Part One
"Remember the suffering of Christ, the storms that were weathered...the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith...all saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown."
-Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, venerated saint and martyr
-o0o-
It doesn't hurt. It's too quick and too brutal to feel like much of anything, but there is a moment of disorientation when Kai's vision seems to drop even though he knows he's standing up. And he is standing - over himself, a round object rolling away from him like a soccer ball; it takes a moment of staring down at his own body to comprehend it.
That's my head...I've lost my head!
It's a hysterically funny thought, really, albeit a short lived one. In the moment of comprehension, Kai plummets. He thinks he plummets. He's not sure. It's a rushed a moment. One second he's looking over himself, fallen fairy lights twinkling around him, the breaths of the girl he loves and hates in equal measure wheezing in the background - and the next second, he's plunged into brightness after a brief sensation of vertigo.
Vast, empty whiteness spans infinitely around him. Kai can only briefly take it in because the pain starts then, burning, ripping, maiming - he's losing another body part, he's sure of it. Only this time it's slow and cruel. But then the agony is over and he's staring at Luke, who's staring at him, expressions of surprise mirrored on each brother's face.
"Luke?"
"Kai?"
They speak as one. Luke's face morphs, understanding then anger then sadness, and the younger Parker reaches for his older brother.
He never makes it.
Hands, millions of tiny, grasping shadow hands grip the two in a sudden cacophony of angry hisses and mocking laughs. The brightness of the room garnishes a red hue. The hands pull the brothers apart, the fairer being yanked upwards while the darker is dragged down.
"Don't leave me," Kai pleads in a sudden rush of fear. The sympathy on Luke's face and the strained brush of their fingers against each other are the last thing Kai sees and feels before all light is traded for cloying, inky dark.
After that, it becomes hazy. Kai had thought he'd learned emotion after merging with Luke, but he was wrong; emotions are all he has now, the only things that keep him company. Humiliation, fear, relief, anger, regret, love, hope, despair - they crowd him when he begs and pleads for the pain to stop. His harassers come in many forms: his father, Jo, Luke and Liv, the taxi driver he killed, Liv's werewolf boyfriend, the magic eating bloodsuckers, Alaric, Damon, his mother.
And her.
The head games are worse than the physical afflictions. Kai much prefers being ripped apart than to being held by her when he's put back together - only to be left alone the moment he tries to embrace her back.
He's alone for a long time when he rages after one such moment, after he screams at her to leave him alone for good. But when he's granted his wish, he's unsure of how to feel. That's when the sound of voices comes to him.
Kai ignores them at first. Of course he does. It's another trick. But the narration is constant and brings with it information. Heretics. Lily Salvatore. Klaus Mickelson. Julian. The dissolution of the Original family. The subsequent magical uproar in New Orleans. The Armory. Rayna Cruz. Things about magic -old, chaotic magic - he's never learned of before. Huntress Curse. The Bennett prophecy. One voice brings with it a slithery sensation, speaks louder and more often than the others.
It persists until Kai starts to listen, to really take in and hear what's being said. He begins to think the voices are not a trick after all, and so when the offer is made, he takes it.
And when he wakes up in a swamp - naked and emaciated and covered in mud, head attached firmly to his shoulders, mosquitoes buzzing in his ear, teeth aching to tear into a jugular, mission firmly ringing in his mind - he's glad he did.
