," Katarina shouted out, giving Ennio a task that she hoped would be a little above his pay grade.

"And you..." she said to Wyldclay, noticing the Hound beginning to stir in the distance. "Go fuck yourself."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The Wyldclay, with Ennio still on his back, broke off on all fours, headed towards the hound and conveniently away from the camera.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Oh, hell no!" Ennio barked as he leapt away from the soon-to-be X-rated fae. But he followed orders, rounding on Sam with a fresh aqua-lasso.

"Sorry Sammy, orders are orders," he said as he whipped it her way.

[Erynies Adrasteia]

Fortunately(?) for Ennio, Ryn is back on her feet, moving with mere mortal swiftness and sliding on the muddy sand and right through the path of the lasso, raking her fingers through the rope of water and making anything past that point collapse into regular puddles.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Now, why'd you go and do that, Miss Ryn? Nobody said I had to keep her tied up," the ferret-man said with a smart-ass smirk. As he spoke, he crafted a new rope. "Now, be a darlin' and let me get this command out of my system."

[Samantha McManus]

"By all means, Tosh..."

Sam's hair washed to white, and she stepped forward with her wrists out as if ready to be cuffed...

...as a black-haired version stepped out from behind and circled around, a redhead resembling the original doing the same in the other direction.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Much obliged." With a Western flourish, Ennio tied up the willing Sam. But it was with water, and she became untied the second he dismissed the rope. Gotta be more specific, Katarina.

[Miriam Bell]

"Should I be jealous?" Miriam smirks. So far she's avoided the direct attention of the Siren and she's damn well not going to unless she has good reason. Granted, the ramifications of this metaphor-overloaded space could be who knows what. Turning the battlefield into a maze is always an option but that just gets them away from Katarina and not any closer to the Orb...

[Katarina Kane]

As for Katarina? Well, she didn't seem to be particularly interested in stopping anyone who wasn't trying to directly stop her. She wasn't going on the offensive; it was almost a form of judo, using the attacks of her enemies against themselves. Besides, why would you attack the people who are supposed to be watching you? Seeing you? Loving you?

Katarina stretched her arms out in the rain, looking up into the sky and letting the water fall on her face.

"Up," she said, and slowly, her feet began to leave the ground.

[Miriam Bell]

That is probably a problem. And yet when she looks at Katarina she still can't shake that plain adoration. Threatening to fly away. Perhaps even out of sight. Something adored and coveted, something precious. She hates tapping into what are obviously issues, possibly even traumatically so, but the thing that immediately springs to mind is to use Katarina's own feelings of being trapped and shuffled around to perform. She pulls them out and forms them into thin golden pillars that rise from the ground around Katarina, seeking to rise high enough to come together above the Siren in a gilded cage.

[Katarina Kane]

That got the Siren's attention, as she turned to glare daggers at Miriaim.

"Not being caged. Not ever again. Not by the agency, not by the StB, not by PolyGram. And certainly not by you. OPEN."

That should have been enough to spring the cage wide open...but it didn't. Whatever control Katarina wished for? While she seemed to be able to affect reality just fine, this cage...wasn't real. Not in the same way, at least. It was created out of her own mind and, almost tautologically, couldn't be defeated by her own mind. The pillars remained frustratingly present.

Well. There was more than one way to scale a siren.

"Open this cage," she said to Miriam, giving the telepath her full focus.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam tries her best to sink her mental claws into the crack that is Katarina's vulnerability but this is not a contest of mental determination. Not really. She instead grasps at her more spiteful thoughts, things she's worked hard to leave behind. It hurts the progress she's made to dredge up the kind of blind defiance that once saw her try and defend Trinity and argue with Sam, but that's what she needs right now to try and throw the strongest thing she has to try and counter the magic compulsion.

And it only slows down the cage forming a door and beginning to swing open.

[Leo N. Eskandari]

Suddenly, a very large rock flew at the opening door. Leo had fashioned the remnants of his coat into a makeshift loincloth and took the opportunity to attack from a distance, hoping to bend the door and keep it from opening.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina flinched back as the rock slammed into the door, bending it and, at least for the moment, keeping Katarina trapped inside her gilded cage.

"You do not cage something simply because you do not understand it," Katarina said, placing one hand on the opening door and pushing it open. "No one should hide who they are...not behind bars, or walls, or...or dark glasses or rules or propriety. If one can not be true to themselves, who can one be true to?. When the whole world pushes you in a box...flatten that box. Stand upon it. Make it your stage. And make the whole world listen.

Her hands wrapped around the bars, twisting.

"A Siren is not...can not be controlled by Man. Those who would seek to wrest control from me shall be dashed against the rocks. And you don't want to be dashed against the rocks, do you, Miriam? Do you, Mr. Eskanderi? What are your truths? Tell me, and I can share it with the world, and make them listen."

[Leo N. Eskandari]

He gripped his head in pain as the sheer weight of his truth came crashing against the rocks of his being. It was so much that it nearly crushed him. Until then, the memory of who and what he is had been long buried before the sand was washed away.

"My... truth..." he stammered, his eyes wide as he walked towards them. "My truth. My truth is that I never quite fit in. I was angry, rebellious, and sometimes downright beastly. I never knew why. I thought maybe I was just fighting through whatever trauma left me an orphan. I thought I was over all that when I became this and had start all over."

"The truth I had forgotten and denied is that the idol contained no spirit, only its stolen power. I am as much ridden as I am the rider. I am Leo Eskandari. I am the boy whose mother secretly named him Liam before being ripped from her arms. I am Urgamanu, forgotten child of Tiamat, king of the twelve, beast of ruin, devourer of gods." The last word came out in the voice of his altered state as Ryn had heard.

"But perhaps the truth you wanted was why I resist your efforts to be free. That truth is that I'm not resisting that. The Russians, the Label, PATHS... They can all suck it for treating you like a tool to their ends. I resist because I don't want this for me, for the world, or for you. Do you really want to be a prisoner of your own desires, doomed to the corruption of ultimate power?"

[Miriam Bell]

A year ago, the feelings welling up inside Miriam and seeking to spill from her mouth would have broken her. And even now she starts to shake, words coming out choked. "I'm afraid I'll be alone! Is that what you want to hear? That sooner or later everyone will leave me and I'll be left with only this empty void inside of me that I can't fill. And if I e-ever show it they will run all the faster or be swallowed up. The truth is that I don't even know if there's any real person left beneath all the walls and barriers and the real me has long since run like sand between my fingers, bled out into everything else around me l-l-like my s-sister did..." she sobs and the gilded cage crumbles behind Katarina. In it's place thin and thorny roots spring from around Miriam and begin oozing a muddy bog into existence in which to lurk unseen beneath the hip-deep muck Miriam lets herself sink into.

[Katarina Kane]

He gripped his head in pain as the sheer weight of his truth came crashing against the rocks of his being. It was so much that it nearly crushed him. Until then, the memory of who and what he is had been long buried before the sand was washed away.

"My... truth..." he stammered, his eyes wide as he walked towards them. "My truth. My truth is that I never quite fit in. I was angry, rebellious, and sometimes downright beastly. I never knew why. I thought maybe I was just fighting through whatever trauma left me an orphan. I thought I was over all that when I became this and had start all over."

"The truth I had forgotten and denied is that the idol contained no spirit, only its stolen power. I am as much ridden as I am the rider. I am Leo Eskandari. I am the boy whose mother secretly named him Liam before being ripped from her arms. I am Urgamanu, forgotten child of Tiamat, king of the twelve, beast of ruin, devourer of gods." The last word came out in the voice of his altered state as Ryn had heard.

"But perhaps the truth you wanted was why I resist your efforts to be free. That truth is that I'm not resisting that. The Russians, the Label, PATHS... They can all suck it for treating you like a tool to their ends. I resist because I don't want this for me, for the world, or for you. Do you really want to be a prisoner of your own desires, doomed to the corruption of ultimate power?"

"The TRUTH is your truth, not what I want to hear, or the Agency wants to hear, or what anyone but yourself wants you to be. But you have a choice, Urgamanu. You can clash against the Old Gods, and show them your power -- or you can seek out the new gods; the businesses, the governments, the secret shadowey agencies. Find what Leo Eskandari does not like, and have Urgamanu make them 'suck it', as you so....elegantly put it."

A year ago, the feelings welling up inside Miriam and seeking to spill from her mouth would have broken her. And even now she starts to shake, words coming out choked. "I'm afraid I'll be alone! Is that what you want to hear? That sooner or later everyone will leave me and I'll be left with only this empty void inside of me that I can't fill. And if I e-ever show it they will run all the faster or be swallowed up. The truth is that I don't even know if there's any real person left beneath all the walls and barriers and the real me has long since run like sand between my fingers, bled out into everything else around me l-l-like my s-sister did..." she sobs and the gilded cage crumbles behind Katarina. In it's place thin and thorny roots spring from around Miriam and begin oozing a muddy bog into existence in which to lurk unseen beneath the hip-deep muck Miriam lets herself sink into.

"Alone? You'll never be alone again! Look around you," Katarina said, with a twirling gesture as the crowd continued to circle around her -- and, indeed, whether they realized that's what they were doing or not, the X-Team and Agents would realize the situation had sort of become everyone circling Katarina, with the siren in the center of attention. "Why, your loved ones are multiplying before your very eyes! If they truly thought you were worth leaving, would they have dragged you on this wild goose chase? Never. Fill your void by opening your heart and letting them inside. Grab on to your loved ones, and hold them close to you."

[Leo N. Eskandari]

"The TRUTH is your truth, not what I want to hear, or the Agency wants to hear, or what anyone but yourself wants you to be. But you have a choice, Urgamanu. You can clash against the Old Gods, and show them your power -- or you can seek out the new gods; the businesses, the governments, the secret shadowey agencies. Find what Leo Eskandari does not like, and have Urgamanu make them 'suck it', as you so....elegantly put it."

"I could bide my time, regaining more of my lost strength, and bring everyone who uses their power to bring the mortal world built on my first mother's corpse to ruin. It's what she would have wanted. But that rage isn't mine and with a new life comes a chance to choose a new purpose. I don't know yet what that purpose is."

"Maybe it's to bring all the monsters of the world to heel. I am the first, after all. Or maybe it's to protect this flawed world from those who would use their power to dominate the weak. Of course, you are one decision away from becoming such a person. I would much rather continue to be on your side, magic or no magic. You deserve freedom."

"But you aren't the only one whose freedom matters."

[Miriam Bell]

The two Wills are quite a ways away and rather... pre-occupied. But there are three Sams right there. Miriam reaches out with one hand and the thorny roots grow to snake around each of the Morrigan's legs. It takes her conscious effort to make the thorn recede, always just a moment of slipped attention away from pushing to the surface again, but she doesn't want to hurt Sam and so her focus is less on trying to resist Katarina and more on drawing the three Sams in without hurting them.

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"Katarina, you have to stop!" Ryn shouts, pushing herself up and looking at the Siren. "This is too much."

This is what I should be stopping. This is the kind of thing I should devour without second thought.

She stands still, hands clenching and unclenching into fists.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The two Wills are quite a ways away and rather... pre-occupied.

"Oh god, so many claws and fangs!"

[Katarina Kane]

"I could bide my time, regaining more of my lost strength, and bring everyone who uses their power to bring the mortal world built on my first mother's corpse to ruin. It's what she would have wanted. But that rage isn't mine and with a new life comes a chance to choose a new purpose. I don't know yet what that purpose is."

"Maybe it's to bring all the monsters of the world to heel. I am the first, after all. Or maybe it's to protect this flawed world from those who would use their power to dominate the weak. Of course, you are one decision away from becoming such a person. I would much rather continue to be on your side, magic or no magic. You deserve freedom."

"But you aren't the only one whose freedom matters."

"It sounds like you're being indecisive as always, Mr. Eskanderi. Part of having one's freedom means making your own choices. I will not let anyone make my choices ever again, But if you can't, I can GIVE you purpose. Tell me, Mr. Eskanderi. What is it you desire?"

Katarina, you have to stop!" Ryn shouts, pushing herself up and looking at the Siren. "This is too much."

This is what I should be stopping. This is the kind of thing I should devour without second thought.

She stands still, hands clenching and unclenching into fists.

"This is not enough!" Katarina countered. "Can't you see, Ryn? No one will ever hurt me again. No one will ever hurt us again. And if they come, with their agents, and their guns, and their hounds and their...their birds, I can keep us above them all! You said it -- you said it yourself. We have the power now! Let them come, you said, and we shall face them side by side!"

[Erynies Adrasteia]

That does give Ryn pause. There had always been a comfort in her certainty, as simplistic as it might have made her at times. But she feels uncertainty now. Doubt.

"I will always protect you. And if you can truly tell me, deep down, that this is what you want? That this is not the selfish pettiness of Gods leaking from the Orb? Then I will lay waste to them all."

Bold words from a shattered deva, outnumbered and blind. In her current state she'd most certainly perish if she tried.